Hi
(1) External HDD
Looking for advice/recommendations for a powered external hard drive, to sit on the desk rather than portable.
My hard drive failed a couple of weeks back: luckily most files were backed up online. What I missed was a quicker way of retrieving them instead of downloading... fast broadband where I am isn't very fast! Still not quite through getting it back. Something here would be much easier in an emergency, with the online as a fallback. I did have this "double cover" with an external drive, but sod's law -- it bit the dust a few months ago and I hadn't got round to replacing it. After years without problems I'd got a bit complacent, thinking 'oh well, it's backed up online'. Well, most of it was (not quite all) and it saved my bacon, but I won't make the same mistake again!
The one I had, from quite a few years ago so it did extremely well, was a Maxtor/Seagate One-Touch with its own backup software and power supply, but if the new one doesn't have inbuilt software I can get that separately (see below).
As it's for the desk, I'd rather have something robust, not small, light and flimsy that could easily be knocked or pulled off. The Maxtor was good as it was chunky and weighty (about 1.5 kg). A good shape as it didn't have flat smooth surfaces like I see now: the metal casing was itself mostly encased in a protective nonslip rubbery-like compound (protection against knocks and drops, and stop it sliding round), shaped so that whichever way it was orientated it only rested on a small part of it, leaving a couple of mm space beneath the main body -- handy when I accidentally knocked over drinks near it a few times, as it just ran underneath.
It was utilitarian/functional rather than pretty: fine with me, as with an important job to do it needed to be workmanlike. Modern equivalents I've seen now seem to go for "nice and shiny" instead! -- but I wonder how robust they are in comparison. I've looked online at Seagate's current offerings, but it's hard to tell how "solid" they are. From their range the powered Expansion Hard Drive is probably nearest to what I'm looking for. Dimensions are slimmed down from my old one and it's about a third less weighty, but doesn't look as lightweight or slim as a couple of other makes I was shown in a local store -- they only really had quite small ones meant to be portable. Alternatively there's the Seagate Backup Plus Desktop with its own software, also backs up social network content (not sure I'd really need that).
Also looked at Western Digital 2TB at Amazon, but a number of reviews complained it didn't last long. Some for the Seagates were similar, though I don't think as many. I get the impression it's a fact of life that external hard drives may have a short life??
Anyway, if anyone uses something "chunky" on their desk and found it reliable, I'd be glad to know :)
Currently running XP and have USB 2.0 (will change to Win7 before too long). My drive's divided into 4 partitions if that's relevant. I'd like a fair amount of space to allow for expansion, so at least 1TB but preferably 2TB.
(2) Backup software (included or separate)
Main requirements:
-- Differential backup with flexible scheduling.
-- Windows Explorer-style interface with tick boxes to include/exclude drives, folders and individual files when backing up or restoring. I'm used to seeing files and folders exactly as I do in Explorer with real filenames.
-- If possible, able to restore to a different system.
With having the online backup already I don't need extra cloud storage, though if it was good and thrown in or cheaper, I'd consider it.
The Maxtor with its own software was ideal, did everything I wanted, had the Explorer style I liked in both directions, and the "One Touch" button for one-off backups at any time between schedules: quick press, and away it would go (haven't seen anything like that now so far).
Free software would be nice if it works as I like and is reliable, but within reason I'll pay for safety and peace of mind. I've seen Acronis, but then saw some poor reviews. I thought EaseUS Todo seemed well worth considering? But I've no experience of these and there are many other choices, so observations welcome.
Reviews often talk about how something is to set up and use, which is very important too, but not so much how it goes when backups are actually needed after a failure. Those I've seen quite often seem to have tales of woe when they found too late the software handling the backups hadn't done this, that or the other while backing up or restoring, and they'd still lost data as it wasn't accurate and dependable.
I'll probably also go for imaging which I've never done before so know little about (so it needs to be simple!). Macrium Reflect? -- although EaseUS Todo seems to have this ability as well as normal backing up.
Many thanks :)
(1) External HDD
Looking for advice/recommendations for a powered external hard drive, to sit on the desk rather than portable.
My hard drive failed a couple of weeks back: luckily most files were backed up online. What I missed was a quicker way of retrieving them instead of downloading... fast broadband where I am isn't very fast! Still not quite through getting it back. Something here would be much easier in an emergency, with the online as a fallback. I did have this "double cover" with an external drive, but sod's law -- it bit the dust a few months ago and I hadn't got round to replacing it. After years without problems I'd got a bit complacent, thinking 'oh well, it's backed up online'. Well, most of it was (not quite all) and it saved my bacon, but I won't make the same mistake again!
The one I had, from quite a few years ago so it did extremely well, was a Maxtor/Seagate One-Touch with its own backup software and power supply, but if the new one doesn't have inbuilt software I can get that separately (see below).
As it's for the desk, I'd rather have something robust, not small, light and flimsy that could easily be knocked or pulled off. The Maxtor was good as it was chunky and weighty (about 1.5 kg). A good shape as it didn't have flat smooth surfaces like I see now: the metal casing was itself mostly encased in a protective nonslip rubbery-like compound (protection against knocks and drops, and stop it sliding round), shaped so that whichever way it was orientated it only rested on a small part of it, leaving a couple of mm space beneath the main body -- handy when I accidentally knocked over drinks near it a few times, as it just ran underneath.
It was utilitarian/functional rather than pretty: fine with me, as with an important job to do it needed to be workmanlike. Modern equivalents I've seen now seem to go for "nice and shiny" instead! -- but I wonder how robust they are in comparison. I've looked online at Seagate's current offerings, but it's hard to tell how "solid" they are. From their range the powered Expansion Hard Drive is probably nearest to what I'm looking for. Dimensions are slimmed down from my old one and it's about a third less weighty, but doesn't look as lightweight or slim as a couple of other makes I was shown in a local store -- they only really had quite small ones meant to be portable. Alternatively there's the Seagate Backup Plus Desktop with its own software, also backs up social network content (not sure I'd really need that).
Also looked at Western Digital 2TB at Amazon, but a number of reviews complained it didn't last long. Some for the Seagates were similar, though I don't think as many. I get the impression it's a fact of life that external hard drives may have a short life??
Anyway, if anyone uses something "chunky" on their desk and found it reliable, I'd be glad to know :)
Currently running XP and have USB 2.0 (will change to Win7 before too long). My drive's divided into 4 partitions if that's relevant. I'd like a fair amount of space to allow for expansion, so at least 1TB but preferably 2TB.
(2) Backup software (included or separate)
Main requirements:
-- Differential backup with flexible scheduling.
-- Windows Explorer-style interface with tick boxes to include/exclude drives, folders and individual files when backing up or restoring. I'm used to seeing files and folders exactly as I do in Explorer with real filenames.
-- If possible, able to restore to a different system.
With having the online backup already I don't need extra cloud storage, though if it was good and thrown in or cheaper, I'd consider it.
The Maxtor with its own software was ideal, did everything I wanted, had the Explorer style I liked in both directions, and the "One Touch" button for one-off backups at any time between schedules: quick press, and away it would go (haven't seen anything like that now so far).
Free software would be nice if it works as I like and is reliable, but within reason I'll pay for safety and peace of mind. I've seen Acronis, but then saw some poor reviews. I thought EaseUS Todo seemed well worth considering? But I've no experience of these and there are many other choices, so observations welcome.
Reviews often talk about how something is to set up and use, which is very important too, but not so much how it goes when backups are actually needed after a failure. Those I've seen quite often seem to have tales of woe when they found too late the software handling the backups hadn't done this, that or the other while backing up or restoring, and they'd still lost data as it wasn't accurate and dependable.
I'll probably also go for imaging which I've never done before so know little about (so it needs to be simple!). Macrium Reflect? -- although EaseUS Todo seems to have this ability as well as normal backing up.
Many thanks :)