Refurbished HD for laptop?

[brett]

I bought my laptop in August 2004. It's been running fine but I'd
like to have a mirrored HD. The harddrive for this machine is $180 -
$210. However, I can get a refurbished for $135. The brand new HDs
are probably three years old since I have to buy the same model. Will
a refurbished HD last as long as a new one or longer?

Thanks,
Brett

 

[Rod Speed]

I bought my laptop in August 2004. It's been running fine but I'd
like to have a mirrored HD. The harddrive for this machine is $180 -
$210. However, I can get a refurbished for $135. The brand new
HDs are probably three years old since I have to buy the same model.
Will a refurbished HD last as long as a new one or longer?

Depends on what failed that needed it to be refurbished.

Sometimes they will, sometimes they wont.

 

[paulmd]

I bought my laptop in August 2004. It's been running fine but I'd
like to have a mirrored HD. The harddrive for this machine is $180 -
$210. However, I can get a refurbished for $135. The brand new HDs
are probably three years old since I have to buy the same model. Will
a refurbished HD last as long as a new one or longer?

Thanks,
Brett

Mirrored hard drives in a laptop? I think perhaps the terminology is
mixed up. There's only a handful of laptops that support multiple hard
drives internally, let alone have RAID support. If by mirrored, you
instead mean a system with a USB hard drive enclosure, like perhaps
Acronis true image, or Ghost, then there's no requirement for
identical drives for that. Nor even a need to match capacities
exactly. As long as there's room for the data.

 

[brett]

Depends on what failed that needed it to be refurbished.

Sometimes they will, sometimes they wont.

Well, if I'm risk averse, I suppose it's worth buying the new one.
I'm planning to use Acronis for the mirroring.(or probably just
frequent incrementals). I was also considering Genie-Soft but they
don't have imaging. Genie-Soft does have disk spanning and Acronis
doesn't. Both support backng up files in use.
http://data-backup-software-review.toptenreviews.com/ Does anyone
have recommendations on either of these?

 

[Rod Speed]

Well, if I'm risk averse, I suppose it's worth buying the new one.

It is indeed in that case.

I'm planning to use Acronis for the mirroring.(or probably just frequent incrementals).

Yeah, lot to be said for that approach.

I was also considering Genie-Soft but they don't have imaging.
Genie-Soft does have disk spanning and Acronis
doesn't. Both support backng up files in use.
http://data-backup-software-review.toptenreviews.com/
Does anyone have recommendations on either of these?

I much prefer True Image myself.

 

[Ken]

Mirrored hard drives in a laptop? I think perhaps the terminology is
mixed up. There's only a handful of laptops that support multiple hard
drives internally, let alone have RAID support. If by mirrored, you
instead mean a system with a USB hard drive enclosure, like perhaps
Acronis true image, or Ghost, then there's no requirement for
identical drives for that. Nor even a need to match capacities
exactly. As long as there's room for the data.

Your point about not needing identical HDs is a good one. There are
other ways of putting the data (cloning) onto another HD without using
USB. BootIt NG http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/
allows the creation of an image to CD/DVD and pasting it to another HD
without booting into Windows. There may be others that do this as well.

 

[brett]

Your point about not needing identical HDs is a good one.

The only problem with not using the same HD as a psuedo mirror is that
you'll have to order a new HD and wait for it to arrive. Then do the
transfer onto it. If you already have an HD ready to go, there's no
wait. Of course, if you can wait, than you're all set.

 

[paulmd]

The only problem with not using the same HD as a psuedo mirror is that
you'll have to order a new HD and wait for it to arrive. Then do the
transfer onto it. If you already have an HD ready to go, there's no
wait. Of course, if you can wait, than you're all set.

Really no need. Plug it in, turn it on, and go. Hard drive make and
model is almost totally irrelevant to cloning.

 

[brett]

Really no need. Plug it in, turn it on, and go. Hard drive make and

model is almost totally irrelevant to cloning.

If you talking about using an external USB drive, that will be
extremely slow.

Although the HD is only 4200RPM. Still, I need the internal HD for
traveling.

 

[Rod Speed]

If you talking about using an external USB drive, that will be
extremely slow.

Although the HD is only 4200RPM. Still, I need the internal HD for
traveling.

Two different issues are being mangled here.

Yes, a clone as opposed to an image does allow you to just plug
the spare drive in and carry on regardless on a hard drive failure.

But you do not have to clone to an identical internal hard drive,
any decent cloner can clone to a different sized internal drive
fine and all you need to do is ensure that the laptop can boot
with either of the drives installed.

You havent been clear how you plan to clone the original drive
to a new one in the laptop. That can be done with the better
cloners with the target of the clone in a USB external case that
is used for just the cloning. If the original drive fails, you can just
unplug the original drive from the laptop and plug the clone into
the laptop and boot from that there.

BUT you dont get incremental cloning with most cloners.
Most apps that do incremental only do that for imaging, not cloning.

And you dont actually need an external case for the cloning op,
there are cables around that allow you to plug the spare drive
into a connector block on a USB cable and clone to the spare
drive using that. If the original drive does fail, you can just plug
that spare into the laptop and use it at full speed in the laptop
and retain the mechanical convenience of an internal laptop drive.

 

[Ghostrider]

I bought my laptop in August 2004. It's been running fine but I'd
like to have a mirrored HD. The harddrive for this machine is $180 -
$210. However, I can get a refurbished for $135. The brand new HDs
are probably three years old since I have to buy the same model. Will
a refurbished HD last as long as a new one or longer?

Thanks,
Brett

It might be better to ask the question whether or not even going this
route is worth it. The laptop is already 3 years old and should other
significant components break, it will be replaced. Why bother with even
a refurbished hard drive? It would be better to save up for a replacement
laptop whilst keeping good backups of all important files, data, etc.

 

[brett]

Yes, a clone as opposed to an image does allow you to just plug

the spare drive in and carry on regardless on a hard drive failure.

But you do not have to clone to an identical internal hard drive,
any decent cloner can clone to a different sized internal drive
fine and all you need to do is ensure that the laptop can boot
with either of the drives installed.

You havent been clear how you plan to clone the original drive
to a new one in the laptop.

Using Acronis, I'll incrementally image the primary hd onto the USB
cradled hd.

That can be done with the better
cloners with the target of the clone in a USB external case that
is used for just the cloning. If the original drive fails, you can just
unplug the original drive from the laptop and plug the clone into
the laptop and boot from that there.

BUT you dont get incremental cloning with most cloners.
Most apps that do incremental only do that for imaging, not cloning.

Not clear on you mean with imaging and cloning. See below.

And you dont actually need an external case for the cloning op,
there are cables around that allow you to plug the spare drive
into a connector block on a USB cable and clone to the spare
drive using that. If the original drive does fail, you can just plug
that spare into the laptop and use it at full speed in the laptop
and retain the mechanical convenience of an internal laptop drive.

No way is an external USB drive going to be faster than the internal
hard drive. So, putting a spare internal hard drive into a USB cradle
as a mirror allows the fastest and easiest setup when the primary
drive crashes.
What are the reasons to use either imaging or cloning?

Thanks,
Brett

 

[Rod Speed]

Using Acronis, I'll incrementally image the primary hd onto the USB cradled hd.

Then you wouldnt be able to use that USB cradled hd in the laptop
when the original dies, you'd have to buy a new drive for the laptop
and restore those images from the USB cradled hd, and you said
that you dont want to do that.

And in that case the USB cradled hd need not be a laptop drive.

And you dont even need a USB cradled hd either, you can write
those images across the lan to drive space on a desktop PC etc.

There are some cloners that can incrementally clone, particularly xxclone,
but Acronis True Image cant incrementally clone, only incrementally image.

Not clear on you mean with imaging and cloning.

I'm using those terms in the same way Acronis does.

A clone is an exact copy of the original drive, it
has the same partitions, files etc as the original.

And image is a file which contains all Acronis needs to restore
to another drive so that drive is the same state as the original
was, and with incremental images, you get an extra file for
each incremental image you do. They are all used to restore
the new drive to the same state as the original was when the
last incremental image was done.

See below.

No way is an external USB drive going to be faster than the internal hard drive.

Correct, altho that isnt necessarily strickly true with
older laptop drives that are normally only 4200 rpm
etc. A USB external drive can be a faster 7200 rpm drive.

So, putting a spare internal hard drive into a USB cradle as a mirror
allows the fastest and easiest setup when the primary drive crashes.

Yes, but Acronis cant do incremental cloning, just incremental images
which involve restoring the images to a replacement drive if the original dies.

What are the reasons to use either imaging or cloning?

Cloning allows much faster use of the clone if the original hard drive dies.
In your config you just have to unplug the USB cable and bridge from the
spare drive and plug the spare drive into the laptop in place of the now
dead original and boot off the replacement drive. It will then perform
just as well as the original drive did.

BUT Acronis True Image cannot do incremental cloning, it can only clone the entire drive to the
spare USB cradled hd. Thats not necessarily

 

[Rod Speed]

Whoops, premature send, here is the full version.

Using Acronis, I'll incrementally image the primary hd onto the USB cradled hd.

Then you wouldnt be able to use that USB cradled hd in the laptop
when the original dies, you'd have to buy a new drive for the laptop
and restore those images from the USB cradled hd, and you said
that you dont want to do that.

And in that case the USB cradled hd need not be a laptop drive.

And you dont even need a USB cradled hd either, you can write
those images across the lan to drive space on a desktop PC etc.

There are some cloners that can incrementally clone, particularly xxclone,
but Acronis True Image cant incrementally clone, only incrementally image.

Not clear on you mean with imaging and cloning.

I'm using those terms in the same way Acronis does.

A clone is an exact copy of the original drive, it
has the same partitions, files etc as the original.

And image is a file which contains all Acronis needs to restore
to another drive so that drive is the same state as the original
was, and with incremental images, you get an extra file for
each incremental image you do. They are all used to restore
the new drive to the same state as the original was when the
last incremental image was done.

See below.

No way is an external USB drive going to be faster than the internal hard drive.

Correct, altho that isnt necessarily strickly true with
older laptop drives that are normally only 4200 rpm
etc. A USB external drive can be a faster 7200 rpm drive.

So, putting a spare internal hard drive into a USB cradle as a mirror
allows the fastest and easiest setup when the primary drive crashes.

Yes, but Acronis cant do incremental cloning, just incremental images
which involve restoring the images to a replacement drive if the original dies.

What are the reasons to use either imaging or cloning?

Cloning allows much faster use of the clone if the original hard drive dies.
In your config you just have to unplug the USB cable and bridge from the
spare drive and plug the spare drive into the laptop in place of the now
dead original and boot off the replacement drive. It will then perform
just as well as the original drive did.

BUT Acronis True Image cannot do incremental cloning, it can only clone the entire
drive to the spare USB cradled hd. Thats not necessarily a bad thing because laptop
drives arent that big, so a full clone still happens in a reasonable time.

xxclone can do incremental clones, but I'm not sure if it supports external USB cradled hard drives.

Imaging requires restoration of the image(s) and you have said
that you dont want to go that route because you want to be
able to use the spare drive immediately if the original dies.

If you dont really need to do that, you could image to somewhere else,
even the desktop system over the lan etc, and then keep the spare handy
and restore to that if the original laptop drive dies.

You obviously wont be able to do that if you are away
from home with the laptop when the laptop drive dies.

 

[brett]

xxclone sounds like a neat tool. However, I would like to have
incrementals that don't require a complete restore. So I may need to
get my MS Money file from 2 days ago. The imaging or cloning alone
won't allow that.

Perhaps I should just forget about a mirrored drive and go with
incremental imaging and regular backups so that I can have file by
file restores plus fast catostrophic failure restores.

For incremental imaging, say I take a full image on Saturday and do
incrementals each day than have the drive crash on Wednesday. Do I
need to first do the full restore and then apply in order the four
incrementals? Just like a database restore. I gues it isn't so bad
if you want protection from both types of failures (file by file and
catostrophic).

 

[Rod Speed]

xxclone sounds like a neat tool.

Its a tad downmarket in many ways. And surprisingly slow too.

However, I would like to have incrementals that don't require
a complete restore. So I may need to get my MS Money file
from 2 days ago. The imaging or cloning alone won't allow that.

Both will. A clone is an identical copy of the drive when it was done and you
can certainly manually copy whatever you want off the clone if you need it.

Any decent imager allows you to browse the image and get individual files too.

Perhaps I should just forget about a mirrored drive and go with
incremental imaging and regular backups so that I can have file
by file restores plus fast catostrophic failure restores.

Yes, that is what most do. If you want to avoid the delay while
you get the replacement drive on drive failure, you can just buy
it now and then its available immediately if you ever do need it.

For incremental imaging, say I take a full image on Saturday and do
incrementals each day than have the drive crash on Wednesday. Do I
need to first do the full restore and then apply in order the four incrementals?

No, with True Image you tell it to restore the the lastest and
it automatically restores all the ones done before that too.

And you can selectively restore too, so if you know things went pear shaped
on Tuesday, you can say restore from Monday and before that if you want to.

Just like a database restore. I gues it isn't so bad if you want
protection from both types of failures (file by file and catostrophic).

Yeah, the only real downside over a clone is that it takes a
little longer to have a usable system after a drive failure, but
thats hardly ever that important with a personal system.

 

[brett]

Yeah, the only real downside over a clone is that it takes a

little longer to have a usable system after a drive failure, but
thats hardly ever that important with a personal system.

What do you mean by this last part? Doesn't TrueImage make the
restore bootable or is there something else you manually have to do?

If the primary crashes and you can't boot into it, TrueImage allows
you to make a bootable CD but where do you go from there? Format the
primary and restore the image onto it? Will it be bootable or can you
mark it to be bootable?

I guess TrueImage will handle my needs. I'll just not expect to be up
and running immediately. Maybe a couple of hours, which is fine.

Thanks again,
Brett

 

[Rod Speed]

What do you mean by this last part?

Just that if you have a true clone of the original drive, and that fails,
all you have to do is physically unplug the original drive and plug in
the replacement. That only takes seconds with a laptop.

With an image, you have to replace the physical drive and then restore the
image to the new drive, and that takes quite a bit longer, just the restore step.

Doesn't TrueImage make the restore bootable

Yes it does make the restored drive bootable.

or is there something else you manually have to do?

Only physically replace the original now dead drive with its
replacement before you do the actual restore to the new drive.

If the primary crashes and you can't boot into it, TrueImage allows
you to make a bootable CD but where do you go from there?

Replace the drive that has died with the replacement.

Boot the TI restore CD, tell it to restore the image to the new drive.

Boot the new drive in the usual way.

Format the primary and restore the image onto it?

Just do the restore, no need to format it.

Will it be bootable
Yes.

or can you mark it to be bootable?

No need.

I guess TrueImage will handle my needs.

Yes it will. The only thing it cant do is incremental cloning.

You can clone the entire original drive as often as you like.

I'll just not expect to be up and running immediately.
Maybe a couple of hours, which is fine.

Yes, it will do that fine.

 

[brett]

Big Thanks Rod.

 

[brett]

If I got a new laptop, what would be the fastest setup (specific HD,
USB, etc) for a temp while waiting for the primary HD to arrive?

Thanks,
Brett