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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 9:52:03 AM

SugarMyChurro

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Jeez folks, we are talking easy solutions here. Thumb drive? Generally speaking I'd say it's too small, but they are getting larger capacity as things progress. RAID drives? Yeah, I doubt most home users want to get into it. Beside that you are only as safe as your ability to replace the drives there too. With RAID you are talking about needing to safeguard up to the minute data - which most home users do not need. Overkill much?

The huge benefit of one or two external drives is that they won't get used much and are pretty much their own isolated systems - they have their own enclosures, their own power supplies, and are easily replaced. They don't even have to be the identical drives. And for around $100 you can get 500 GB drives. That's a lot of space. Plenty for most casual users. When one craps out on you, you buy another.

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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 10:57:13 AM

LaTigresse

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Regardless of it being a home computer, if Aileen is anything like me with her photos......and I think she is..... two backups of the same data, stored in two different places, is what allows me to sleep at night.

I back up weekly to monthly, depending on the number of photos I've taken.

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My twisted, self deprecating, sense of humour, finds alot to laugh about, in your lack of one!

Just because you are well educated, articulate, and can use big, fancy words, properly........does not mean you are right!

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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 12:40:30 PM

Aileen1968

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Well I just bought a 500GB external hard drive for about $100. Now I just need to figure out how to set it up.

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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 12:53:35 PM

DomKen

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

Well I just bought a 500GB external hard drive for about $100. Now I just need to figure out how to set it up.

Should be pretty simple. Plug it into the wall and plug the USB cable into the drive and the puter. Unless it came with an installation CD it's plug and play and that's all you'll need to do.

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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 2:36:04 PM

LaTigresse

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

Well I just bought a 500GB external hard drive for about $100. Now I just need to figure out how to set it up.

If I was able to do it, you will have no problems.

Not since one of the kids was in the emergency room have I felt such panic as when my old computer began to crash and I realized I had no backup of hundreds of photos. Now it is a religioun to me.

_____________________________

My twisted, self deprecating, sense of humour, finds alot to laugh about, in your lack of one!

Just because you are well educated, articulate, and can use big, fancy words, properly........does not mean you are right!

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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 2:44:07 PM

farglebargle

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

Well I just bought a 500GB external hard drive for about $100. Now I just need to figure out how to set it up.

Stick everything you care about in My Documents.

Copy My Documents to the external drive.

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ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 3:05:33 PM

ownedgirlie

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Aileen1968

Well I just bought a 500GB external hard drive for about $100. Now I just need to figure out how to set it up.

Plug it in, move the data.

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Good is the enemy of great.

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RE: Backed Up - 5/28/2008 4:20:06 PM

LadyQuirk

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External hard drives are great! Especially if your machine will back it all up for you on schedule in the middle of the night. Mine won't, or at least I haven't figured it out yet.

Yet another one of the glories of being a Mac and running Unix? No data exploding crashes. BUT- and this is for everything- the power grid in this country (USA) is two breaths away from garbage. Old infrastructure, and in a lot of the South it's especially strained. The Gulf Coast where Rita and Katrina hit are spit and bubble gum.

Why do you care? Because line voltage fluctuations are less than will set off a surge protector but enough to really toast up a computer over time. This is the Unix weakness and pretty bad for the Evil Empire machines, too. You need a battery backup thing called power cleaner and you'll have amazingly fewer problems. Like that infamous PC crash and burn. At the root that's poor design, but steady clean voltage helps. Tips the odds your way. The bitch of lap tops is plugging them into the wall...
Your $3k television likes clean power too.

I have offsite back up at .Mac. The machine backs up automaticly on Tuesday and Friday at 3 AM to a storage facility somewhere Apple has hidden it. I don't have to do it, I can get my stuff from anywhere, anytime, and having had my machine and disks sit in filthy water in New Orleans for two weeks I don't think a safe is good enough. But New Orleanians are really neurotic people now. Just try to imagine having all bookmarks and your phone book gone.
You can get offsite back up all over for cheap, even free; I just got mine with the new monster machine. And nobody in the Bayish Area will be fazed if fetish porn pops up LOL. The beauty being that the machine will take care of itself. Do not underestimate this. DVDs are great- if you remember to do it.

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Post #: 28