External Hard drive selection help

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mortonman

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#27313 21-Oct-2008 22:31

I am looking for an external hard drive that i can use to back up/free up my 2 laptops with mainly music, photos and some movies.
It needs to have a back up programme that will intelligently back up my files ie only back up the new files.
My 2 laptops are 160GB and 80Gb. I reckon 500GB will keep me right for the time being.
Any suggestions will be welcomed. There seems to be a plethora of very cheap basic ones but i don't see many with the extras.
Also is a fire wire connection worth the extra cost time saving?
I would love to be able to leave the hard drive plugged into my network so the computers can schedule to back up but I don't want to spend more than 200/250 dollars.
Cheers in advance

webup

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#172683 22-Oct-2008 08:17

Nety

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#172712 22-Oct-2008 10:26

An older PC running Microsoft home server maybe? I realise it is not what you asked for but I think it will fit your requirements better then a external hdd ever could and you do mention a network solution.
The software itself is around your budget so the hardware would need to be existing or free but you can run it on a fairly low end PC. If have mine running on an old P4 2.4.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

Other then all the other things it does is

*Home computers backed up daily, automatically

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

freitasm

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#172714 22-Oct-2008 10:34

I recommend Seagate. I have Five Seagate Agent Pro drives here (500GB) plugged to my Windows Home Server. I also have two Seagate Agent Go 160GB and just this week bought a Seagate Agent Go 500GB - very light, thin, and fast. This one is 500GB but doesn't need power like the Pro version. Just a single USB connection.

mortonman

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#172901 22-Oct-2008 21:54

Thanks for your help
I also found a western digital world my book. It can hook up to the home network not the computer so it can always be on.
I will see what i can get over the weekend sales.

rphenix

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#175565 3-Nov-2008 22:00

its always cheaper to buy a HDD case and put a cheap sata drive inside it.

Therefore I would do that.

As for the file transfer backup I use unison for file syncronisations. It does have a (rather poor) GUI but I mainly use batch/bash files anyway so only use the console client. It can do bi-directional syncronisation with deletion tracking. Like rsync it only transfers files that have changed (it only transfers the differences of the file, so it doesnt have to re-transfer an entire file again) useful if backing up remotely.