Simviation Forums

Hello Folks!

I have an old hard Drive lying around, and i need an external one to back up all my important information. I was thinking of using an external USB housing to convert my pointless hard drive to an external one. Ive been looking at the following:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/3-5-USB-2-0-HARD- ... dZViewItem

A few questions.

Do you think this solution will be reliable, is this solution SAFE, all that power connecting to a hard drive, i just want to make sure its safe, and nothing will catch fire LOL!.. And most important, will it operate SAME as the normal external HD's?

Now for the Backup software.

I'm willing to buy a Reliable, automatic software which will automatically back up files i request, such as emails etc.. Everything.

Whats on the market today, and what REALLY does work.

ALot of stuff in there, but please make your reccomendations.

James 8-)

In theory that thing could work, I was looking at IDE and SATA to USB earlier today so I could run my 160gb IDE hard drive. You could either buy something like I was thinking about and using the old HDD as an external, or buy a new one and transfer the data out with that thing. It will operate like an added device, say when you add a digital camera Via USB or External hard drive etc.... So yes it should work and be safe, I doubt it would catch on fire. as for the data backing up, I never back up emails and junk like that, I just manually transfer everything I need out onto another hard drive, format the not used one and toss it aside for a later date of use if needed!

Cheers, Gunny

I've got that exact caddy with a 160Gb WD sitting in there.

Pros: Cheap, and it works. USB 2.0. Very portable.

Cons: Can't be left on permanently as it will get too hot. The screws to hold the front and back plates screw into plastic and round out very easily.

Overall you get what you pay for. Mine's sitting here as a second backup HDD, with elastic bands to keep it together. Tacky, but it works. So it suits me fine 8-)

Jon 8-)

Hello Folks!

I have an old hard Drive lying around, and i need an external one to back up all my important information.

Buy a new drive if you want a reliable drive IMHO. They aren't that expensive and you get the benefit of a new, large and fast drive.

Adding an external drive never made any sense to me unless the drive needs to be swapped between PC's on a regular basis. External drives are another unwanted peripheral adapted to an interface they were not designed for, and therefore may introduce additional maintenance issues.

I always thought there was a significant performance hit with external USB drives

I have been using external drives (USB and E-Sata) for years and have never had a problem with them. I like the fact that you can turn them off instead of having them in your case adding heat.

Yes, USB drives do take a performance hit but you are not using them as your boot disk. Unless you are doing a complete backup daily the hit is not a big deal.

For backups I use Norton Ghost

My parents use Clunk-Click to back up all of their business documents and such, only problem, you sort of need broadband. If you do then I would defiantly suggest it.  ;)

THANKS for all your help.

Ive purchased an COOLERMASTER quality external drive, which should last me, and provide me with ideal backup.

ALL IM looking for now is EXCELLENT, AUTOMATIC, BACKUP software.

Cheers all,

James

"All by myself.. Dont wanna be...."  

You might want to look at the XP backup function. I am on the wrong computer and cannot check the help file. I think it will do full and incremental backups for you and the price is right.

I also use Microsoft Backup. It only comes with WindowsXP Pro as I recall and not included with XP home. If you use Home Edition you may be able to get Microsoft Backup from a website somewhere but I think ASR (Automatic System Recovery) will not function in XP Home because the CD boot loaded does not support it.

It will work for all other backup features and does automatic backups in either full or incremental formats. You can set it for as many auto backups as you wish by changing the time properties of the scheduled job.

The only problem with MS Backup is you MUST use MS Backup to recover the files as it compresses them to its own read format.