Reccommend me an external hard disk for backup please
 

Hi guys.........

I am planning on buying a new computer shortly as I can't be bothered to build a new one and my one is playing up and has always sounded like a hovercraft so I'm just gonna buy a Dell system......

However, I'd like an external HD to auto back up my internal disk. I'm looking for something that does everything on it own automatically. At work we have our pcs set up so that on logging on and off it synchronises our my documents folder with the server, so that everything is always backed up. Can I set mine up like that? I assume its a windows feature or something? That way I will store everything important in my documents and the HD will just back it all up with no effort from me.........

The new computer I'm going to get will have a 320gb disk. My current one is only 80gb!! So the external disk need only be 500gb. I assume I can also just add files to it as well as its auto backup if set up as above?

So, can anyone reccommend me the sort of thing I should get? And perhaps explain how to set it up as above?

Thanks for your help

Oh my word! Why did I not check my typing in the subject line?!?!?!

Would you like me to change it? Or shall we just leave it? :D

Please change or the thread will go off topic lol

Done :) Would have had to move it to the Adult forum otherwise ;)

Seagate Expansions 500GB External Desktop USB 2.0 Hard: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

Is this the sort of thing I should be looking at?
Pretty cheap but is cheap reliable?

What type of connection do you want? I went for the faster external sata but you will need a e-sata port on your PC to be able to use it. I got the 640gb Seagate Freeagent Xtreme from Ebuyer for £54 delivered.

I just use the Windows backup tool with Vista and set it once a week but you can do daily. No option to backup when you logoff tho.

Simon

I think USB will be fine. No need for it to be super fast.

Windows backup took sounds good. Might give that a try then.

I have a Maxtor external disk (several years old but large enough at the moment). I installed EZBack-it-up and set up a couple of backups for my own machine and the wifes. The wifes computer sees the drive as a network drive but this makes no difference.

I choose when to do the backups but you can schedule them to happen automatically. The SW is free but quite old now and I've just noticed it isn't being developed any more ... But hey, it works for me and is dead easy to use.

First backup takes a while, depending on how much you have to backup, but subsequent backups just copy new files across. I set my email client(s) to have their data files under 'My Docs' so these get automatically backed-up as well.

Dead good for free SW. See Downloads -- rdcomp.net

Dave

Thanks Dave.

Does anyone here know anything about the synchronisation that I mentioned in my first post?

It *sounds* like what they're doing is having your 'My Docs' folder actually sit on the server itself. So they have a folder with 'Fred's My Docs', 'Bill's My Docs', etc etc in it and that gets backed up rather than your local machines. Much easier to administer - at least from a backup viewpoint. They *could* be 'synching' your local 'My Docs' with a folder on the server though, then backing up as above. I'm sure a system admin reading this could point out the pros and cons of both ways ...

I any case, there is no need for you to do this. The point of a backup is to have a second copy of your important files. If you use the 'My docs' on the backup-disk only route then you've still got the single point of failure issue. Just that it's now the external disk. So you need a way to 'copy' what you have on your computer disk (the important stuff anyway - sit down and figure out what you need to backup!) to the external disk every now and again.

Which takes us back to my last post .... that's one suggestion. A search for 'backup software' or similar will pull up loads of possibilities and I'm sure other here could recommend some. Just that I use EZBack-it-up and never used anything else. Try the online review sites as well, there should be online reviews to check out.

In your case 'synching' the files to the external disk is just what you want to do. In the 'office' case the admins do this to make it easier to back-up everybodies files in one go from one machine. In your case a backup program will do that ....

As far as I understand things anyway .....

Dave

Ahhh that makes a lot of sense. Thanks. I think I'll go with the drive I posted above and get myself some free software then.

Cheers
Steve