External Hard Drives - Portable vs Desktop

[Drury18]

I've never really looked into these before as I never saw the need for them however I have a laptop now which I think is about to die on me (the screen will only connect if the lid is open at a certain angle, otherwise I get some wierd patterns on the screen) and I would prefer not to lose all my documents as I have some personal and some work and would like to have a place to store them so if I need to change computers I have it all in one place.

My biggest question is are these more reliable then DVD/CD backups? Do they have a high failure rate like some USB keys or smaller portable devices or can you have moderate amounts of confidence in them?

If you are only backing up approxmiately 250GB, is it worth it?

I've seen ones advertised as "Portable" and "Desktop" but not alot of information on what makes them different. For the use I need, is portable the better option over desktop?

Can you recommend a brand name that while still being budget conscious, is a quality product?

Thanks in advance.

[Kipper is King]

Originally Posted by Drury18

I've seen ones advertised as "Portable" and "Desktop" but not alot of information on what makes them different. For the use I need, is portable the better option over desktop?

I think the only difference generally is the physical size of the drive. A "portable" drive may also have some extra shock protection.

[CKPThunder]

I believe the portable ones powered by USB so you don't need an extra outlet for your hard drive either.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by CKPThunder

I believe the portable ones powered by USB so you don't need an extra outlet for your hard drive either.

This. Very true. If you don't plan on moving the HD around too much, I'd go with the desktop. Sucks you have to plug it in to AC, but they have full sized desktop HDs in them which generally take a lot longer to wear-out or breakdown than the portable ones (which have latop HDs in them). Also generally more capacity for the $$$.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Drury18

I've never really looked into these before as I never saw the need for them however I have a laptop now which I think is about to die on me (the screen will only connect if the lid is open at a certain angle, otherwise I get some wierd patterns on the screen) and I would prefer not to lose all my documents as I have some personal and some work and would like to have a place to store them so if I need to change computers I have it all in one place.

My biggest question is are these more reliable then DVD/CD backups? Do they have a high failure rate like some USB keys or smaller portable devices or can you have moderate amounts of confidence in them?

If you are only backing up approxmiately 250GB, is it worth it?

I've seen ones advertised as "Portable" and "Desktop" but not alot of information on what makes them different. For the use I need, is portable the better option over desktop?

Can you recommend a brand name that while still being budget conscious, is a quality product?

Thanks in advance.

It's the wrong tool for the job if reliability is your utmost concern.

They are the same exact thing as desktop or notebook drives thrown in a $10 metal box.

You do not buy an external harddrive for essential backups. Mechanical drives can always fail. The reason you buy them is for convenience. If you get a 2.5" external drive, it's a laptop harddrive inside a metal box and it requires only USB to power it. You only need one cable and not a separate power cable as you would with the larger 3.5" drives.

If backups are that important to you, I would never recommend mechanical backup over burning onto high quality DVD-Rs (a good quailty Taiyo Yuden dye).

USB keys do not really have a high failure rate. People are just using them in the wrong way. Just ripping them out without going through the safely disconnect process or pulling them out while an operation is happening (even in the background) can corrupt them. A high quality USB drive or SSD would be more reliable than a mechanical harddrive.

If you bought an external, to be honest I would just buy a 250GB laptop mechanical harddrive ($40 on sale). Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Toshiba, etc. are all decent for reliability and are the only options really available at retail usually. Then I would buy a $10 enclosure to throw it in as the enclosure rarely makes a difference unless you need specific connectors (firewire, esata, external sata, etc.) and all the small notebook external drives don't really have any space for shock protection anyway.

It is the cheapest option for $250 backups and it should be pretty reliable if you don't treat it roughly and properly go through the safely disconnect hardware prompts before you disconnect it.

250GB is about 60 single layer DVD-Rs or 30 dual layer DVDs so it is a lot to burn if you go that route. It is still safer to burn onto high quality discs (don't buy cheap/shoddy ones with cheap dyes) than to rely on mechanical backup.

[GoinAllTheWay]

For the price of hard drives these days, buy a good sized one for sure. Depending on your o/s you could have backup software built in I think. Regular backup of your computer is a solid idea.

[NiklasSundblad]

I have no statistical data to back this up, but there seems to be a much higher failure rate among portable hdds than desktop hdds in an enclosure. This is from my own personal experience and a couple friends as well. Maybe I've just had really bad luck.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

This. Very true. If you don't plan on moving the HD around too much, I'd go with the desktop. Sucks you have to plug it in to AC, but they have full sized desktop HDs in them which generally take a lot longer to wear-out or breakdown than the portable ones (which have latop HDs in them). Also generally more capacity for the $$$.

Desktop hard drives running on AC tend to be faster (eg. 7200RPM) than the portable hard drives running off USB (eg. 5400 RPM).

I recently purchased a WD Passport portable hard drive and have been pleased with it so far. I was using it to run intermittent backups of my hard drive and the thought of having to plug one or the other (or both) into the wall wasn't something I was interested in.

[Drury18]

Originally Posted by Traditional_Ale

This. Very true. If you don't plan on moving the HD around too much, I'd go with the desktop. Sucks you have to plug it in to AC, but they have full sized desktop HDs in them which generally take a lot longer to wear-out or breakdown than the portable ones (which have latop HDs in them). Also generally more capacity for the $$$.

I'm not too worried if I have to actually plug it into the wall or not. I'm more concerned over having a way to backup my documents and pictures and other personal things so that when this laptop goes I'm not SOL on a whole bunch of things.

If you bought an external, to be honest I would just buy a 250GB laptop harddrive ($40 on sale). Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Toshiba, etc. are all decent for reliability and are the only options really available at retail usually. Then I would buy a $10 enclosure to throw it in as the enclosure rarely makes a difference unless you need specific connectors (firewire, esata, external sata, etc.) and all the small notebook external drives don't really have any space for shock protection anyway.

How hard is this to do? While I'm not a brain dead idiot when it comes to computers, I'm not really type to play around inside of them. I'm more software tinkering then hardware tinkering.

I've been working off of DVD backups for awhile but DVD's do get lost so I was hoping there was a better solution then having dozens of DVD's in a drawer that I would have to add back onto another machine should something happen.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

It's the wrong tool for the job.

They are the same exact thing as desktop drives thrown in a $10 metal box sold at a higher profit margin.

You do not buy an external harddrive for essential backups. Mechanical drives can always fail. The reason you buy them is for convenience. If you get a 2.5" external drive, it's a laptop harddrive inside a metal box and it requires only USB to power it. You only need one cable and not a separate power cable as you would with the larger 3.5" drives.

If backups are that important to you, I would never recommend mechanical backup over burning onto high quality DVD-Rs (a good quailty Taiyo Yuden dye).

USB keys do not have a high failure rate. People are just using them in the wrong way. Just ripping them out without going through the safely disconnect process or pulling them out while an operation is happening (even in the background) can corrupt them. A high quality USB drive or SSD would be more reliable than a mechanical harddrive.

Or you use a redundant backup system, on top of your external HDD backup, like an online backup (like Crashplan, which allows yo to back up to another PC in your home or across the internet for free.) or a raid array.

I cant even imagine using DVDs to back up my stuff. I don't have 2+ hours to waste putting in 25 DVD's just to back up 100GB.- Imagine trying to backup a whole TB of data. Even then, a DVD is prone to being scratched if you put it in improperly or drop it as well.

If I was looking for an affordable hard drive to do backups at my house, I would get something like Vantec NexStar MX Dual 3.5in SATA HDD Enclosure w/ RAID, USB2.0 / eSATA. Supports a hardware raid configuration, and uses 3.5" disks so they are a bit cheaper.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by fredr123

Desktop hard drives running on AC tend to be faster (eg. 7200RPM) than the portable hard drives running off USB (eg. 5400 RPM).

I recently purchased a WD Passport portable hard drive and have been pleased with it so far. I was using it to run intermittent backups of my hard drive and the thought of having to plug one or the other (or both) into the wall wasn't something I was interested in.

You can stick a 7200 RPM notebook drive in a 2.5" enclosure with no problems. Heck, stick an SSD into a USB 3.0 2.5" enclosure and watch it fly. If you put a mechanical harddrive into a USB 3.0 enclosure, it won't even be able to keep up with the connection.

The key is to buy the harddrive and the enclosure separately to maximize your choices and $ value as a smart shopper.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Rathji

If I was looking for an affordable hard drive to do backups at my house, I would get something like Vantec NexStar MX Dual 3.5in SATA HDD Enclosure w/ RAID, USB2.0 / eSATA. Supports a hardware raid configuration, and uses 3.5" disks so they are a bit cheaper.

Yeah, running in a RAID 1 configuration will always be more reliable but you get half the space because the system essentially sees only on one drive. Then every write automatically mirrors on the 2nd drive.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Drury18

I'm not too worried if I have to actually plug it into the wall or not. I'm more concerned over having a way to backup my documents and pictures and other personal things so that when this laptop goes I'm not SOL on a whole bunch of things.

What exactly is wrong with your laptop? Most laptops allow you to take the harddrive out easily from the bottom. The harddrive you have in there is essentially the same thing as you find inside a portable enclosure.

You mentioned your screen dying. That has nothing to do with your data and if the laptop dies the harddrive is usually perfectly fine and can be taken out and put in an enclosure or another system.

Originally Posted by Drury18

How hard is this to do? While I'm not a brain dead idiot when it comes to computers, I'm not really type to play around inside of them. I'm more software tinkering then hardware tinkering.

Do you know how to stick a game cartridge into an NES? That's how easy.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/2-5-sat...ch-black-51566

I bought this and have been using it daily for 3 months carrying in my jacket pocket everywhere. See they are just a metal box with a connector inside. Doesn't even need a screwdriver. Now of course a $7 (shipped!) enclosure isn't going to be one you get for shock protection or anything but honestly, it's sturdy enough for any normal use I can think of.

[Hack&Lube]

-edit double post

[Drury18]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

What exactly is wrong with your laptop? Most laptops allow you to take the harddrive out easily from the bottom. The harddrive you have in there is essentially the same thing as you find inside a portable enclosure.

You mentioned your screen dying. That has nothing to do with your data and if the laptop dies the harddrive is usually perfectly fine and can be taken out and put in an enclosure or another system.

The biggest issue now is that the screen is going and I'm not sure when it will cut out and since I'm not completely sure how to remove an HD from one computer and put it somewhere else I don't want to risk losing alot of the information on it. The second issue is it has started running hot constantly (within 5 minutes of being turned on) and the fan is always going and I'm getting auto shut offs pretty frequently even after taking all sorts of steps to keep the laptop and every cool so I figure this thing might only have a matter of time before it decides to go anyway.

I would like to get everything off that laptop and onto something else for piece of mind. I had a laptop a couple years ago that I didn't do this with when I was getting signs it was dying and a couple days later the whole thing went. Lost a bunch of baby pics, music and work documents. I don't want to do the 25+ DVD option so I was exploring other ways to store documents.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Drury18

The biggest issue now is that the screen is going and I'm not sure when it will cut out and since I'm not completely sure how to remove an HD from one computer and put it somewhere else I don't want to risk losing alot of the information on it. The second issue is it has started running hot constantly (within 5 minutes of being turned on) and the fan is always going and I'm getting auto shut offs pretty frequently even after taking all sorts of steps to keep the laptop and every cool so I figure this thing might only have a matter of time before it decides to go anyway.

I would like to get everything off that laptop and onto something else for piece of mind. I had a laptop a couple years ago that I didn't do this with when I was getting signs it was dying and a couple days later the whole thing went. Lost a bunch of baby pics, music and work documents. I don't want to do the 25+ DVD option so I was exploring other ways to store documents.

Sounds like your backlight inverter is dying and your heatsink is clogged with dust. Do you still have your old laptop that went a couple years ago? The data is probably perfectly fine on the harddrive inside it. I'd open up the bottom of the laptop and blow out the heatsink and fan from the inside with compressed air. It's an easy fix. The backlight inverter however is not.

Which model is your current laptop? Most laptops just have a panel accessible by a few screws and your harddrive pops right out the bottom.

Again, if your screen dies, your data is still most likely still perfectly safe.

[Drury18]

Yes, I have my old laptop still. It's been in a computer bag in my basement since I was holding out hope I could get the data off of it one day. If it's going to be $6 to try the method you've posted and get all of it back, I'm willing to spend that kind of money. I'll give the compressed air a try. I've been using it, but not opening the bottom of the laptop to blow it through.

My current Laptop is an HP G60. Nothing fancy so probably not super complicated to get open. The previous laptop was an Acer (never again).

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by Drury18

Yes, I have my old laptop still. It's been in a computer bag in my basement since I was holding out hope I could get the data off of it one day. If it's going to be $6 to try the method you've posted and get all of it back, I'm willing to spend that kind of money. I'll give the compressed air a try. I've been using it, but not opening the bottom of the laptop to blow it through.

My current Laptop is an HP G60. Nothing fancy so probably not super complicated to get open. The previous laptop was an Acer (never again).

Your old laptop probably has a different interface since it's so old. You'd need an IDE (pata) 2.5" interface like this one:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=41083

Your harddrive in your G60 is just under that big rectangle at the bottom. Ram is in the middle. Wireless card next to that. All the panels come off by removing one or two screws.

[sclitheroe]

I take great exception with the idea that high quality optical media is a better backup strategy than a hard drive. I will preface that by saying that I DO believe it's possible that optical media would be better for long term (10-20 year) archiving because there is no mechanical interface to fail, less susceptibility to dust, moisture, air pressure changes, oxidation, etc.

HOWEVER..

Let's say we need to back up 120 gigs of data, which represents a decent amount of media, documents etc - which do you think is more reliable - backing up once to an external hard drive, or hoping that you complete 30 burns in a row, all perfectly, that you don't misplace one of those, that not one of those 30 discs has a bad spot and your backup bails in the middle, that none of them are warped, etc.

The odds of screwing up a 30 media backup compared to a single media backup are MUCH higher once you factor in random chance of media defect, and human error, which is a huge component of backup failure.

You'd be far better off to buy 2 external drives of sufficient capacity, and maintain two backups at all times (alternate them daily or weekly or monthly or whatever your personal schedule is), than to try and manage even one backup spanned across 30 DVD's.

Ideally, you should never have fewer than 3 copies of your data - 1 live, 2 backups, one of those kept somewhere else.

[sclitheroe]

Also - running RAID-1 on your backups is a waste of time. Far better off to have two seperate copies, because that eliminates the possibility of file system corruption from mirroring between the backup disks.

Two disks, two enclosures, two power supplies is far better than a dual bay RAID box, for backup purposes.