Backup, backup, backup your stuff!

[jorgemonkey]

I'm getting my computer ready to completely wipe the hard drive clean and re-install windows. So I took all my downloaded videos, all my photos from 2003-2005, and some other files and moved them to my external hard drive (Guess where this is heading.....).

We had a power outage, and after the power came back on my computer wasn't seeing the external drive anymore. So I unplugged the drive, plugged it back in, and now its making a nice clicking noise constantly. So I unplugged the drive, did a quick search on the internet, and found its going to take about $1200 or so to get it fixed since they have to replace some internal parts.

So after a quick fit of rage and knowing there is no way I can afford to get it fixed, I remembered about the stacks of DVDs I have in the closet. I pull them out, and lo & behold, I have 3-4 backups off all the photos that were on the drive

Now I wish I had backups of the video that was on that drive

So, which external hard drives do ya'll have, and how much do you like them? I'm planning on buying 2 within the next few weeks.

[another view]

I guess my experience is different than most people, in that I have a Maxtor external and it's still running just fine. I crashed a SeaGate internal and some how when it went it took a bunch of info off the external which I was accessing a lot right around that time. Fortunately I had CD's too... SeaGate is supposed to be one of the best and it is what I bought to replace that internal drive. Two years later, it's fine.

What do I like now? Mac. Shipping today, hopefully!

[deckcadet]

I have a Macbook Pro and with Mac OS X Leopard, Time Machine can automatically back up files from one or more hard drives to an external in a very space efficient way every hour. I currently have two weeks of backups and possible restores of all files and folders on my computer at every hour in that time, and it only takes up a few GB more than the contents of my hard drive now. Of course Leopard won't be generally released for a few months, but I use Time Machine only for my most recent photos and my system drive.

For externals I have:

1) 250GB Western Digital MyBook- This drive I use for Time Machine and file storage. It has FireWire 400 and 800 and USB 2.0 so I get both high speeds and convenience.

2) 300GB Maxtor One Touch II- This drive has FireWire 400 and USB 2.0, and is a few years old. I don't use it for anything vital, just when I need a large capacity disk to take around and for duplicate backups.

3) 160GB Western Digital Scorpio notebook drive in bus powered USB/eSATA enclosure. I use this for a bootable clone of my internal hard drive, or in this case for different developer seeds and file storage.

4) 40GB Maxtor- I've had this external for a very very long time. For a few years I used it for additional storage and application space for my original laptop which had a whopping 6GB hard drive . Now I use it for backup storage and the like.

5-8) I have an additional set of drives in a FirmTek 2EN/2 enclosure. This enclosure is a dual-bay, hot swappable array with locking disk trays supporting 3.5" SATA 1.5Gbps and 3.0Gbps hard drives with dual eSATA I/O. 5 and 6 are Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 7200RPM drives in a RAID array, 7 and 8 are Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB 7200RPM Perpendicular Recording drives in standalone configuration. Because it is a dual bay enclosure, it means that at all times at least one of my backups, usually two, are completely isolated (trays removed, stored with disks in anti-static bag), while unless I'm actively using it for storage or scratch I keep the array itself offline and unplugged from power and cables to avoid damage from power surges. This became my practice after I lost a few days of pictures due to a lightning strike on my old windows laptop.
Now that i'm headed off to college, I'm going to buy a third set of disks and trays for this enclosure, and keep a current set at home in Miami at all times.
To interface with this array, I have a FirmTek 2SM2-E ExpressCard/34 eSATA card which is both windows and mac compatible. The speeds are fantastic! eSATA is one of the fastest interfaces out there and with a disk set in RAID 0 file transfers are incredibly fast.

[Sebastian]

2 terabytes, 80% full.

I backup everything. EVERYTHING.

[jorgemonkey]

Mine was a Lacie 250gig drive, which after opening the case I discovered it was a Western Digital 250gig drive in a fancy case.

I'm actually looking at the Maxtor OneTouch drives to replace mine.

[another view]

Mine was a Lacie 250gig drive, which after opening the case I discovered it was a Western Digital 250gig drive in a fancy case.

I'm actually looking at the Maxtor OneTouch drives to replace mine.

Had no idea... I've always heard great things about Lacie stuff too. I have a Maxtor One Touch 250gb - the one I mentioned above - still going strong.