external hdd

[michael0224]

Hello, I would like to get an external hdd to backup all my data. Should I get a seagate external hdd or buy a hdd enclosure with an internal hdd? What are the different? Are those ext. hdd any good compare to hdd enclosures?

Thanks.

[marin001]

Originally Posted by michael0224 Hello, I would like to get an external hdd to backup all my data. Should I get a seagate external hdd or buy a hdd enclosure with an internal hdd? What are the different? Are those ext. hdd any good compare to hdd enclosures? Thanks.

i have two 40 gb hdd's that was laying around that i took out of two other puters i had laying around and bought two hdd enclosure so that i can at least clean out some of the stuff i in my puter. i got back ten gb of my hdd. so if all you want to do is backup some data i would suggest just buying an ext hdd. - but as for your question an ext hdd is the same thing as a hdd enclosure with an internal hdd. an ext hdd is a hdd enclosure with a hdd inside. i don't know if you can mention sellers here, but pcdirect has a 250gb ext hdd on sale, for a great price. hope this helps.

[glc]

I prefer the separate enclosures and drives. This will let you swap drives in and out of the housing if you eventually get multiple drives. My brand of choice is Apricorn. They come with excellent software.

[michael0224]

I see. Thanks. Another question... I saw there's some push button backup/recovery feature on ext. hdd. Since this ext. hdd. is for someone who doesn't quite familiar with pc. Should I get this fancy one instead? Are those features really good? That guy's pc is a Dell with 2 hdd he got a laptop too... I wonder if the push button thing will bkup all drives... and allow me to set up on different computers.

Please advice.

Thanks.

[not important]

I acquired a 160GB WD external drive that had auto B/U software but it was only good for files and folders. I found it to be more of an annoyance than it was useful.

[glc]

The Apricorn software does full images of drives. You can restore the whole image if the main drive crashes, or you can explore images and selectively recover files. It doesn't run by pushing a button, you have to run the software. It's an OEM version of Acronis True Image, if you are familiar with that. It's very user friendly. You can install it and run it on multiple computers.

[michael0224]

I see. I used Acronis True Image before... but if the system crashed and won't able to load to windows, is there a way to recover data on boot using Acronis True Image?

[glc]

Yep - just boot with the Acronis/Apricorn CD or rescue media with the external drive hooked up and restore the latest image.