External hard-drive storage?

Okay fellas, it's to the point where I need to store personal photo somewhere other than my computer hard drive. I currently have 500+ pics there (some in large format), and thought it might be wise to move them.

Anyone have any thoughts on an external hard-drive, not real expensive, but something decent, or would it be better to just put them on disks? I'm thinking it would be better to have them on an external drive for portability.

Any thoughts/suggestions are welcome

I have a Seagate 'FreeAgent Go' 500GB USB Drive that I like a lot. I believe it was around $75-$80. I use it to (1) keep a backup of my laptop on, and (2) take files back and forth between work and home.

Thanks for the info, poolie! I need to make a trip to Staples and Walmart and see what they have.

I have a Toshiba 320GB external hard drive. I use it for pictures, and important documents just in case something happens to the pc.

My only suggestion is to read reviews, and make sure you go with a solid choice the first time so you don't have to worry about your important files crashing with the hard drive should you just go out and buy one without researching real world opinions.

WW,
You can get a nice 640GB one for just over $100. It is USB 2.0 powered so no need to plug it in. Good if your on the go or you want to take it with you and not have to worry about a power supply.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136473

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148474

I have the 250Gb version of the Western Digital I got from work. They are nice to have.

Thanks for the tips everyone!

MeanMouth, I concur on reading reviews about products. It can save some headaches down the road.

Gonna go checkout those links now, Jim . I like the idea of the USB powered, and not having to worry about plugging something else into an outlet.

A friend of mine bought a 1 terabyte drive for $3.99 (yes three dollars and 99 cents) from goodwill - new and unwrapped. :mrgreen:

wasilvers said:

A friend of mine bought a 1 terabyte drive for $3.99 (yes three dollars and 99 cents) from goodwill - new and unwrapped. :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

:shock: Dang, the folks at the store must not have known what it was. Your friend made out big time! 8)

Waterwings said:

wasilvers said:

A friend of mine bought a 1 terabyte drive for $3.99 (yes three dollars and 99 cents) from goodwill - new and unwrapped. :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

:shock: Dang, the folks at the store must not have known what it was. Your friend made out big time! 8)

Click to expand...

That's what I said! He finds some great deals. Like the Canon Rebel for $60 - The rangefinder for hunting at some other unreal price. Makes me jealous every time.

Tell him next time he finds a deal to buy two, and you'll pay him

External hard-drives are great,remember that they can crash all so.
If you really want to save them i would also put them on a DVD/disc

A backup on disks also is a good idea. May have to start with that first.

If you care about the data use both disks and an external storage drive. Buy good quality archival CDs or DVDs or at least good quality regular disks. The better quality disks will last longer. After you have your data burned to disk, keep them in a fireproof box.

Think about what you have in your PC and if you would want to start over or try replacing some of those photos. I have letters, business templates, tax returns, family photos, basically my entire life in this thing. No way I would get back the years of work to collect all this "stuff" :roll: if my drive crashed.

I use imaging software (Acronis True Image) to create an exact copy of my system on a second internal drive and also on an external 500GB Western Digital flash HD that I store in my safe. If I ever have a problem, I can simply use the image from the internal drive to restore the system to the exact state it was in when I created the image. This software allows for incremental backups, so you can do a backup daily, weekly, whenever it suits you of only the data that's changed. Saves time and drive space. It also allows you to find and restore individual files and folders by "mounting" the image on a virtual HD it creates.

The best part is that you will never have to rebuild your system again. It will always come back just the way you had it setup. Not like some factory restore partition or CD that gives you back the system the way it came out of the box 3 years ago and was just a computer and not your PC.

That's good info, Doc! Thanks .

I've had to do a restore on an older computer before, using the CD that came with the machine. You're right, it took it right back to "out-of the-box" condition. Lost everything else I'd added.