Desktop vs Portable Hard drive

[kevh]

Hi :)

 

Just lookin at gettin a external hard drive for file backup (mainly pics) , just wonderin if any one had any general advice between the 2 doesnt need to be portable and realise desktop needs to be plugged in mains (would be nice not to have another cable but not a big deal i spose :rolleyes:) but are there any diffs in speed and reliabilty etc

 

looking at WD 500gb essential desktop drive.

 

Cheers Kev :cool:

[Dalo Harkin]

What size drive you looking at?

 

If I were you I would consider looking at dual layer media or even blue ray backup rather than an internal/external HDD.

HDDs fail where as media has a much longer 'shelf life' :D

 

You must have zillions of pics to need an extra HDD

[kevh]

Hi Dalo

 

Have three young kids its continual "click click click!! "

 

only have 160gb internal but soon to add when i get chance 500gb internal i bought last week :)

 

and was going to get this to back that up after but thought might be a good idea to backup before fiddlin around in the case.

 

also space for backing up parents photos etc (as they never listen to the advice:rolleyes:)

 

i'm assuming desktop ones are more reliable with mains supply

 

Thanks

 

Kev :cool:

[Dalo Harkin]

Hmmmmmmmm, speaking of ticking my brain was then :)

 

If I were you I would, plug the 500GB in, partition it into whatever you would like, I personally would do 2x250GB, then use the settings and transfer to move your OS and programs onto one of those partitions, then move the files you want to keep seperate onto the other side of the 250GB, then wipe the 160GB and then again install all of your data you dont want to lose onto that.

 

This way you have 2 SEPERATE HDDs incase one fails, you have 2 seperate partitions on the main disk incase you need to reinstall the OS for any reason.

If one of the HDDs were to fail you have 2 lots of 'files you would not lose'

 

thats what I would do if I didnt have servers and everything was always backed up and duplicated over multiple HDDs :D