Thinking about using a external hard drive to backup/store my downloads

Slinger · 23 Apr 2007 at 17:40

Right, I would like you guys thoughts on using external hard drives to store files.

The data i would be stored wont be needed everyday, most likely only needed to add more data onto the drive. I am thinking that external hdd is the best route to go,I would use it when i wanted to say watch a film on the drive, connect up to a HTPC, but I am concerned about lets say for instance, me getting a 500 gig external hdd, fillling it with a years worth of downloads, (its been about 37 days and Ive clocked up about 50 gig worth of downloading) and then it fails, where is the back up for this ? I worry about losing it all, and what a waste it would be.

How would I solve this ? getting two 500 gig externals, and coping the same onto each, like mirroring ?

I would apprieciate all your views on this,

thank you

Paul11 · 23 Apr 2007 at 18:56

1) using an external is fine for storing files and watching films etc..

2) yes, have 2 hard drives and copy one on to the other for backup

why dont you have a 500 gb HD in your pc and just one external to back it up.

Slinger · 23 Apr 2007 at 19:50

Paulus said:
1) using an external is fine for storing files and watching films etc..

2) yes, have 2 hard drives and copy one on to the other for backup

why dont you have a 500 gb HD in your pc and just one external to back it up.

This sounds reall good, thx,

Would there be software that I could use to say: auto find files which are new on the 500 in the pc, and then ask to copy them over to the external ? or would it have to be done manually ?

Paul11 · 23 Apr 2007 at 23:15

im sure there is.. but i just copy all my data across once a month..using copy and paste...

ByteJuggler · 23 Apr 2007 at 23:54

Have a look at SyncToy: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/synctoy.mspx

Someone wrote a how-to explaining how to mirror their My Documents on a nightly basis (or something) to a USB drive:
http://www.solo-technology.com/blog...toy-to-make-a-nightly-mirror-of-my-documents/

May not quite be what you want, then again it might suffice.

JayMax · 24 Apr 2007 at 23:00

Never used synctoy - it looks easier to use though, but scheduled batch files with robocopy is what I use in conjunction with scheduled Acronis images.