Data storage options?

Hi all,

I was hoping for some advice/tips on data storage options.

Right now I've got a laptop with two 1TB USB 2.0 external hard drives hooked up to it and a primary desktop with a 320GB internal hard drive. When the desktop hard drive fills up I transfer the data to the laptops' external hard drives, but it's kind of slow going due to USB 2.0 speed limitations, so I'm basically looking for ways to upgrade my data storage.

Right now the dual 1TB externals are redundant backups, ie they both have the same data on each of them. They're fixing to fill up so I'm looking to put half the data on one and half the data on the other. Such an arrangement would leave me with no backup however, so I'm looking for possibly a 2TB hard drive to be the redundant backup since one of the HD's already seems to click more than the other and I don't want half my data to be gone if one of the HD's was to fail!

As I see it, my options are as follows-

1. Buy a USB 3.0 express card adaptor for my laptop and buy a USB 3.0 external hard drive. My laptop has an express card slot for this.

2. Buy an eSATA external hard drive. My laptop has an existing eSATA port.

3. Buy a hard drive docking station for internal hard drives. The advantages to this are that internal HD's are somewhat cheaper than external HD's, or at least it seems like you can find more and/or better deals on deal sites for them.

Any ideas on which option is best? Cost is a factor, any other thoughts or suggestions? Anyone else had to decide on something like this? Thanks for any help!

 

Firstly, good to see you are backing up data. So many dont then cry when they loose eveything.

Ill describe my data management below. It may or may not work for you.

I have a laptop a netbook and a desktop on my home network. I have a 1 TB NAS drive which stores all my "live" documents because my desktop doent come off the network I have mapped all my document libraries to the NAS. My laptops do get used off the network so obvioulsy I cant link my libraries like that. In stead I use Free File Sync to sync stuff between the NAS and My laptops. I only sync music and Docs as my DVD collection would fill the laptop HD and Im not bothered about having pics on my laptop.

I have a scheduled backup set up on my desktop that runs once a week and copies the NAS contents and compresses it to a 1TB slave drive in my desktop. Works nicely for me.

Additionally my NAS has an FTP built in so as long as I can get internet I can get access to my docs where ever I am... Which given that I can teather my mobile to my Laptop means anywhere

 

I was going to describe my backups, but I don't think there is a cheap way of doing it. If you want mass storage and redundacy you're going to have to pay. I have a WHS2011, the OS costs $50, with a few large drives you have plenty of data storage and system backup space, but then you have to back that up or have some kinda of RAID, or tape or another NAS which, when you get down to it, these drives aren't inexpensive either. Plus if you don't have the spare hardware for a 'server' then you out there too.
If you want to build in some growth, get a NAS with 2- mirrored 3TB drives.
My storage system consists of 7.5TB (4x2TB drives concantenated as one large drive) bought before the price increase on drives.
Anyways I might of lost you,(I lost myself) but I also burn my data to dual layer DVDs, until BR disks come down.
So basically I have my WHS for file shares and PC backup and my 7.5TB backing up my data from all PCs & the WHS on occasion.

The other thing is have your back ups and files syncing at night or during the day while at work, so the systems are not tied up when you need them.
Also why burden your laptop with being tethered to those drives? hook them up to the desktop maybe?

 

I would also consider adding an online backup service such as Carbonite for your most critical files.

Carbonite runs $59/year and offers "unlimited" data backup on one PC (although they do throttle the backup speeds if you go over 200GB).

The logic is a backup drive only saves data if it remains intact. In the event of theft, fire, flood, etc. backup drives are equally prone to loss or destruction.

I know this first hand: my house was broken into a few years ago; the thieves stole both my main PC and the backup drives. If not for Carbonite, I would have lost 10+ years of photos, music and personal work.

 

I went with option 1:

1. Buy a USB 3.0 express card adaptor for my laptop and buy a USB 3.0 external hard drive. My laptop has an express card slot for this.

Backed up my hard drives in 8 hours, where it was 3 days before. Quite a difference.
Plus, I also use carbonite.
Hope this helps

 

If you go with the internal harddrive option lookout for the seagate barracuda green its half the price of other 2TB drives ATM.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&isNodeId=1&Description=seagate+barracuda+2tb

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2tb-...een-sata-6gb-s-5900rpm-64mb-cache-8ms-ncq-oem

 

Thanks for all the replies, but I just thought of a fatal flaw to my genius plan and noticed another as well. My desktop doesn't even have USB 3.0! Duhh! Also I can't seem to find an eSATA port on my desktop either. What do I need to do to either add eSATA and/or USB 3.0 ports to my desktop? Thanks a bunch.

 

Open up your desktop and check how many PCI slots you have. These are where you plug in the expansion cards to give you extra ports on the back of your PC. You can then purchase a eSATA or USB3 PCI card. Once purchased, install the drivers and shut down. Open the PC, remove the blanking plate from the back of the case, plug in the new expansion card, close up and boot. Having looked a bit more closely, you can also get PCI Express cards too which may be faster.

Easy as that. If you dont have any expansion slots then you may be a little stuck.

http://www.ebuyer.com/163252-startech-com-1-port-esata-1-port-sata-pci-sata-controller-card-pciesata2i
http://www.ebuyer.com/205770-startech-com-2-port-sata-6-gbps-pci-express-esata-controller-card-pexesat32

http://www.ebuyer.com/240329-plexus-usb-3-0-2-port-pci-express-card-10x-faster-than-usb2-0-2portusb
http://www.ebuyer.com/262168-2-port-pci-superspeed-usb-3-0-card-adapter-uk-pciusb3s2