External HD to External HD

cormie

Hi,
Following on from this thread, I think I may take the safer route and back up my 250GB Hard drive to another external Hard Drive. I had already intended to do this and I have a 320GB HD ready for the transfer. I have a USB 2.0 External Hard Drive which is home to my 250GB HD. I have 2 more USB 2.0 ports free on the laptop and I also have a firewire port.

I want to transfer all files from 250GB HD to the 320GB HD. I'd like to get another HD case even just for the safety of the 320GB HD and so I wont have to be changing them around etc.

What is the best way to do this and what HD Case would you suggest for safety speed and over all performance?

How long do you think it would take to transfer 250GB of data from one to the other?

any help appreciated:)

Random

Maplin Blanchardstown sell a device which allows you to connect the external HDDs together without the need for a computer.

It's E49 or so I think, have a look on their clearance



For piece of mind though, I'd plug them both into a PC and transfer the data manually.

cormie

Hi, thanks but I think I'll just do it over the laptop and save €49:)

Does anyone know if a USB case would be as fast as a firewire? Firewires tend to be about €10 or so dearer.

Anyone have any idea how long it would take?

What's a good case to get?
Thanks

Random

Indeed cormie, I'd go the same way as I said, if only to increase my piece of mind. If I can't see it happening I won't trust it worked!

USB2.0 = 480Mbit/s
Firewire400 = 400Mbit/s

So USB2.0 is in theory faster unless you're using the new FirewireB(800Mbit/s), but then of course your PC needs to have a FirewireB card, which it no doubt doesn't.

The main advantages of firewire is that you can "daisy chain" the HDDs together by connecting a couple of boxes together and just having them show up as one on the PC.

I just order this enclosure myself from komplett http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=123721 - I reckon it'll do the job fine

Average transfer speed is roughly 50MB/s (sometimes more, sometimes less due to various factors) with USB2.0.

So you have:
250000 / 50 / 60 = number of minutes = roughly an hour and a half

And then you have the same to put the data onto the other disk.

RicardoSmith

Why make stuff up? :rolleyes:

Firewire is faster especially if you are moving large amounts of data.

http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

cormie

Ok, well can I put the files from one HD directly to another instead of putting them on my C drive (laptops HD) and then onto the other drive? Which way would be faster? I suppose if I was doing it HD to HD then the max speed I could achieve would be USB2.0 speeds since only one would have firewire, if I was to get a firewire case that is!

Is firewire worth the extra €10 for anything else but speed? What other advantages has it over USB? Is it right that macs dont have USB and only firewire?

Thanks for the help!

Random

RicardoSmith wrote:

Why make stuff up? :rolleyes:

Firewire is faster especially if you are moving large amounts of data.

http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

I don't know much about that website, but if it's tests are conclusive and confirmed by others, then I stand corrected.

kjt

I ordered & recieved this the other day, still to test it out. But I'm not too happy that there's so many wires for the power and a freggin converter is needed... and btw its a 2pin plug

I'd advise putting the hd into your computer too and transfering it that way too

cormie

It's a laptop so I can't put the HD into it and I don't have a pc with USB 2.0

loads of wires?

should it not just be a usb wire and a plug wire?

kjt

its a 2pin plug to a converter... then another from the converter to the case and the usb cable,..... dont 4get the 2pin to 3pin plug.

Just a bit pissed about the plug... and having to convert it. was hoping it would be easy to bring to friends houses and all.

cormie

sure all you need to do is put a pencil in the socket of where the 3'rd pin should go and then you'll be able to put the 2pins in and it should work ok no??

RicardoSmith

You don't have to believe that site. Its common knowledge that FW is superior. But for most uses USB2 is good enough and its more common on PC's.

All Macs have had USB for a lot longer than PC's. But its only the newest models that have USB2. So if you need to work with older Macs FW would better. Theres lots of advantges to Firewire, faster, lower CPU usage etc. However I don't think it will make much of a difference for you. For people working with video or anything where HD speed is critical then FW is the way to go. Of course you can buy a external HD enclosure that has both FW and USB2.

I use a couple of external USB2 drives to backup & transport my data. Works fine. You should use some backup software to manage the backup though. As once you have the data copied the first time. From then on the software will only copy across what has changed. Which is a lot faster.

One issue you might have is that some machines have problems with very large drives. So if you are using the drive to transport the data to other machines you can have problems with that.

RicardoSmith

kjt wrote:

its a 2pin plug to a converter... then another from the converter to the case and the usb cable,..... dont 4get the 2pin to 3pin plug.

Just a bit pissed about the plug... and having to convert it. was hoping it would be easy to bring to friends houses and all.

All external 3.5" drives need an external power supply. Only 2.5" drives can be bus powered (powered from USB or Firewire).

Do you guys ever do any research on the web? I mean you got THIS far...

kjt

Oh btw I'm not stupid^^

Im not annoyed it need power, its that fact it aint you usual plug and thus needs an extra cable, + Plug + has an annoying boxy converter on it!!

NotMe

If you connect both harddrives to your computer by USB or whatever then you can copy from one directly to the other. But copying 250GB would take a long time.

RicardoSmith

kjt wrote:

Oh btw I'm not stupid^^

Im not annoyed it need power, its that fact it aint you usual plug and thus needs an extra cable, + Plug + has an annoying boxy converter on it!!

A little bit of research would have shown that some external HD units (generally the 5.25" ones) have the PSU internal and some (generally the 3.5" units) have the PSU external. Though some of the 5.25" also have external PSU's.

Personally I hate all the cables since the whole point of having a laptop is to save on cluttler and be portable. the and am hoping to replace my external 3.5" drives with 2.5" external units. I really don't need have the junk I'm keeping on my drives.

cormie

any idea how long?

And whats the difference between A) this, this and C) this besides the price? Which would be best to get?

Thanks for the continual help

NotMe

All I know is that it took many hours to copy a 20GB Norton Ghost image from my hard drive to an external hd. I can't imagine how long 250GB would take.

SwampThing

Cormie, why don't you do some tests and find out how long?

The difference is, they're just different models. They're all cheap and cheerful enclosures.
Buy any of them - it'll make no difference.

Anyway, if the data is so important, does it matter how long it takes to transfer?
In fairness, 17 posts later amd it's the same question.

RicardoSmith

NotMe wrote:

All I know is that it took many hours to copy a 20GB Norton Ghost image from my hard drive to an external hd. I can't imagine how long 250GB would take.

Thats insane. Something wrong with that.

I've about 120-160 GB's of data. Wouldn't take more than an approx hour to copy it all to a USB2 enclosure for me. I say approx because I never really do it that way. I generally copy it in smaller chunks, while I'm off doing something else. Once each folder is copied ok, I check the sizes then do the next one. All I know is that I've never spend longer than about an hour doing it. Of course if theres a problem, then you might have to copy something a second time.

What effects the speed in a big way is if theres lots of small files or few really big files. Lots of smaller files takes a lot longer.

kjt

like... 30,000 mp3's for example :rolleyes:

RicardoSmith

kjt wrote:

like... 30,000 mp3's for example :rolleyes:

Exactly. BTW if you listened to 20 mp3s a day. Roughly what, an hour and half a day? It would take you about 3 or 4 years to listen to that amount of tracks. Thats without listening to the same track twice. Makes you think. Personally I've been clearing out all the clutter from my HD's. You tend to hang on to stuff for ages that you'll never ever need.

case_sensitive

Christ, what would you need all that music for?? Going rate for RIAA/EU equivalent fines is about €1500 a song, some Italian DJ just got done to the tune of €2 million, it's not just in the US you know :-p

Why would you use USB enclosures to do this? Why not stick both disks into a PC? (one on the primary slave, one on seconday slave).
Transfer rates would be *marginally* faster, you'd have no power problems (not strictly true I'm sure someone will point out :-).
Instead of spunking €50 on another case you don't need, bring both disks into me, give me the €50 :->
I have PartitionMagic..

cormie

Well the 2nd Case will be for the safer storage of the 320G HD too, and I will want to be putting files on it quite regularly so I think I need the 2nd case. I don't have a good PC so HD Case is the way to go I think!

RicardoSmith

case_sensitive wrote:

...
Why would you use USB enclosures to do this? Why not stick both disks into a PC? (one on the primary slave, one on seconday slave).
....

I thought it was a laptop?

cormie

yup, it is

SwampThing

Cormie, that's alot of data to be holding with no redundancy. What if a drive dies?

For an OS disk, with games, apps etc. the only real loss is time and effort in the setup.
If 320GB+ of user data/music go kerput - mucho wailing and balling and crying.

Just think about it - when you least expect it, or can least afford it, that's when it'll bite ya in the ass!

cormie

yup, that's what I'm doing, the 250GB and the 320GB will have the same files so if one dies I'll have the other to back it up! Files will be going from 250 to 320GB in the big transfer, and then after that, when I am backing them up from my pc, I'll just switch them both on and put the file I'm backing up on both Hard Drives:)

RicardoSmith

I do something similar. Duplicate of data on different 2 drives and a DVD or CD archive every few weeks of the critical stuff. The biggest stuff is music and movies. Which isn't critical. Can always restore from the CD's etc.

cormie

I think the two drives will be enough. I hope!!!

The data may need to be changed so DVD isn't really an option. I know there are RW's but I may as well just buy a 3rd drive if I was to go that route.

How often do HD's fail though?

RicardoSmith

cormie wrote:

I think the two drives will be enough. I hope!!!

The data may need to be changed so DVD isn't really an option. I know there are RW's but I may as well just buy a 3rd drive if I was to go that route.

How often do HD's fail though?

Once is enough

Jammer

i have a 12yr old HDD thats still going...