external harddisk and backup system

Yorky

I back up Outlook Express and My Documents to a DVD once a week which is a bit laborious and the DVD needs erasing every two to three weeks as the weekly back up is about 1.8GB. I was thinking of getting an external hard drive - is it straight forward to back up OE and Documents to this? Just a case of drag and drop for the documents but what about OE? At present for OE, I go to Tools>Maintenance>Store folder>copy>Start>Run>paste>save to folder>burn onto DVD.

There is a 250GB External HD in Lidl this Thursday -are they any good?

I want it to back up automatically but I don't think the Lidl one has the software to do this. If I just got the external hard drive and then installed this software on the PC http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Backup-Softwar...QQcmdZViewItem
would it do the job?

hopeful

I use an external HD to backup data (well...two actually as I have so much rubbish to keep safe).

I use Synctoy from MS which works very well for me to back it all up regularly.

Ruu_Old

Was very poor with my backup routine until I spotted what hopeful posted re: Synctoy a while ago. I have 2 Western Digital MyBooks (2x250GB), you can get them at Komplett.ie for a reasonable price.

Gadgetman496

Another great free backup software is Back2Zip, it's just so simple to use, extremely effective but it only backs up folders (not individual files) & it will backup to an external drive too.
http://free-backup.info/back2zip.html

By the way, Back2Zip allows you to backup in Zip or Standard format(Unzipped) It also gives you the option to overwrite the last backup or to leave the previous ones and create new ones.

Gadgetman496

Yorky wrote:

There is a 250GB External HD in Lidl this Thursday -are they any good?

There's nothing wrong with the Hard Drives from Lidil or Aldi but PC World have a good offer now on a Maxtor Alu External 320GB HDD with 16MB Cache for €119.99..

That's only €20 bucks more for an extra 70GB Approx.

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irlrobins

I'd avoid Maxtor drives like the plague. They're not as reliable as other brands out there.

Gadgetman496

irlrobins wrote:

I'd avoid Maxtor drives like the plague. They're not as reliable as other brands out there.

I've heard some people bitch about Maxtor too over the years irlrobins.

I can only go on my own experience with them & that has been all good.

In fact, I got my first desktop in '86 & it had a Maxtor 20GB HDD which was beefy at that time. That was almost 21 years ago & about ten PC's later that same Maxtor HDD which got used in most of my machines at some stage is still used today as a second HDD in my daughters PC for backing up email.

Maybe I got lucky with that particular one? but I've used many over the years & had no problems with them.

I suppose it all boils down to experience & opinion.

Really? can you go that far wrong with that much storage? for that price?

Read the reviews for the Maxtor drive.
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Reviews/Maxtor_Basics_Personal_Storage_3200_300_GB__6465037

360 View
http://www.maxtorsolutions.com/en/360/?pid=Basics_Basic
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decob

gadgetman496 wrote:

In fact, I got my first desktop in '86 & it had a Maxtor 20GB HDD which was beefy at that time.

1986? 20gig? sure it wasn't 96?

irlrobins

Well every drive that I've had failed was a Maxtor...

Gadgetman496

decob wrote:

1986? 20gig? sure it wasn't 96?

No, I meant '86 & that's why I said for its time it was Beefy.....

I worked for a U.S. based company at the time & they provided it for me :-)

When I look back at it now, it was like having a Terabyte as standard in PC's now....

Can you imagine what it was like 30 years earlier in 1956



IBM 350 1 Ton 5mb Hard disk being delivered in 1956

.

hopeful

Hate to have to move a RAID 5 array of those beasts

SeanW

Yeah, I've started having trouble with Maxtor too, their PATA ones used to be great but my most recent Maxtor purchase was a bit of a mistake.

OP, you might consider getting a pen drive. These are flash based data storage devices and they seem to be getting better. This one in particular
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=327459 might grab your interest, but you may want to get a 4GB one just in case. Like this

Yorky

OP, you might consider getting a pen drive. These are flash based data storage devices and they seem to be getting better. This one in particular
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=327459 might grab your interest, but you may want to get a 4GB one just in case. Like this

Thanks for that but I really want something which will back up automatically to a drive. Is there software available to do this?

Gadgetman496

Yorky wrote:

Thanks for that but I really want something which will back up automatically to a drive. Is there software available to do this?

Yorky,

I already answered that in the third post

What I suggested is very, very easy to use after about 30 seconds training!

Another free App that will do it for you is "Cobian Backup".

Google is your friend here

Yorky

I already answered that in the third post

So you did, sorry! I only back up My Documents, Outlook Express and Bookmarks - is it possible to automatically back these up to a folder and then onto the external drive on a timed basis without having to do anything further once initially set up using this software?

Yorky

I've now got an external HDD, downloaded http://free-backup.info/back2zip.html and set it up to back-up My Documents,Outlook Express store folder and Mozilla Firefox every twenty minutes. It seemed to do it the first few times alright (according to the log) but when I right clicked>properties on the back-up folders within the external HDD, the created time was when I first created it whereas I thought it should have been the last time it was backed-up - is this correct?
I checked the log aagin after a few hours and it confirmed that it had started the back-up process but had not successfully backed up the folders.

The external HDD is now making a clicking & squeaking noise every few seconds.
I uninstalled the back-up software but the HDD is still making that noise- any ideas?

Gadgetman496

Yorky wrote:

I've now got an external HDD, downloaded http://free-backup.info/back2zip.html and set it up to back-up My Documents,Outlook Express store folder and Mozilla Firefox every twenty minutes. It seemed to do it the first few times alright (according to the log) but when I right clicked>properties on the back-up folders within the external HDD, the created time was when I first created it whereas I thought it should have been the last time it was backed-up - is this correct?
I checked the log aagin after a few hours and it confirmed that it had started the back-up process but had not successfully backed up the folders.

The external HDD is now making a clicking & squeaking noise every few seconds.
I uninstalled the back-up software but the HDD is still making that noise- any ideas?

I do know that in cases where you are backing up a folder that is in use at the time of backup (i.e. you are writing to a word doc within the folder) it can do that, but it sorts it the next time it backs up. I don't know if you need to have the backup intervals set to such a small increment as 20Min's?

That would be backing up 72 times a day.... It's your choice of course, but I think it might be a little overkill.

The noise from the HDD does not sound good but it would have nothing to do with the backup software.

Yorky

Thanks for that. It's stopped making the noise now but the drive 'cannot be found'!

BTW,there are two USB plugs on the lead and I am using the main one directly from the external HDD - what is the other one for?

Gryzor

Yorky wrote:

So you did, sorry! I only back up My Documents, Outlook Express and Bookmarks - is it possible to automatically back these up to a folder and then onto the external drive on a timed basis without having to do anything further once initially set up using this software?

i used to use synctoy, till i found syncback..its free aswell (pay version also available), it and has more advanced features than synctoy....one of them being a scheduler

synctoy is good, syncback is better methinks..:D

Yorky

There are two plugs on the end of the lead that connects the external HDD to the PC.


From the Ebay link it's a 2.5" Toshiba. Similar to this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/40GB-2-5-EXTER...QQcmdZViewItem

Yorky

I've plugged both in now and the noise continued for about ten minutes but has now stopped. Would it take that long for the increased power supply to register?

The problem now is that all of my USB ports are in use- three at the back and two at the front. Using SyncBack I have scheduled it to back up once a day so in between times is it alright to just unplug the external drive?

Perhaps I should just get a USB hub such as this one? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/4-PORT-USB-2-0-Hub-for-PC-Laptop-with-POWER-ADAPTOR_W0QQitemZ320098660435QQcategoryZ96866QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Also, do you know how to back-up bookmarks in Firefox? If I have back up the browser, would it save the Bookmarks?

Gryzor

Yorky wrote:

Using SyncBack I have scheduled it to back up once a day so in between times is it alright to just unplug the external drive?

only thing to watch for here is that you're external drive picks up the same drive letter each time you plug it in, or else your backup will fail. Easiest thing to do is go into "Disk Management" and set the drive letter of your external drive to "X" or somthing, then you don't run the risk of a memeory stick robbing the letter on you...

Firefox Bookmark backup

Yorky

only thing to watch for here is that you're external drive picks up the same drive letter each time you plug it in, or else your backup will fail. Easiest thing to do is go into "Disk Management" and set the drive letter of your external drive to "X" or somthing, then you don't run the risk of a memeory stick robbing the letter on you...

How do you actually do this?

Gryzor

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
2. Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you’ll see your drives listed. Identify your external drive.
3. Right-click the drive, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4. Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive letter you want to assign, and then click OK.

After this your device should always be assigned the letter you choose, configure syncback to use this detination letter and you're good to go...