Safe Speed Forums

I'm going to put another hard drive into the PC for backups (can't be too careful after what happened last time)!

I'd prefer an internal one rather than a USB one, then I know where it is all the time!

Any recommendations? I was thinking between 250 and 500 Gig, SATA II and 7200RPM. Antying else to look out for? Any brands to steer clear of?

I have used various HDDs over the years and can't say I have noticed much difference between them - all are very reliable - but for some reason I lean towards Western Digital. Others, no doubt, will have their own opinion.
But you can get a 1TBytes for under £50 - http://www.ebuyer.com/search?page=1&store=33&cat=392&filtersubcat=3382,3265 - son don't cramp your self with a too small disk.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

That's interesting Mole, I actually got a USB one by choice so that I can keep it separate in case of virus attack or, god forbid, a burglar. I then make a back up every month or so, depending on my activity. Personal preference I suppose

That is good value dcb

[quote="Big Tone"That's interesting Mole, I actually got a USB one by choice so that I can keep it separate in case of virus attack or, god forbid, a burglar. I then make a back up every month or so, depending on my activity. Personal preference I suppose [/quote]

I prefer an internal drive backing up to a usb drive which I then put in the safe with the wife's diamond tiara and the deeds for the Cayman Island properties. Actually I store my more important data on the cloud (Dropbox) which also has he advantage of making it available in all three places I work. And the disadvantage of costing $10 a month

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

I had two problems on two PCs, both with Maxtor drives, but think I was just unlucky.
Maxtor were quick at replacing the drives - one of which was just outside their extended warranty period, and I WAS able to retrieve the data myself.

I now have a Western Digital 640 gb USB drive to which I back up essential data - the advantage being that I can remove it to a place of safety and security, as well as being able to back up other PCs without having to open them up and swap.

Mine came from COMET, and cost £39.95 three or four years ago.

Three years ago after a lightning strike on our electricity supply at work, we had to have our accounts data forensically recovered from a disc, and the cost was £550 + VAT without a new drive, so think of the cost as a worthwhile investment.
Luckily mine was covered on our business insurance.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I think you spoil your wife dcb. And it sounds like I'm in the wrong job Ernest.

Whatever happened to drive bays? We used to have several at work, (called names like Dave, Eric etc.) , which simply just clipped in and out.

Probably old technology. My small-form desktop doesn't have room for anything like it..

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

Tone, you can swap anytime you want!
Mind you I don't want to be moving from Cumbria - can you work from home?

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Thanks all.

You've got me thinking about external ones too. Maybe I'll have a go at both. I can see the advantage in the case of a burglary.

Yes, have you got a spare room?

Let us know what you end up with won't ya Mole.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.

I got a 1TB Western Digital USB external drive (WD MyBook) about a month ago for £40 ish. A good place to look for deals on this kind of stuff (and loads of other stuff) is http://www.hotukdeals.com. Thats where I found the deal for the one I got, it came with a continental 2 pin plug but at the price I thought it good value.

I've only ever had one faulty drive it was from IBM, dead on arrival and replaced instantly.

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You only need two tools - WD40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape. :0)

Or you could use UbuntuOne 2gb free cloud space

https://one.ubuntu.com/

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The Box said "Windows XP or better" ... So I installed Ubuntu

Anyone tried one of these SSD hard drives yet ?
http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/cat ... ives---SSD

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nigel_bytes

Using an SSD as a backup drive isn't a financially clever move.

Avoid early SSDs; many used absolutely awful JMicron controllers.

Generally, SSDs are pretty good - until they 'fill up'.
Just like magnetic drives, they don't removed 'deleted' data.
Unlike magnetic drives, small file changes are not a trivial affair. For magnetics: the old data is simply physically overwritten; this convenient short-cut does not apply to SSDs. Instead, entire 'blocks' must be read, erased and rewritten (even if changing literally just 1 bit of data) - this results with the much despised 'slow down' as the SSD becomes used.
Win7 supports commands like "Trim" that ensure deleted data is handled effectively. Earlier versions of Windows do not support Trim and need a little TLC to keep their SSDs in good condition.

The recent (and more expensive) SSDs are so damned fast you tend not to notice the slow down anyway.


I've had a few SSDs myself.

I currently use an OCZ Vertex V1.1 in my main PC for the OS partition. It does what I want it to do and is pretty responsive and has remained so even though my current XP installation is about 18 months old (I do look after my OS). It is more responsive than a fresh Win7 installation on an i7 and a magnetic drive.
I now use my old OCZ Core as a scratch drive for video editing. This suffered from 'stutter' problems when I used it as my boot drive (my PC used to simply stop when doing many tasks).


Do not ever defrag an SSD (not without specially designed defraggers anyway).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Went for a Western Digital 500Gig "caviar blue" WD5000AAKX internal 3.5 SATA III in the end.

126MB/sec, 7200 rpm, 16 MB buffer (whatever all that means)!

£48 with a free SATA cable (or about £10 dearer than Micro Direct are selling them, but we're trying to support local business at present)!

Am I the only person who sees the word buffer, and immediately thinks of one of these?


What is more, the label on the drive usually says "Do not subject to shock"!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

lurvly pair of buffers on that!

I always think of electronics first, because of my past use of the stuff.

Every time my wife nagged me I'd stick a 2N3055 in each ear.

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The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of Safe Speed.
You will be branded a threat to society by going over a speed limit where it is safe to do so, and suffer the consequences of your actions in a way criminals do not, more so than someone who is a real threat to our society.