Comments on: Do It Yourself External Hard Drive Backup Solutions

By: Alan Carr

Alan Carr — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 23:48:59 +0000

Thank you for the useful article.

I'm already using Acronis but have had 2 external USB drives die on me in one year, one last weekend. Just sat there making a screeching sound.

Earlier this evening I installed a new 500gb internal SATA drive, intending to run it as a backup. I did that before, so all I had to do was remove my old (original) 80gb drive and plug in the new 500gb drive, to back up my current 160gb.

That's how I did it last time, transferring data onto the 160 and then unplugging the old 80. I didn't want to have to keep pulling the case apart just to plug in a backup drive henced the usb drives - but with 2 dying, OK, I'll open the darn case!

Plugged it in and it just made a horrible noise. Not good.

Unplugged it and tried booting up with my current drive...

Same noise.

So now my backup AND my main drive dead!!

I'm a copywriter, I have clients waiting for work at over $700 each, I also have source files for my own software, not to mention about 5 years of photos, all gone!

The good news - in desperation I tried my current drive in an old spare PC. The bios is screwy in that one and it won't connect to the net plus very old but still fires up. Installed my drive and.. it works!

So it's my computer that's screwy, NOT the drive!

So if you're reading this because your drive is making a horrid noise, try it in another PC before you give up on it

Alan

By: Slatwall

Slatwall — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:42:55 +0000

Cheers for this.

I've been backing up emails, web DB's and office files on to my local HDD and then burning on to DVD.

I do this all manually which is a pain and sometimes don't even get round to doing it when I should.

I have managed to find programs to automate the backing up of my email through thunderbird and also my web DB. So once I buy an external drive I'm nearly there, just need to automate it to backup onto there. Cheers

By: Wayne

Wayne — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 03:23:37 +0000

I have 6 computers I want to back up and Acronis wants a license for each (total $210.) That's getting a little steep. Is there any good free backup software?

By: Mark Schneider

Mark Schneider — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:08:47 +0000

If you have Vista the built in Backup and Restore Center works quite well, even if you only have one of the home versions. I still like True Image because it has never failed me for complete a complete cloning of multiple partitions and multiple operating systems including Linux in a multi-boot setup.
I think a online backup such as Amazons S3 using Jungledisk is a great off site way to go. The prices for storage are so cheap and can be automated.

By: Mike Renna

Mike Renna — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 04:23:53 +0000

you are quoting prices with True Image. That's for 1 machine? As like the other poster, I just get the need to setup backups from several machines in a home network and I just found your blog. Perfect timing!

You say you can backup several machines to the Galaxy. That's a USB device so that 1 machine needs to be on / shared folder, right? In this situation, we are looking to put the external drive (NAS?) in the basement because any 1 machine won't be on all the time.

By: Itbemedg

Itbemedg — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:23:40 +0000

Wow, talk about good timing! I've been wanting to update my backup method/devices and this hits the spot. Thanks for the various reviews.

I knew I could count on you guys!