Recommed Backup External Drive for backup

conuk · 21 Nov 2006 at 23:50

I have a desktop machine and a laptop

Was going to buy an external drive to backup both machines data..... but thought it might be cheaper to buy an enclosure and a drive seperately.

The laptop (dell XPS 1710) has USB 2 and firewire (2 pin???) (1394 - so I guess this wont power a drive on its own??)

desktop has USB and 4 pin firewire...

can somebody recommend an enclosure... Ill take it with me when using the laptop away from home.

I guess connecting with the firewire is faster than USB2 ?

TIA

Jotun · 22 Nov 2006 at 00:57

Most USB hard drives come with a power connector to go to the mains, in addition to the USB connector to the computer. Some hard drives just have 2 usb connectors, the extra one is used to supply additional power to the hard drive. So far I have only seen 2.5" hard drives powered off USB ports, as these consume less power than the 3.5" drives.

Firewire is generaly faster than USB, however more computers have USB support than firewire.

Buying an enclosure and drive separately and putting them together is very easy to do, and gives you more choice regarding case and hard drive capacity, however there are a few good deals now and then, so it's worth keeping an eye out for them, as a decent enclosure is normaly about £20 anyway.

As to what enclosure to get, there is a wide range available from OcUK, it depends on the interface your HDD uses and what size HDD (2.5" or 3.5")

If you can't decide between USB and firewire, or want both, something like this is always an option

conuk · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:25

thanks penguin.

I guess Ill get a box that does Firewire.... but then is it best to get one that supports a Sata drive ?
or will that be slower again due to firewire..... (as opposed to it being sat in the desktop...)

rpstewart · 22 Nov 2006 at 17:29

The connection to the PC will be the bottleneck, whether it's USB or Firewire. If you're buying a new disk to go in it then unless there's a significant price benefit in going with a PATA enclosure I would go with SATA for future proofing, especially if the enclosure supports eSATA as well as firewire (might get a bit pricey though).

Scream · 23 Nov 2006 at 13:06

I've seen a PCMCIA adapter for laptops that allows SATA drives to be attached to the adapter via the usual SATA cable.

It states that it allows speeds of SATA. Is this, the so called eSATA?

I need a new external drive myself and was looking into a SATA with USB+Firewire connection but this adapter might be interesting solely for the reported speed connection. Firewire is ok for speed but when when you need to copy large data that consists of of gigs, you can fall asleep waiting.

Since eSATA is starting to show in desktop machines, it might be worth looking into eSATA storage.