External HDD option - necessary?

[Lord Prism]

I'm going to use a Western Digital 20GB HDD as a drive to back up my data. I currently have it installed under my 80GB Maxtor but it's not 'plugged in.'

I don't have it plugged in because it's an ATA100 and I don't want it to slow down my ATA133. BUT ALSO, I don't want it to get damage if the pc gets hit with an electrical blast (lightning or whatever). I'll just plug it in each week to do the back up and then unplug it again.

It occurred to me that the 20GB HDD could be damaged ALSO if the pc WERE to take a Hit! SO, I'm wondering if an external HDD case with a 1394/USB2.0 would save my data in this situation.

What do you think, is my 20GB safe or is the External HDD necessary?

TIA

[Force Flow]

There isn't much a difference between ATA100 and ATA133. You really only see the difference when capturing analog video, but even that is negligible.

As for lightning, you may want to invest ina surge protector. Btw, I haven't heard of hardly any comps being fried by lightning. NC isn't know for electrical storms, is it?

As for the external drive, definatley go firewire if you plan to get one. Yes, it will probably be saver than an internal drive. I know several people who buy them for the purpose of data backups.

[Lord Prism]

I have a UPS so I hope that will help.

Thanks for replying

[edrod13]

Just remember that even a hard drive that is not hooked could not boot up the next time you try it. I used to try and backup all my important stuff on an extra drive but then realized that maybe I should just burn to CD's what I really could not live without. For me that was the 500 or so pictures I have taken so far off my family with my digital camera. I have like 12GB of MP3 and what not and I just am not going to worry about that if my drive dies. Anything else to me I could just live with but losing those pictures would be very upsetting. Dont get me wrong, I have them on my spare drive but just have them on CD's. My two cents.

[glc]

You will not slow anything down if you use an 80 wire cable and cable select jumpering - that's an old wives tale.

External devices are always the best backup option and Firewire seems to work better than USB 2.0 for hard drives.

[TwoRails]

Hi Lord Prism,

Haven't seen ya for a while!! As mentioned above, running a ATA 100 and 133 together will Not slow either down.

www.newegg.com has enclosures to turn a regular HD into an external unit. The have USB, Firewire, and USB + Firewire models. The nicer units are about $70 - 80.

TwoRails

[strossos]

idea:

a raid 1, for mirroring your hdd... how it works is the data is duplicated to 2 drives.. so if one fails the other will still have the data on it.

and if u have a decent surge protector and and make sure to turn off your computer when there is lighting hitting the poles outside, there is just about no chance of data loose from it.

[Lord Prism]

WOW, thanks for chiming in!

Ok, so two an ATA100 on a ATA133 HDD/cable & mobo will not bottleneck the pipe - I understand now.

I regularly back up CRITICAL files to CDs. Photos of family go on the Family CD, Kids pics go on the KIDS cd, MS Money and Quicken Business files go on the Finance CD, etc. I've lost critical data before so double back up is great redundancy for me.

The external drive is going to be necessary for me then - to be safest. Many thanks....