Comments on: Aussies Addicted To External Hard Drives

By: CitizenDee

CitizenDee — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:01:09 +0000

I am on my second Lacie drive and just got that back after it failed (NAS OS on the drive corrupted). I use it regularly as storage, not just backup so it’s on often. Now I have to look at genuine backup options such as online, or USB drive that I sync once a week and then store away from home (such as work).

By: tterb

tterb — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:50:49 +0000

>>The thing to remember about External Hard drives is that they all use the same type of drive you would find inside your computer and hence someday will fail also.>>

Indeed. Plus a fire or flood could wipe out both your computer and eHD. The answer of, of course, is not to put all your birds in one bush (or whatever the expression is!). Backup to local storage (an ioSafe would be a great choice: http://www.iosafe.com/3) *and* backup online – or, if you have bandwidth limits, at least get your really, really important stuff online.

By: JazzyJay

JazzyJay — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:52:07 +0000

I have a couple of external HDD’s and yes I use that to back up all that I download, patches, etc… I cannot hold all that on my laptop. I feel that the external hdd’s are definitely cheaper than the broadband connection I am paying for. If I had to upload or sync with a cloud, I can forget uploading it in this lifetime, downloading is another lifetime…

By: Citizen Charles

Citizen Charles — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:49:19 +0000

Bandwidth charges are a joke – how did we ever get to this place.
But external hard drives are indeed great. Jeez $160 for a brand name package with 1Tb (hint: NOT at HarveyNorman). Sure not the greatest transfer speeds (it is USB2 after-all) but plenty good enough to watch a HD fillum and great for partition images. It doesn’t have to last forever coz, well nothing lasts forever!

By: Iona

Iona — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:34:58 +0000

I think he is right. I would prefer a transparent cloud based option but I don’t have the bandwidth to make it happen. I think there is a lot of file sharing via USB hd too. No good vod services and we wouldn’t have enough bandwidth even if they did exist.

By: Regan

Regan — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:29:13 +0000

If your looking for a good backup solution that doesn’t have to be expensive consider a NAS device for home. You can backup, but also stream video, music (iTunes etc) and a whole host of other things. I’m running a 1TB ReadyNas Duo hooked up to my XBMC, Xbox 360, Wii, Laptops and everything else with a network connection. It works a treat!

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:40:05 +0000

The reason why Australians are big consumers of external hard drives is no mystery.

We backup everything because we pay so much for bandwidth – everything we download is valuable and has a real, tangible cost.

Other countries have the luxury of treating downloaded content as disposable, but not us.

By: Brb8two

Brb8two — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:37:19 +0000

The thing to remember about External Hard drives is that they all use the same type of drive you would find inside your computer and hence someday will fail also. The trick with external drives is that you can control the period of time they operate and maybe extend the time before they would fail giving you a relatively safer storage space.

By: gill bates

gill bates — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:38:37 +0000

my question is how do you decide on which external hard drive to get and which features are really necessary?
for someone who simply wants to get a 1TB drive to use for backing up photos, music, files etc, what features should i consider a bare minimum?

By: Pete

Pete — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 01:28:08 +0000

“Adrian Briscoe, local managing director for Kroll Ontrack, which performs recovery services when drives go bad.”

When Good Drives Go Bad

Coming soon to Seven. lol