Extrenal box for backup hard drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter AL D
  • Start date Start date
A

AL D

Is there a low-cost way of mounting a standard hard drive in a remote
box for the purpose of backing up data? I expect there are ready-made
boxes with a built-in power supply for this purpose, are there? Can
anyone recommend one?

Thank you

Al D
 
PS, I have seen the Belkin External Drive Enclosure but it doesn't
support ATA133 drives (which mine is).
 
AL said:
PS, I have seen the Belkin External Drive Enclosure but it doesn't
support ATA133 drives (which mine is).
Click to expand...

That won't matter much at all. I use an ATA133 drive in (I believe) ATA100
USB2 enclosure and the USB2 vs USB1 means a lot more than the ATA value. I
found it to be surprizingly faster than I thought it would be. I use it for
backing up photos and other files that are very important to me. The
difference between ATA66 and 133 are not even all that much in realtime
usage.

Ed
 
Thanks for that. Can anyone recommend any of the Allcam USB drive
enclosures? See:

http://www.allcam.biz/products/usb525.html

There's a one-touch backup model U35BAK that seems sensible (push a
button and it only backs up files that have changed), but I don't like
the sound of: "It is recommended you disconnect this drive (USB cable)
before switch off your computer, as power may back flow into the
computer via USB which may cause some old PC unable to boot."

Al D
 
Is there a low-cost way of mounting a standard hard drive in a remote
box for the purpose of backing up data? I expect there are ready-made
boxes with a built-in power supply for this purpose, are there? Can
anyone recommend one?

Thank you

Al D
Click to expand...

Well if you want really low cost that works then you could try the
solution I use. I had actually got hold of a couple of HD caddies so
that I could hot swap the HD out of my computer. This was a couple of
years ago and they had been lying around doing nothing as I had found
that I didn't find them as useful as I had hoped. I also had a USB 2.0
IDE adapter that plugs into the USB port and has an IDE interface at the
other end. I was able to place an 80GB HD in the removable caddie and
then plug this into the USB/IDE adapter and plug that into the USB port
on my computer and bingo! Have now been able to back up both my
computer systems with ease.

And the cost?

Well I've just checked and the same caddie goes for 4UKP in UK at the
moment. Here's a link:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?
action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=72253

You'll need to copy the first line and then copy the 2nd to paste on to
the end of the first in your browser address window.

And the IDE interface is 16UKP here in the UK. Here's a link:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?
rb=14494706922&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=43759

Same copy paste procedure here.

The caddies do look cheap. And they are, but they work.

You've still got to get hold of a software backup system to go with them
of course. ;-)

And think. You could buy 2 or more of those caddies at that price and
have more than one HD backup system. I've made use of the other one
when I need to connect up other people's HD's to my system to scan for
errors, virus infection, etc.
 
AL D said:
Is there a low-cost way of mounting a standard hard drive in a remote
box for the purpose of backing up data? I expect there are ready-made
boxes with a built-in power supply for this purpose, are there? Can
anyone recommend one?
Click to expand...

Just buy a generic USB2 and/or Firewire to EIDE enclosure, plus the HD of
your choice. No further software/drivers should be necessary.

I did that a couple years ago.
 
I got a usb to eide, and also the mini plug that laptops use, for about $25
USD last summer. Works fine, but it's a flimsy
setup. A guy had a "dead" 30 gig drive he needed to get finanical files off
after his laptop blew up. He had taken it to two computer shops and was
told by both, to the tune of $375 total, he was out of luck. This
arrangement spun up his drive on the first hook up, and i got the files
without any trouble at all.
Has it's own power supple, too. I don't remember where i bought it, but i
got it off the net somewhere after googleing on usb/ide converter.

Mike
 
Thanks for the replies. I have ordered a purpose-built Firewire
external caddy with internal cooling fan. Total cost, including a
Firewire card: under £20 ($30 approx).

Can anyone recommend a good shareware program that will find files on
a hard drive that have been changed, and only back up only those files
onto another disc?

It needs to be something that can also back up my operating system
(Win XP) files on another disc allocated for that purpose (such that
the backup disc can be used to boot from if the main C: drive disc
fails)

I know about the Norton 'Ghost' prgram, but I'm guessing there are
much cheaper alternatives that also do the job effectively.

Thanks...

Al D
 
AL said:
Thanks for that. Can anyone recommend any of the Allcam USB drive
enclosures? See:

http://www.allcam.biz/products/usb525.html

There's a one-touch backup model U35BAK that seems sensible (push a
button and it only backs up files that have changed), but I don't like
the sound of: "It is recommended you disconnect this drive (USB cable)
before switch off your computer, as power may back flow into the
computer via USB which may cause some old PC unable to boot."

Al D
Click to expand...

Never heard of such a thing. I think if it were me, I would go for one of
the others and use backup software instead. The more bells and whistles
something has, it always seems that the more problems there are that can
surface.

Ed
 
There are cheaper, but not efficient. Those "backup" programs
are pig slow, and nearly impossible to understand. Ghost or
PowerQuest DriveImage2001 works fine, and is fairly quick
depending on your cpu. My AMD64 3000+ does and image
at about 1 gig per minite. My old AMD Athlon 1800 did an
image at about 75 meg per minute .. not fast !

johns
 
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