Anyone keep a separate HD just for storage... separate from your PC?

[Roy Howell]

It's starting to sound feasible to me to buy an inexpensive, say 80gb HD, to stockpile all my irreplaceable stuff on. I think WesternDigital drives are relatively inexpensive.
I'm just curious, how many of you already do this type of thing?

Thanks, Roy

p.s.I already have a 20gb Sys. and 40gb Ext. Firewire, but I mean separate from them...

[mlemos]

I just bought a WD 120GB drive so that I can backup all my stuff. The 40GB drive that I bought for backups a few years ago, that I thought would never get filled up, got filled up.

[mjames08]

I have a removable drive bay in my PC.. I have one HD just for backups.. I can put it in when I need it, otherwise I keep it locked up in my desk at my house..

[The Weed]

Roy,

Maxtor just brought out a 200 gb drive at 133 and 8 mb cache:

http://www.shareholder.com/maxtor/Re...xtor_section=p ress

Now it's starting to get incredible the amount of storage you can get. I also just saw an ad for Gateway and they are offering stock computers with up to 400 gb of storage - 2 x 200 gb. Amazing!

Cheers,

[Bloux]

Hey Roy,

How simple is that technique, or is it?..Are you taking out one drive and putting in the back up, dumping ifo then taking it out?...not sure what the process is?

seems better than making so many data cds by far!

[Roy Howell]

Hi Bloux,
Well, as I mentioned, I have an internal 20bg sys. drive, and an external 40gb Firewire drive. A firewire drive looks almost like a portable CD player that sits upright. It is portable, but requires a simple Firewire card (as low as $20) to be installed in any PC in which you want to plug it.
I got the Firewire mainly because it makes working with Video easier(and I think it's here to stay for all types of uses).
BUT, what I'm referring to here, is a simple and inexpensive INTernal drive (maybe), that you could plug into the ribbon in your PC, dump what you want on it, and as mjames mentioned, putting it in a safe place.
That's starting to make great sense to me.

Thanks for the replies (thanks for the links, Bruce)... [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

~Roy

[8mmOverdose]

Originally posted by mjames08:
I have a removable drive bay in my PC.. I have one HD just for backups

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">same here. all my backups go on the removable drive. those removable drive bays are noisey (lots of fans) so i leave it off unless i am using it.

[Roy Howell]

Hey Robb,
I've only read a little about the removeable drive bays. Can you describe it a little for me?

thanksroy

[QuikDraw]

Good idea Roy!

I've been doing something almost like this for a few years now. Mine is not a separate physical drive though. I have my 40GB system drive partitioned into 3 partitions. The first partition is Win2kPro, the second is WinXP Home, and the third is a storage only partition I've named "Backup".

On this backup partition I keep all my driver downloads and software updates and stuff that I want available to me at all times. Whenever I install (or reinstall) any OS I have everything I need right there in my PC. I don't have to download anything. It's also the partition on which I store my Ghost images of my good OS installations. It is on this partition that I have all the "My Documents" stuff and also my e-mail storage folders as well. I can access all this stuff from any OS I choose to boot into with no hassle at all. (Thanks to DaBastard for the e-mail storage tip)

Because it's on the same physical hard drive as the OS(es) that I might be deleting, fixing, or eliminating, whenever I'm about to do a serious OS change I'll also copy the most important stuff over to my USB2 drive which is disconnected during any potentially dangerous work is performed to my drives. That's just in case a disaster on this drive might wipe all the partitions out. It's never happened, but it's best to be safe!

In my brother's PC I installed a removable drive bay. When he has problems I just take the drive out of the bay and take it over to my house where I put anything he may need on his drive and then plug it right into his drive bay and we're good to go. I keep a Ghost image of his drive at my house just for that purpose.

Not to mention all the old 6 and 10GB hard drives I have lying around here that nobody wants, but they hold plenty of backup data for me! I've got virtually unlimited possibilities for safe backups around here.

Mike

[Richard Warren]

Hey Roy,

I do not know a whole lot about the subject but I am not sure a HD would be the safest place to archive data. The reliability of hard drives has certainly improved over the years but it is still entirely possible that you turn it off and it never spins up again.

I think I would consider DVD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW. You should be able to get 4.5GB or so on each disc. They should last a lifetime with minimal care. Also, you could make multiple copies and store them in separate locations. DAT or Travan tape drives are an option as well but you stil have the possibility of the tape going bad. But, you could make extra copies of those too.

I guess nothing is a "for sure". You just have to try to lower the odds of losing it.

Richard