Looking for a external HD

Im in the market for an external hard drive.

Im not familiar with the computer jargon so if you go to deep into details and specs Ill just get lost.
Unless you feel like explaing them to me.

The budget limit is 'bout $300, but if it doesnt have to come to that much, trust me Im not going to be upset.

I would like to start backing up my photos and a external HD seemed the way to go.

Not sure if my price will cover it but am I wrong that there are more rugged HD's than others? Meaning some can take some bumps here and there and still work fine?

Not sure if that ruggedness extends to waterproof or weather sealed or fire proof, again Im not sure so any help would be appreciated. IF there is a water proof or fire proof HD, go ahead and mention it to me please, I can always save for it. Ill just have to decide how far I want to go above my budget.

Thanks.

What platform do you use, Mac or PC? If Mac, you have RAID built-in, which is a redundant file system. You can configure it to make duplicates of your files and $300 will buy you a very nice system.

Seagate makes some designed for rough use.
http://www.cnet.com.au …39029473,240059​704,00.htm

Tony-S wrote in post #3472336
What platform do you use, Mac or PC? If Mac, you have RAID built-in, which is a redundant file system. You can configure it to make duplicates of your files and $300 will buy you a very nice system.

RAID is NOT backup.

yeah, you could definitely get a couple drives for that much money.

Right now, a 320gb drive is about $90 CAD, and an external drive bay is about $30 CAD. So yeah, you could get two. Also, my personal style is to get two smaller (e.g., 320gb) drives as opposed to one large drive (e.g., 500gb+). That way, it's less to lose when it dies, etc.

tommykjensen wrote in post #3472351
RAID is NOT backup.

agreed

Apparently, I've misunderstood RAID. I thought a mirrored RAID was one that makes one or more copies of a hard drive. Is this not the case?

Tony-S wrote in post #3472423
Apparently, I've misunderstood RAID. I thought a mirrored RAID was one that makes one or more copies of a hard drive. Is this not the case?

It does but it is not a backup. If the controller fails it can screw up both disks. I have had that happen once. Both disk died. A backup saved my data. A second time only a few weeks ago individual files were getting corrupted which means they get corrupted on both drives. Again a backup saved my photos.

It is a big mistake to rely on RAID mirror as a backup. You must take an additional backup. The mirror RAID is mostly for saving time if one drive fails.

Im using PC and if it doesnt have to be $300 I wont make it be. I was just setting the ultimate limit, because Im not aware of what they go for. Thank you though.

i would just buy whats on sale at compusa, they are pretty cheap now days like 300gig for $70. buy a few and an external case. put one in case, fill it up, remove it and replace with another drive. repeat. works for me

Was just wandering could you just buy an external harddrive and copy over all your files and keep copying everytime you have new ones or do you need backup software that will do this for you? And do you have to buy this software seperately or does it sometimes come with the Ext. HD?

Thanks
Mikhail

Yes you can copy manually. I do that.

Of course there is a risk of forgetting files.

There are free backup utilities available and some external harddisks also come with a backup solution. Some are good and some are terible.

Okay thanks Tommy I plan on getting on this up coming weekend so I will see if i can find one with backup software just because I can see myself forgetting to back up really important files... Any software recomendations?

Thanks
Mikhail

Sorry I don't have any recommendations of backup software. I am sure other members will have.

My favorite method (definitely not raid) is Sata and you can buy an internal hard drive with an external housing. Some computer motherboards will have a slot in the back panel to plug in raid now. Or some of the external housings will have USB ports. I had the misfortune of losing a hard drive (with a few thousand photo's of Japan) and to get it repaired will be nearly a thousand dollars. Now I use two hard drives in my computer and every time I take pictures from the camera they go onto both hard drives. This also saves me hardache as a few times I found myself doing post processing or resizing to save to the web then accidentaly saving over the original file. I alway have the "orginal" image straight from the camera on my other drive.