Geek Corner

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by jb1677:
  I recommend that folks buy an internal drive and get an enclosure (20 - 40 dollars). You generally save a few dollars AND the warranty is many times longer.

[dummy alert]I have no idea what an enclosure is. Someone please expain.[/dummy alert]
 
   

Originally posted by jb1677:
 Also for the folks mentioning RAID, RAID is great for preparing for drive failure and keeping a system online in the event of failure but it is no replacement for backups! If the partition or filesystem becomes corrupt then the mirror of it does to (on a RAID1).  With RAID5 you are striping data across multiple drives (with parity for fault tolerance) but again a corrupt partition, accidental format etc and the data is gone.

I was wondering about that. Hmmm, now I'm not so sorry about not being able to get the last one I put a link to.
 
   

Originally posted by jb1677:
 I recommend a pair of drives in separate enclosures, mabye one internal and one external (made from an internal and enclosere, see above).  Use one to back up the other (nothing fancy, just a simple drag and drop). Then lock the backup drive in a safe or fireproof box when not in use.

I'm not storing vital documents or anything like that so Fort Knox stashing isn't required. Only loads of MP3s, photos, etc.. Valuable to me and in some cases, unique or extremely hard to get elsewhere. For that kind of material, I make sure I put things like that on discs and in some cases, I put a few of them on several discs just to have something to fall back on if one of the discs go bad.
 
 Sometimes I get bands or friends who own record labels sending me unreleased and unmastered works which I'd hate to lose. But it's impractical for me to burn everything to disc especially something like music I already have on CDs but have already taken the time to convert so that I have them much more easily accessible for me without having to go through all that conversion again. (I've already deleted tons just to make space only to turn around and have to reconvert something for other use.) In some cases, they are MP3s someone sent me from CDs with videos that don't allow you to access the music files in a computer, which pisses me off to no end. Having these files already converted saves me tons of time for when I'm creating one of my radio shows or just burning compilations. I know you iPod owners can fully relate.
 
 But I still don't know what you are talking about concerning the enclosures. Are you talking about making your own external with an internal harddrive? If so, I would have absolutely no clue how to do that. I'm only a nerdette wannabe.

[clyde725]

An enclosure is just a way to turn an internal hard drive into an external hard drive.  Its generally a lot cheaper, and I don't think its difficult.
 
 http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?sduid=0&t=238389

[jb1677]

Clyde has got it, you can buy an enclosure (an empty external hard drive) for 20 - 40 bucks for simple ones from best buy, comp usa etc.
 
 Putting the drive in is easy, a few screws and 2 connections that are keyed and only go in one way, pretty easy.  If you have any remotely techy friends they can so this in a matter of minutes, heck anyone with a screwdriver that can read can do it in a few minutes.  
 
 Hard drives fail, its a fact of life, the multi year warranty carried by the internal wont get your data back but it will get you a new drive.  Also the price savings can be great, especially if you get a deal on the drive via the weekly sale price plus rebate from Best Buy or Compusa or Staples.
 
 The fire box is my own obsessive compulsive  mentality coming out, the thought of losing one MP3 or precious picture scares me to death :-)  Either way drives fail, so a backup of the drive is key, a few hundred GB's of data lost no matter what it is would be a hugh pain in the ass.
 
 However you decide to do it I cant stress having some backup, my favorite is to buy in pairs(pre made externals, make your own externals or one internal and one external)
 
 The only other backup options are to burn CD/s (146 CDs per 100GB), DVD's (22 per 100GB) or a tape device which will cost in upwards of 2000 for something that can backup a few hundred GB on one 50+$ tape.
 
 Therea are 250GB drives on sale at Comp USa this week for 59$, a pair of these and a pair of enclosures would set you back about 180$ for 500GB of external storage (250 data and 250 for backup) of backup storage.  This particular drive only has a 1 year warranty but the cost savings is HUGE
 
 These may be small for your needs, they just
 happen to be on sale this week, the sale drives from CompUSA, bestbuy, staples etc are sweet bargains (assuming the rebate shows up) and are a great way to get a lot of storage for cheap.
 
   http://www.salescircular.com/    is a great site for comparing the weekly specials for computer stuff for the local retail stores.