external hard drives

Pacu · **on:** July 23, 2009, 11:04:43 PM

External hard drives- a few questions

1. What do you use and would you recommend it?
2. Are they fairly durable--for traveling i mean? Would an airport xray kill it?
3. Any cool programs for using it to its means?

Thanks...i'm in the market for portable storage.

cliosguy · **Reply #1 on:** July 23, 2009, 11:09:27 PM

i have a WD passport of 320GB, portable, durable(in my expirience at least) i like carrying all my stuff with me and flash drives arent enough

as for traveling, i have some "things" that may get me in trouble if i dare to set foot in an airport

but i think the x-ray machines dont affect them

nuphoria · **Reply #2 on:** July 23, 2009, 11:37:01 PM

You can buy various "tough" drives but I have a regular lower costing 2.5" 250GB thing which has been great so far. I got mine from evilbay as the prices were really competitive.

As for apps, there's a load of things you might find useful to have installed like Firefox personalised to your needs etc. I would carry a backup of my address book, favourites and such so I could get at them if needed too.

Whoey · **Reply #3 on:** July 23, 2009, 11:43:55 PM

http://portableapps.com/

as for drives... depends on your needs I guess...I'd look at one of those 2.5 drives that can run off usb only rather than the larger ones that require you to plug them into the mains as well. (I have a few enclosures for old IDE drives like this)

I primarily use USB sticks these days, lots of space for little money, and a nice portable package to boot.

Abstraction · **Reply #4 on:** July 23, 2009, 11:48:59 PM

Quote from: cliosguy on July 23, 2009, 11:09:27 PM

i have a WD passport of 320GB, portable, durable(in my expirience at least) i like carrying all my stuff with me, and flash drives arent enough

as for traveling, i have some "things" that may get me in trouble if i dare to set foot in an airport but i think the x-ray machines dont affect them

Aside from the "things," which i wouldn't take through an airport to be honest, (who keeps their multitools storted on a portable drive - they could fall off and get scratched

) I've got the same setup, the WD passports are good enough for my needs and mine's lasted plenty of travelling so far (as well as being run over by a bike). The plastic case feels a bit cheap but it's solid enough.

cliosguy · **Reply #5 on:** July 23, 2009, 11:52:31 PM

Quote from: Abstraction on July 23, 2009, 11:48:59 PM

Quote from: cliosguy on July 23, 2009, 11:09:27 PM
i have a WD passport of 320GB, portable, durable(in my expirience at least) i like carrying all my stuff with me, and flash drives arent enough

as for traveling, i have some "things" that may get me in trouble if i dare to set foot in an airport but i think the x-ray machines dont affect them

Aside from the "things," which i wouldn't take through an airport to be honest, (who keeps their multitools storted on a portable drive - they could fall off and get scratched ) I've got the same setup, the WD passports are good enough for my needs and mine's lasted plenty of travelling so far (as well as being run over by a bike). The plastic case feels a bit cheap but it's solid enough.

i was talking about the non-hardware stuff i have in my HD

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #6 on:** July 24, 2009, 12:06:05 AM

I have four external drives, two of which started life as internal drives but were eventually converted with enclosures. I have a couple more hard drives that will eventually be stuck in enclosures as well. I also have a 250g and a 1tb drive, and all four are hooked up to my main computer. They have all seemed pretty stable so far and a few of them have been on long trips with me.

Def

Sazabi · **Reply #7 on:** July 24, 2009, 12:16:09 AM

I have two 110 GB externals, and used to have a 500 GB external that I gave to my father, as keeping up with three were simply too much. My hopes are to get either a WD Passport or a HP Personal - or is it Pocket? - Media Drive for my desktop. That way I can transfer the contents of the two 110 GB drive onto the single, /much/ smaller external, and likewise give the two now-unneeded externals to my father. I remember going on some vacations with all three external hard drives and a 17-or-18!-inch-sized-but-actually-15.5-inch-laptop; I never did that after a couple times, for good reason. @_@

Pacu · **Reply #8 on:** July 24, 2009, 12:16:29 AM

I built an external drive out of my old 80 gig i took out of an old pc. It sounds like i put sand and poker chips in it. It's about as useless as chicken poop on a pump handle.

good thing porn is replaceable

Just Kidding!

no really

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #9 on:** July 24, 2009, 12:19:33 AM

That's my biggest worry about my drives- 1tb is an awful lot of stuff to lose when it poos the bed.

And, some if it isn't porn and would be very difficult to replace!

Def

Pacu · **Reply #10 on:** July 24, 2009, 12:20:54 AM

seems like 1tb would take an awful long time to defrag.

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #11 on:** July 24, 2009, 12:25:08 AM

Yeah, fortunately I only use it for storing video. I drop stuff on it, and rarely take anything off it, so files don't get terribly fragmented on it. Unlike the drive I download stuff to, which is constantly in horrid shape.

Def

PyroJames · **Reply #12 on:** July 31, 2009, 07:15:58 PM

I'm using a 500gb Seagate Desktop Freeagent that I bought a few months ago. Love it and would definitely recommend it. I use it mainly for backing up software, photos, music and work files for both my computers. For truly important work files, I also have an 4gb flashkey that I keep safe.

sardauker · **Reply #13 on:** July 31, 2009, 07:38:18 PM

Iomega 160Gb. six months old, rarely used.

After loading it with nearly 100Gb of movies and TV series, when I plugged it at my friend's home, it gave me "bad CRC" errors, and no valid files could be copied

No more formatting, no more scandisk.

Now I'm Trying to have my money back, if not my files.

WhichDawg · **Reply #14 on:** July 31, 2009, 08:19:24 PM

I'm with Whoey, the sticks are really getting cheap now and big! (as in memory size) way smaller to transport and sturdier.

with big ole drives I partition them and only have to defrag parts (what I use) and not the whole thing.

Sea Monster · **Reply #15 on:** August 23, 2009, 08:10:35 AM

I have WD passports (somewhere in the realm of 120gb I think?) which kick around my car with no issues for small storage & portable libraries for my laptop, & I use WD "My Books" for mass storage & major backups (1tb each, and they have firewire which beats the poop out of USB when moving stacks of data)

I'm not necessarily attached to WD as a brand, but they're fairly cheap, available everywhere & I've never had a problem with them. I've used Seagate as well, and they seem fine.

For small stuff I stick to Sticks.
Don't get carried away with the "Waterproof Shockproof" ones for triple the price. The cheapo ones can be put through a washing machine or taken swimming and still work fine.

The sheer quantity of data a single man can own these days is staggering.

Back in the day, I couldn't imagine having 10gb, let alone 1000!

PyroJames · **Reply #16 on:** August 23, 2009, 03:19:21 PM

Quote from: Nomad on August 23, 2009, 08:10:35 AM

The sheer quantity of data a single man can own these days is staggering.

Back in the day, I couldn't imagine having 10gb, let alone 1000!

Growing up, the first computer my family ever had was a C64. (I still have it.

) Many years later, my very first computer that I owned myself had a 460mb harddrive but I'm sure a lot of guys on here had even older computers with 2048kb harddrives.

I still remember the specs for my first computer:
486/66
460 mb Harddrive
4mb RAM, 2 SIMM slots (expandable to 20mb)
no CD-ROM
3.5 floppy diskette

Back then, I always thought "460mb harddrive? WOW! I'll never be able to fill it up." The micro SD card in my phone is now bigger than that. lol

Chako · **Reply #17 on:** August 24, 2009, 04:07:44 PM

My first HD, and that is when I had a computer with a hard drive, was an 40MB Maxtor that I had for my Amiga 500 that was in a sidecar (You could consider it an external HD). But that was a recent computer development.

At the risk of boring you all, here is the long list of desktop computers that I have had in the Past.

1. Pong machine 1978. http://www.pong-story.com/
2. Atari 800 1979. http://oldcomputers.net/atari800.html
3. Timex Sinclair 1000 1982. http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html
4. Atari 130XE 1985. http://www.computercloset.org/Atari130XE.htm
5. Commodore 64 1986. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64
6. Commodore 128 1988. http://www.commodore.ca/products/128/Commodore_128.htm
7. Commodore Amiga 500 1989. http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/amiga500/
8. Commodore Amiga 2000 1991. http://www.oldcomputers.net/amiga2000.html
9. Commodore Amiga CD32 1994. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32
11. First PC was a Pentium 100 1996.
12. Got smart and started to build my own systems in 1998 much like my Amiga days. I consequently, upgrade my system every 1 to 2 years since.

PyroJames · **Reply #18 on:** August 24, 2009, 04:26:00 PM

I think my brother and sister had a Colecovision before I was born. In the 80's, my first "videogame system" was a Vectrex that my dad bought for me and my brother. I still have it and all the games.

Buzzbait · **Reply #19 on:** August 24, 2009, 04:45:53 PM

Ah, the good old days. I started out on an Apple2E and a Ti 99, back in school. My first computer was a Radio Shack Tandy 1000. It had a whopping 384K of memory, an 8086 CPU, and dual disk drives. The 10 meg Western Digital hard drive was a later upgrade. I remember laughing at how huge that first hard drive was, and how I'd never be able to fill up in a million years.

Grant Lamontagne · **Reply #20 on:** August 24, 2009, 05:53:53 PM

What about Bill Gates' old quote about how 640k should be enough for anyone?

Def

Whoey · **Reply #21 on:** August 24, 2009, 05:59:47 PM

I found some old receipts for parts and stuff from when I lived in Toronto... $18 for 1 blank 650mb CDR

some other funny stuff too... should dig them out again...

PyroJames · **Reply #22 on:** August 24, 2009, 06:19:22 PM

Quote from: Whoey on August 24, 2009, 05:59:47 PM

I found some old receipts for parts and stuff from when I lived in Toronto... $18 for 1 blank 650mb CDR

Yup, I remember paying prices like that. I also remember when 4mb of SIMM was close to $100.

When I was in school, this was the computer that my classroom used:

We used that all through grade school and in junior high, started using Amigas.

Whoey · **Reply #23 on:** August 24, 2009, 06:37:39 PM

I don't remember ever using any PETs in school... only C64s and Apple IIe

ringzero · **Reply #24 on:** August 31, 2009, 02:28:55 AM

Quote from: Grant Lamontagne on July 24, 2009, 12:19:33 AM

That's my biggest worry about my drives- 1tb is an awful lot of stuff to lose when it poos the bed.

And, some if it isn't porn and would be very difficult to replace!

Def

Def, have you considered setting up a basic RAID array of hard drives? Nowdays it's quite easy to do and not expensive.

You can get motherboards with onboard RAID or else buy a RAID card to plug in to your motherboard. Once you have the RAID controller all you need to do is add two hard drives.

RAID can be set to automatically duplicate all data, so that the failure of a drive will never result in data loss.

.

Whoey · **Reply #25 on:** August 31, 2009, 11:18:15 AM

I've been leaning towards something like this: http://www.drobo.com/ but they're still pricey imho

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