Best Hard-Drive Backup Method?? (1 Viewer)

[Phil_L]

I use a laptop almost exclusively, because i often need to take notes on the go. I also have a desktop at home that i rarely use, but both computers are hooked up to the same router, though not networked. What is the best method for backing up my laptop hard drive? Should I buy an external hard drive and use back up software? Any advice?

PS: I will be backing up mostly Word files and mp3s.

 

[SethH]

I would buy an external drive (usb 2.0 or firewire). Hook it up to one computer and make it a shared drive. That way you could use it to back up both computers. Go ahead and get one that is a ridiculous size (around 200GB+) so you've got plenty of room.

Just a note: this is not the ideal backup method. hard drives are mechanical parts that WILL fail. One of the key ratings of hard drives is the MTBF (mean time between failure). But, if you've got the information on 2 hard drives, the chances of them both dying at the same time is very slim. If any of very data is extremely important I would suggest getting a ThumbDrive or JumpDrive to backup to also. These have no moving parts, so are unlikely to fail. They are also not affected by magnets like a zip disk would be.

 

[Andrew Pratt]

I'd go the external DVD burner route. It'll be useful for backing up other media and will give you the option of off site storage...there's no point having a back up of your PC going up in flames along with your laptop should a fire break out etc.

 

[Parker Clack]

I would get an a USB flash drive like this. You can get them in various sizes.

Since you are mostly concerned about backing up word files, etc. I would just dump them off to the flash drive and then over to your PC. Once you have dumped off the files to your PC then clear the USB drive and start over. This is something that you could just put in your pocket and go.

Then later once the drive on your PC gets overloaded with all the word and .mpg3 files you could look into burning them off to a DVDR or even an external HD.

Since you aren't wanting to back up the whole hard drive of your laptop each time I think that for portability and ease of use that a USB flash drive would give you what you are looking for.

Parker