THSCC Forums

Ok, so ive got an older IBM laptop, 40GB hard drive that i want to back up.

Im an inexpensive (ok, cheap) guy, and I dont want to buy a 250 or 320GB external drive only to use a small fraction of it just for my laptop.

Ive also been looking at online back ups. Around $5/month, or $50 a year for ~150GB of space. that looks interesting since its $50 for a whole year, instead of around $80-100 right off the bat.

Im familiar with the pros and cons of each, but I just want something I can back my little hard drive on.

anyone have any other solutions? ive heard of USB sticks being up to 40GB, so who knows. anyone currently backing up online? like mozy.com or idrive.com?

Thanks

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'11 RallyX VP
1998 Integra Type R - track fun
1999 Subaru 2.5RS - dirt fun

www.tigerdirect.com, newegg.com has similar deals. Even a name brand Iomega or Seagate drive is only $65-70 (yes, I know they come with 160GB or bigger drives).

Lots of Hard drives for under $50. Buy the bare drive ($30 for 40GB or 80GB) and a $10 enclosure.

If you don't have huge backup needs, I'm a big fan of just making a mirror of the drive on the machine. If the drive fails, just install the backup drive and be running in minutes (at least that how it works with a Mac).

Do you have an iPod that uses a hard drive? If so, how big? You could easily back the machine up to a >40GB iPod.

Scott

yah, good call on making my own drive. I think my dad has some smaller (40-60gb) hard drives i can use with enclosure and he also has the machine that can easily copy one hard drive to another.

dont have a big enough ipod, just the touch at 8gb.


thanks

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'11 RallyX VP
1998 Integra Type R - track fun
1999 Subaru 2.5RS - dirt fun

my dad found me an online storage for $20/year. the very basic deal. thats all i needed.

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'11 RallyX VP
1998 Integra Type R - track fun
1999 Subaru 2.5RS - dirt fun

I've been looking at adding one of these to our network. It could provide you with a backup place and additional storage over what you have now.

http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Network-At ... 840&sr=8-5

Where did you find an online backup place for $20/year?

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In need of car.

http://www.onlinestoragesolution.com/

its your basic backing up program. with paypal its $15/yr.

we'll see how it goes

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'11 RallyX VP
1998 Integra Type R - track fun
1999 Subaru 2.5RS - dirt fun

keep us informed on how it goes.

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Marty Howard
2011 NASA SE Factory Five Challenge Champion
Track Events Logistics Coordinator - TZC/THSCC
2007 Factory Five Challenge Car.
http://www.mh-motorsports.com

Keep in mind that with the online solutions you'd have to get all that data there somehow. Would you rather pay a bit less and have a copy you maybe update once a month or every other month or pay a bit more now and have something that can back itself up nightly.

ok well small issue with online backup, or at least with the one i chose.

apparently i had a lot of folders that had permission issues. not sure why. but i didnt want to deal with all of that.

$15 was a good deal.. it worked well until I hit a few snags.

What i ended up doing was just getting a free 2GB Idrive account and for now, just uploading my important documents/graphics/pics/stuff i need for work.

thats pretty much what I wanted anyways. Im going to be keeping an eye out for deals on hard drives. i really want a portable one, but i guess a bulky external will do if its the right price.

and yes, internet connection is an issue... ive got to find a solid few hours where my laptop is connected to internet, i am always taking it on the go.

So i may just get an external, but for now, idrive is looking good.

its free for 2GB, or $50/year for 150GB.

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'11 RallyX VP
1998 Integra Type R - track fun
1999 Subaru 2.5RS - dirt fun

True, but to be really safe you need to store the data offsite, and the online solutions offer that.

A Back up tape won't do much good if it burns in the same fire as the PC.

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Marty Howard
2011 NASA SE Factory Five Challenge Champion
Track Events Logistics Coordinator - TZC/THSCC
2007 Factory Five Challenge Car.
http://www.mh-motorsports.com

This is the main limitation of online backup that I've encountered. For large amounts of data (tens of gigabytes), it's almost not feasible, unless you don't mind your initial upload taking weeks to complete.

That said, some online backup services are better than others. Of the unlimited storage options, I've tried Mozy, Carbonite, and Amazon's S3 via JungleDisk. The latter seemed MUCH faster when uploading data than the first two. The downside was that S3 charges for storage AND bandwidth, so while it may start out very cheap, if you're backing up a lot of files that you update frequently, the bandwidth charges will kill you.

What's the ideal solution? For me, I've settled on backing up the sets of data that take up a lot of storage (photos, music, etc) to external drives. For added security, you can keep them offsite (at work, at a relative's house, etc.) For stuff that changes frequently, I use Dropbox and Microsoft's Live Mesh. They give you 2GB and 5GB free, respectively, but the backup process is real time and incredibly seamless. An added benefit is that you can synchronize some (or all) of the data among multiple computers. Just be sure to encrypt any personal information for added security.

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Marek Rozanski

mdroz@me.com
919-648-2433

along the same lines, Both Tiger and Circuit City Online now have 1 TB external drives for $69 Bucks.

Not a bad solution.

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Marty Howard
2011 NASA SE Factory Five Challenge Champion
Track Events Logistics Coordinator - TZC/THSCC
2007 Factory Five Challenge Car.
http://www.mh-motorsports.com

Link please. I need a new HD for photo storage.

EDIT - Never mind. Found it.

2nd EDIT - Does anyone else think that the new Circuit City website looks alot like the Tiger Direct website?

3rd EDIT - Upon further review...Circuit City, Tiger Direct and Comp USA must all be owned by the same company. The websites are virtually identical, prices the same and they all have the same reviews for the same products. Interesting.

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

They were picked up by Systemax Inc. So all 3 sites should look the same, for the most part.

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http://www.greywinds.com