External hard drives
- Thread starter mautal
- Start date
I have a tower which has 4GB (if I'm looking at the right measure) and have lost things in the past when the hard drive failed and even when two hard drives were installed, doh - all beyond me. So, the advice seems to be to copy the whole darn lot onto and external hard drive.
There is a 500GB one at £35 in a local shop "HP Portable Hard Drive HP2050 series" with USB3 capability
Also, a 500GB "WD My Passort" with UB3 ption at £55, model WDBACY5000ABKEESN
This is my start point - my tower is one I've recently bought from PCS so can post the spec I think, but mainly it's just office surfing and TV (no gaming requirement).
Please say if you need further info.
Many thanks.
The trouble is that none of it means anything to me
There is a 500GB one at £35 in a local shop "HP Portable Hard Drive HP2050 series" with USB3 capability
Also, a 500GB "WD My Passort" with UB3 ption at £55, model WDBACY5000ABKEESN
This is my start point - my tower is one I've recently bought from PCS so can post the spec I think, but mainly it's just office surfing and TV (no gaming requirement).
Please say if you need further info.
Many thanks.
The trouble is that none of it means anything to me
If the external hard drive is just being used for regular backup purposes, then the speed and reliability aren't actually that important. Speed isn't important because you won't be running software directly from the external drive. And surprisingly reliability isn't that important because with regular backups you only have an issue if both the primary drive and backup drive independently develop faults at the same time - which is extremely unlikely. So a fairly cheap external drive should do the trick. Note that if you aren't backing up regularly then reliability becomes rather more important.
However there are some issues to bear in mind when doing backups, in particular that hard drive failure is just one way of losing files. File corruption/viruses, theft and fire are the other main ways.
When losing data to theft or fire, the physical location of the main and backup storage is the key issue. So if the external drive is kept on top of/near the computer then it's very likely that you will lost both main and backup storage at the same time. To get around this issue you would need to keep the main and backup storage physically separate.
File corruption/viruses are a different matter. Here the danger is backing up the damaged file, meaning neither version will work. To get around this you would need more than one backup, so for example keep a daily backup, a weekly backup and a monthly backup. That way if the file gets damaged then you should be able to retrieve one of the older versions.
You could consider looking into cloud storage. One of the main benefits is that the backup is then kept physically separate from the main storage (and I would expect the cloud storage provider to also have their own failure recovery systems). The main downsides are potential security issues (don't know how important this is for you) and the risk of the provider going out of business (so maybe use a couple of providers to mitigate this risk). It's fairly easy to find free cloud storage these days.
However there are some issues to bear in mind when doing backups, in particular that hard drive failure is just one way of losing files. File corruption/viruses, theft and fire are the other main ways.
When losing data to theft or fire, the physical location of the main and backup storage is the key issue. So if the external drive is kept on top of/near the computer then it's very likely that you will lost both main and backup storage at the same time. To get around this issue you would need to keep the main and backup storage physically separate.
File corruption/viruses are a different matter. Here the danger is backing up the damaged file, meaning neither version will work. To get around this you would need more than one backup, so for example keep a daily backup, a weekly backup and a monthly backup. That way if the file gets damaged then you should be able to retrieve one of the older versions.
You could consider looking into cloud storage. One of the main benefits is that the backup is then kept physically separate from the main storage (and I would expect the cloud storage provider to also have their own failure recovery systems). The main downsides are potential security issues (don't know how important this is for you) and the risk of the provider going out of business (so maybe use a couple of providers to mitigate this risk). It's fairly easy to find free cloud storage these days.
In theory, the capacity of the external USB backup drive(s) needs to be the same as those in the computer. However, in practice, it depends on how full the computer drives are and how much of the data you consider worth backing up (would it be a real loss if you lost it).
There programs, free and paid for, which will back up the drives automatically once you have set which sets of data are to be backed up. There are two methods of backing up. One is as a disc image which will copy the whole drive. Should the computer drive fail then the disc image can be installed onto a new drive and you continue from where you left off before the disc failure. It is also useful if the OS and programs have their own partition. Should anything go go wrong (such as malware) a previous good disc image can be used. Another method is file backup where the drives and folders to be used for the backup are first defined. Usually both methods are used depending on requirements.
There programs, free and paid for, which will back up the drives automatically once you have set which sets of data are to be backed up. There are two methods of backing up. One is as a disc image which will copy the whole drive. Should the computer drive fail then the disc image can be installed onto a new drive and you continue from where you left off before the disc failure. It is also useful if the OS and programs have their own partition. Should anything go go wrong (such as malware) a previous good disc image can be used. Another method is file backup where the drives and folders to be used for the backup are first defined. Usually both methods are used depending on requirements.
Thank you both Karnor00 and dogbot for the informative responses, which I'm digesting at my snail pace.
I think that the penny has dropped about the disparity that if my tower is 4GB, I'd need say 500GB to make 125 back-ups (if all 4GB used). Hopefully that's right.
Q1: If I back up on CD(s), do I need special capacity ones? (Buying good quality one(s) is taken as read.)
Q2: Should I even try to back up propriety software, e.g. Windows 7 as I thought that was copy-prevented? This build came with a Windows 7 disc, amongst others, but dunno if it holds the full O/S application if, say, a new install on a reformatted-to-blank (or new blank) hard drive were to be required.
Hope the above makes sense.
Thank you all.
I think that the penny has dropped about the disparity that if my tower is 4GB, I'd need say 500GB to make 125 back-ups (if all 4GB used). Hopefully that's right.
Q1: If I back up on CD(s), do I need special capacity ones? (Buying good quality one(s) is taken as read.)
Q2: Should I even try to back up propriety software, e.g. Windows 7 as I thought that was copy-prevented? This build came with a Windows 7 disc, amongst others, but dunno if it holds the full O/S application if, say, a new install on a reformatted-to-blank (or new blank) hard drive were to be required.
Hope the above makes sense.
Thank you all.
No, 4GB is the amount of RAM you have - presuming you went for the spec on page 4 of your original thread here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?25444-Improvements-alternatives-on-this-please
The hard drive space you have (ie. what you would be wanting to backup) if you went for that spec is 500GB, which is obviously a lot more than 4
See my point above - so for 125 backups of 500GB, that would actually be a shed load of space (62.5TB to be exact), however generally people wouldn't keep nearly that many backups, also you would really only want to back-up data, most backups are just of data (which probably wouldn't really be close to 500GB anyway), and if the drives go then the software is reinstalled and the data is then copied onto the new drive.
The Windows disk from PCS is a proper Windows installation disk.
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Hi and thanks Rakk. Yes, it was finally pretty much that build spec so what you've said applies
Think I'm getting there now. It seems 500GB external hard drive would be enough. I notice this Samsung 1TB external hard drive is recommended recently in a thread on here, also at £55: http://www.ebuyer.com/396739-samsung-1tb-m3-portable-hard-drive-black-hx-m101tcb-g I guess reliability rather than price is the key thing (though likely to be linked). Anyone have any comments, or perhaps I should Google for reviews?
Ta
Think I'm getting there now. It seems 500GB external hard drive would be enough. I notice this Samsung 1TB external hard drive is recommended recently in a thread on here, also at £55: http://www.ebuyer.com/396739-samsung-1tb-m3-portable-hard-drive-black-hx-m101tcb-g I guess reliability rather than price is the key thing (though likely to be linked). Anyone have any comments, or perhaps I should Google for reviews?
Ta
Thanks tom_gr7. I didn't know the software could be an issue.
I've been following your other thread on auto backup software: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?26804-Auto-backup-Software I hope you don't mind me linking it here so I don't lose it
I've been following your other thread on auto backup software: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?26804-Auto-backup-Software I hope you don't mind me linking it here so I don't lose it
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Thanks tom_gr7. I didn't know the software could be an issue.
I've been following your other thread on auto backup software: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?26804-Auto-backup-Software I hope you don't mind me linking it here so I don't lose it
I wouldn't worry to much about the software supplied with external hard disks. More than likely you'll end up using something else to do your backps with anyway. My advice would be to select the external hard disk that gives you the best capacity/price deal and go for that. These days 1TB is probably the smallest drive you want to be looking at, I would certainly go no smaller than 500GB.
When you come to deciding what software to use to back your system up come back (probably in a new thread) because there are two main techniques (image backup and file-by-file backup) depending on how you want to backup. There are also free versions of both types of software so you won't need to spend any more money.