[Ham-Computers] RE: External Hard Drives?

[Hsu, Aaron (NBC Universal)]

Most any external HD would work in your situation.  For simplicity, I
would suggest a "portable" 2.5" drive rather than a 3.5" drive.  2.5"
drives are a bit more rugged than 3.5" drives as they were designed for
laptop use.  They're slower, but you'll be limited by the interface
anyway.  Most can also run just by drawing power from the USB port - as
long as the USB port can source the full 500ma USB spec.  I would stick
with a drive from an actual HD manufacturer (such as Western Digital or
Seagate).  Currently, all my external 2.5" drives are leftover drives
(from laptop ugrades) with a "generic" case, but if I bought an "all in
one" (drive & case) solution, I would go with the Western Digital
"Passport" drives.

Most all external drives these days have a "Hi-Speed" USB 2.0 port
(480Mbps/60MBps max).  Due to overhead, you'll lose 10-20% of this
bandwidth.  Most 2.5" HD's I've seen max out around 35MBps, so it'll
take about 5 minutes to copy those 10 gigs (plus overhead)...actual
results may vary.

Might I suggest archiving to DVD's instead?  That way, you have a true
"archive" that can be updated (older backups contain original material,
newer backups contain "updated" material).  Plus, you have more than one
backup - should the external HD fail, you've lost your only backup.  As
CD/DVD recordable media isn't 100% infailable either, check them a
couple times a year to make sure everything is still readable.  There
are free utilities that will do simple read tests Some companies (such
as Plextor) include diagnostic software to check dics almost at the bit
level - the more bits in the "red", the more likely uncorrectable errors
will eventually show up (time to move the data to a new disc).  At 4.3GB
per disc, you can categorize the shows per disc and probably end up with
about 5 or 6 discs for the entire collection.

73,

  - Aaron, NN6O


-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 11:21 AM
Subject: [Ham-Computers] External Hard Drives?


Hi All,

I have a collection of OTR (Old Time Radio) shows in MP3 Format  that
takes up over 6GB of drive space, and before it's completed will
probably be about 15-20GB.  These are stored on my Main 80GB Hard drive
AND on the 80GB back-up drive.  However, IF I should ever get a worm or
virus it could wipe out everything on both drives and all those hours of
downloads would  be lost.  Since it's so large I don't really consider
using CDR's as a viable backup medium and want to buy an "outboard" hard
drive that would ONLY be used as a "archive and backup" medium.  It
would ONLY connected to the computer when I want to transfer data.

Is there anything 'special" I need to look for in an external drive?  I
figure it'll use a USB interface.  Any feeling for how long can I expect
it to take to copy, say 10GB from the main drive to the backup drive via
USB? I suspect it'll be pretty slow and take a lot longer than from the
main drive to the internal backup drive.

73 de Phil,  KO6BB
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