Internal or External drive for back-ups?

[Frank McCoy]

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Crackles McFarly

I have less than 80 gb of info on my master drive.
I want to clone an exact copy of all the data to another drive in case
this drive fails.
In other words, clone it so that I can hook up that drive and boot as
though nothing ever happened.

And for real, about 80gb is all I need now.

You'll actually pay MORE for a new 80gig drive right now than one over
twice or three times that size. Yes, really!

So buy the bigger drive and use it for three different backups.
Then rotate.

 

[Crackles McFarly]

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Crackles McFarly


You'll actually pay MORE for a new 80gig drive right now than one over
twice or three times that size. Yes, really!

So buy the bigger drive and use it for three different backups.
Then rotate.

So buy a 160GB+ internal and clone the drive I have now?

 

[Crackles McFarly]

You don't say whether the HDs are PATA or SATA.

It's a 320 GB SATA [1, not II ]

My motherboard is too old to support II

 

[Frank McCoy]

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Crackles McFarly

So buy a 160GB+ internal and clone the drive I have now?

Internal or external, depending on price, availability, and ease of use.
Clone the drive on one partition this week; and then on another next
week. Repeat.

If you can afford it, buy two external drives, and do the above;
rotating one drive off-site every two weeks or so.

 

[John Weiss]

It's a 320 GB SATA [1, not II ]

My motherboard is too old to support II

First, you do NOT want to get an 80 GB HD to backup a 320 GB HD! One of these
days you're going to want to backup more stuff, or make a second image while
preserving the first, or adding a data-only backup to the image backup...

Second, SATA2 (300 MBps SATA) is fully backward compatible with SATA1 (150 MBps
SATA). You can add a SATA2 HD to your machine with no problem. Since the
physical HD limitations restrict actual bandwidth to more like 45-60 MBps
anyhow, you'll see NO difference, except any improvement shown by newer
technology (bigger HD cache, higher data density...). Same thing with an
external HD -- the external interface (USB, Firewire, or eSATA) will be your
limitation in bandwidth, so the smart thing is to get an HD that you can move
into the computer as a primary HD if needed (just save an empty primary
partition to install the OS later).

The 80 GB HD is NOT your best choice from a price standpoint. Using WD drives
at Newegg as an example, an 80 GB version is $43, and a 160 GB version is $50.
250 GB is $65 and 320 GB is $75.

So, buy the biggest one you can easily afford. If you go external, get an
enclosure for a SATA2 HD with the external interfaces you need.

 

[vlmarcor]

Back to the internal/external backup drive topic - internal drive also
has the risk of failure when other components in your system goes
kapupp - especially the powersupply; or bad power surge, ....

That's a reason why you should invest a little more and get
a quality power supply.

Your arguments against internal hard drives apply to external hard drives as
well.
They continually spin when on and can fail and have the same risk failures
as
internal hard drives. The interface that connects the external drive to your
computer
system can fail. Your better off getting an internal hard drive, backing
everything on it
and then storing it in a safe place. With internal hard drives you have the
option of
getting an enterprise-class standard hard drive, RE drives provide enhanced
reliability in
a 24x7, continuous duty cycle environment. I've heard of many horror stories
of external
hard drives failing. It's due to the cheap interface. Just read the reviews
on amazon and other
sites on external hard drives. External hard drives are not reliable, a high
percentage of them
die unexpectedly and quickly.

 

[vlmarcor]

I have less than 80 gb of info on my master drive.
I want to clone an exact copy of all the data to another drive in case
this drive fails.
In other words, clone it so that I can hook up that drive and boot as
though nothing ever happened.

And for real, about 80gb is all I need now.

Partition and fomat the new internal hard drive and if you choose to,
although not necessary, install an operating system on your new internal
hard drive; then transfer all your data from your old hard drive to your new
hard drive; you can then choose to keep it in your computer system or if
your really paranoid you can remove the new internal hard drive and store it
in a safe place.

 

[spodosaurus]

That's a reason why you should invest a little more and get
a quality power supply.

Sorry, not going to make a difference except in possibly lowering the
risk - unless you get one unit from a bad batch...

Your arguments against internal hard drives apply to external hard drives as
well.
They continually spin when on

And external drives are not always on, and can be stored away from the
main PC.

and can fail and have the same risk failures
as
internal hard drives.

The odds of a primary drive dying or getting killed by any number of
faults or accidents AND having the external drive die while trying to
restore the data are very very low. The odds of losing two internal
drives to the same disaster are much higher.

The interface that connects the external drive to your
computer
system can fail.

And therefore? If a disaster is bad enough to kill a drive and the usb
ports, then it's a pretty shockingly stupid thing to suggest that
another internal drive will be just fine.

Your better off getting an internal hard drive, backing
everything on it
and then storing it in a safe place.

Which is exactly what you do with a drive in a hard disk enclosure,
except there's much less handling of the drive and fiddling around
inside the case for REGULAR BACKUPS.

With internal hard drives you have the
option of
getting an enterprise-class standard hard drive, RE drives provide enhanced
reliability in
a 24x7, continuous duty cycle environment.

Good, then those should be used as the primary drive in the PC, and he
can save money on the backup drive.

I've heard of many horror stories
of external
hard drives failing.

Really? Horror stories you say? Oh deary deary me.

It's due to the cheap interface. Just read the reviews
on amazon and other
sites on external hard drives. External hard drives are not reliable, a high
percentage of them
die unexpectedly and quickly.

And internal drives don't? Bwahahahaha They're the same bloody drives in
an external case that only serves to physically protect the drive during
handling and provide a SATA/IDE to USB/1394/eSata adapter.

Ari



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