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DPChallenge Forums >> Hardware and Software >> External Storage Vs. Internal
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 08/06/2006 10:40:26 PM · #1
I'm to the point now where I will cry like a baby if I lose all the photos I have on my computer and looking for a way to store them all safely. Right now I have two computers, a laptop with a 40gig drive and a desktop with a 200gig drive. All the pics are on my laptop drive, and backed up on DVDs. I have about 20 gigs of pics right now. What would be the best way to back my pics up? Get an external hard drive to share between the two computers, or get another internal hard drive to go along with my current hard drive in my desktop. If I get an internal hard drive, I could get one of those USB cases for it so that it would hook up to my laptop as well.

Also, what are some good brands? I currently have an IBM hard drive in my laptop. It's 3 1/2 years old, and just started making chirping sounds, so I assume it's not going to last much longer.

Basically, I'm a hard drive moron and don't know what the different types like SATA and serial mean.

Message edited by author 2006-08-06 22:44:55.
 08/06/2006 10:58:28 PM · #2
I use two external drives, one is a Lacie 250gb one is a Seagate 200gb. Neither one has given me any probelms but I think I would feel better if I custom built myself a tower with two or three harddrives in it and a couple fans to keep them cool. I don't really know much about harddrives myself but I bought the Lacie on a whim and bought the Seagate after reading quite a few reviews which seemed to agree that Seagate was fairly reliable.
 08/07/2006 07:24:09 AM · #3
i have 2 copies of the DVD's i make - 1 is stored in the office in a metal CD case - the other is stored off location

i also have a 250GB HDD that i have the jobs i'm working on this is a USB / Firewire external device so i can carry it anywhere i'm working to backup stuff onto..
 08/07/2006 08:07:02 AM · #4
I use 2 internal drives that run the whole computer and contain my pictures. I use to external drives with Norton Ghost and create 2 seperate independent images of each drive. Norton does this every evening at 2:00am.

I do this as if my system or hard drive crashes for what ever reason I have an exact image of each drive to replace on a new drive or the same drive. It sucks when you have customized software and important files or pictures for years and end up losing everything.

So far I have lost one hard drive and all I had to do was install the new hard drive and copy the image to that hard drive and it feels like nothing has changed everything is there just the way it was.

2 Externals just in case one external does decide it wants to fail. My next purchases will be NAS Network Address Storage so I can back multiple systesm over the Network.
 08/07/2006 08:48:03 AM · #5
Originally posted by hdogg4u:
I use 2 internal drives that run the whole computer and contain my pictures. I use to external drives with Norton Ghost and create 2 seperate independent images of each drive. Norton does this every evening at 2:00am.


That sounds like a really good idea. Can one external hard drive that is 300gigs be used to backup daily two internal hard drives that are 100gigs and 200gigs?
 08/07/2006 08:51:53 AM · #6
Discs (DVD and CD) are not very reliable for long term storage. I just got a computer built for me (it pays to have a geek husband!) and we went for a RAID5 system. We bough 4 500GB harddrives and set them up so I have 1.5TB of actual usable space. What RAID does is it takes the information and devides it among the 3+ discs so if one disc fails the other ones can still produce all the information, nothing is lost. If you are in the market for a new computer, this may be a something to look into. With 1.5TB (1500 GB) of space, I don't think I'll be worrying about running out of space for while!

June
 08/07/2006 12:17:04 PM · #7
Yes you can use one external to back 2 individual internal drives.

08/07/2006 12:29:34 PM · #8
i think the secret really is to learn how to delete pictures. My goal lately is to only keep 10% of what i shoot.
08/08/2006 02:52:39 AM · #9
I'd definitely get an external hard drive for that much data. Seagate makes good, reliable drives in my opinion. They're a bit more expensive... If cost is a major issue, Maxtor makes cheap big drives that aren't quite as reliable. External drives are far more simple to set up than setting up a RAID system, though the advantage of RAID is that you don't have to think about backing up your drive, it's already backed up for you! The problems with home user RAID is that if the controller fails you may be out of luck because you generally have to use the exact same RAID controller as the one that failed to recover your data. Controller failures are relatively rare, but in the home market I probably wouldn't use one for vital data that I wasn't backing up regularly by some other method as well.
 08/08/2006 03:03:39 AM · #10
Skip the DVD's and adding hard drives to your desktop machine and buy or build yourself a NAS box.
 08/08/2006 03:21:24 AM · #11
The benefit of using an external hard drive is portability. I know this is obvious but it is a definate benefit. I use several attached by USB to my laptop. It really doesn't make a difference (except for a bit slower when via USB to access data, but not very much different), if you go for an internal or external. It all has to do with how YOU use your computer, and how YOU wish to be able to move your data with you.

I have a desktop as well with two huge Sata drives. I will store things that don't need to move on those, and things that I back up, I put on an external drive, and just plug it in when needing to update or unplug it when not in use. On another external drive, I keep programs that I may need to transport between one computer or another. Or movies and music that I may wish to travel with me.

As far as brands, I personally buy nothing but Seagate drives, 7200 rpms.

I go to CompUSA and buy an external drive enclosure, and put my own drive in it. It's alot cheaper that way, and does the same thing as a premade external drive. It's easy to do. As far as the enclosures go, they will run you about 20$, and it's all a matter of taste as far as which one to choose.

If you need any help with it, let me know. I can't live without my external drives. Love them for their portability. With an external drive, you have a laptop drive, a desktop drive, a drive at your neighbor's, or a drive at work, or anywhere else.
 08/08/2006 03:22:08 AM · #12
I just ordered an external Western Digit 80 GB HD. I am still going to burn DVDs, but HD will be in my carrying case at all times, DVDs will stay home as backup of my backups.

So, I have 1-Laptop's HD 2-Ghost in our server 3-DVD backups 4-External portable HD...

easy and cheap (HD cost me 90 bucks as of today)
 08/08/2006 03:25:53 AM · #13
Originally posted by focuspoint:
I just ordered an external Western Digit 80 GB HD. I am still going to burn DVDs, but HD will be in my carrying case at all times, DVDs will stay home as backup of my backups.

So, I have 1-Laptop's HD 2-Ghost in our server 3-DVD backups 4-External portable HD...

easy and cheap (HD cost me 90 bucks as of today)


I have 40GB Western Digital Drive. Its giving me "Delayed Write Failure" (WIN XP) lately. Would you have any idea on how to fix it?

I'm thinking of buying another one but would go for Seagate this time. I guess 120GB is available in range of 200$. Hope this one turns out to be better than Western Digital.

Message edited by author 2006-08-08 03:26:56.
 08/08/2006 03:35:35 AM · #14
Originally posted by Tej:
...I have 40GB Western Digital Drive. Its giving me "Delayed Write Failure" (WIN XP) lately. Would you have any idea on how to fix it?

I'm thinking of buying another one but would go for Seagate this time. I guess 120GB is available in range of 200$. Hope this one turns out to be better than Western Digital.


I've been around many years, and used many HD brands. I have seen goods and bads of each. Western Digit, Seagate, Maxtor and IBM probably the drives I go for in any giving case. It depends on luck sometime, you might get hit by factory defects on Maxtor, and hate it, when others use it for years no problem... and same for the brands I mentioned.

I am not sure about he delay. Could be fragmentation, or just a HD failure because of heat... I don't think XP has anything to do with it since it was working good before. i would backup my data and look for return policy :)
 08/08/2006 03:48:28 AM · #15
Originally posted by Chiqui:
Discs (DVD and CD) are not very reliable for long term storage. I just got a computer built for me (it pays to have a geek husband!) and we went for a RAID5 system. We bough 4 500GB harddrives and set them up so I have 1.5TB of actual usable space. What RAID does is it takes the information and devides it among the 3+ discs so if one disc fails the other ones can still produce all the information, nothing is lost. If you are in the market for a new computer, this may be a something to look into. With 1.5TB (1500 GB) of space, I don't think I'll be worrying about running out of space for while!

June


Unless your house burns down, is flooded, or the PC is damaged magnetically or stolen.

I learnt the hard way that hard drives only are a bad idea.

I store everything in duplicate on CD's or DVD's. The CD's/DVD's will go into a 320 CD/DVD wallet, one which goes in the office in tupperware containers (waterproof) and everything is labelled clearly so I won't have to search through discs to find something, and a second set will be kept at my parents house in the same kind of wallet and same kind of tupperware container. I'm considering upping that to a third place, but I haven't yet decided. 2 sets is a lot of burning, 3 will be sooo much more tedious.

I also have my main PC, laptop and a third older computer that's just for files. I might start a new system where I transfer my flash cards directly into an external hard drive to hold raw files, than build a small bare bones PC just for burning raw files on DVD. It's time consuming to have to burn discs on my main PC taking away valuable time better spent working on post-processing.

The plan is to teach my wife how to do the burning and filing how I like it, and she can do that on the barebones system. So once I have processed a batch, she can burn while I move on to the next.

And in 5-10 years or so when I have my own studio and an assistant, they can do it!

RAID is fantastic, however. I personally would never store everything in one single place however.

-Hideo
 08/08/2006 04:52:42 AM · #16
Definately good points about backing up and backing up your backups. Lost too many hard drives and learned that the hard way.

Anyway, about the Delayed Write Failed error. From what I've read, this has to do with disk caching.

Go here, and go to response #9 for more details:

//www.computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/133276.html
 08/08/2006 06:38:22 AM · #17
External vs. internal?

All my images are stored on an external drive (and CDs). 3 reasons for an external drive for me:
1. I can move it easily from computer to computer.
2. I can carry it out easier in a fire.
3. I can hide it separate from my computer when I go on vacation so I don't have to worry about theft.
 08/08/2006 06:58:17 AM · #18
What dahkota said.
In fact, I'm planning to move my external backup to my computer at work if I find a way to sync between two Windows computers.
 08/08/2006 12:18:01 PM · #19
Originally posted by dahkota:
External vs. internal?

All my images are stored on an external drive (and CDs). 3 reasons for an external drive for me:
1. I can move it easily from computer to computer.
2. I can carry it out easier in a fire.
3. I can hide it separate from my computer when I go on vacation so I don't have to worry about theft.


GREAT reasons to use an external. Not to mention the fact that when you have used up all your HDD space, that instead of having to pull a desktop's panel off and start messing around with screwing a new drive into the bay, getting tangled in cables, that you can just simply plug one of these things into a USB, and you are good to go.
 08/08/2006 12:24:09 PM · #20
Originally posted by th3ph17:
i think the secret really is to learn how to delete pictures. My goal lately is to only keep 10% of what i shoot.


DELETE *gasp* PHOTOS....

I didn't read that, I didn't read that, I didn't read that.....
 08/08/2006 01:05:14 PM · #21
I do only keep about 10% (well maybe more) and just filled up the external 160, and bought an external 250. I take a lot of pictures when I am out. :-) (Western Digital i-book 250 for the curious)

Definitely do an exteral, you can plug it into another system immediately if something goes wrong.

Eventually I will want to keep a DVD type (whatever system wins the high dvd wars) backup elsewhere. Right now with how little a DVD holds and how many I would have to burn for backup I haven't done it. Of course last time I had my major hard-drive fail on me, I spend 500.00 getting the data back. (There are companies that specialize in this sort of thing).

Message edited by author 2006-08-08 13:10:06.
 09/01/2006 10:21:33 AM · #22
I just got from Best Buy, a 500GB Western Digital My Book, external hard drive (USB 2.0) to store my pics on.

I was looking for one that I could plug into my Network, but the cost was too great for the 500 Gig. Anyway Best Buy has it on sale right now for $199. I don't know how long it will last, but that price made me get it now, just in case. (The $250 Gig is $189)

Actually, I am returning it today, and getting a new one. They wouldn't let me use my 10% off coupon yesterday, becasue it starts Aug 1st. They told me to come back today to get my 10%. So, really it will be $179.99. That's not bad for 500 Gig.

Link to drive: My Book 500Gig

Message edited by author 2006-09-01 10:22:20.
 09/01/2006 10:40:47 AM · #23
Yeah not bad at all considering I paid $139 for a WD 320GB external enclosure less than 6 months ago at Best Buy.
 09/01/2006 08:56:43 PM · #24
Originally posted by routerguy666:
Yeah not bad at all considering I paid $139 for a WD 320GB external enclosure less than 6 months ago at Best Buy.


I learned that Best Buy has a few really good prices, but everything else is really high. I went in one time to pick up a memory card and they had a 1Gig for $110. Of course I walked out.

My mom bought a cheap inkjet printer for $69.99, and then bought a USB cable for $49. The cable, of course, had gold ends, and that's what the salesman told her she needed.

Be careful at Best Buy. Use the coupons and watch for the special "Instant Discounts".

TonyT
 09/01/2006 09:04:21 PM · #25
I keep all my archived photo on this type of DVD. Hope they live up to their claim.
//www.delkin.com/products/archivalgold/index.html
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