OT: Good External Drive for Backups?

Some recent deals . . .

Off-brand deal: http://dealnews.com/Fantom-1-TB-e-SATA- ... 69334.html

WD deal: http://www.buydig.com/shop/product.aspx ... 200&ref=cj

32 gig thumb deal: http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=STU32GSMBK&c=CJ

Thanks for the replies.

Question about Western Digital. Note I already have software on my PC to do the backups. So should I go with WD Elements in order to avoid the software that comes on WD My Book models? http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=8

It seemed simpler before. A friend gave me an external hard drive, we had no discussions about it, I knew nothing about the drive, brought it home, plugged it in and used it for backups for several years and did a couple of full-image recoveries without any hassle. Simple performance.

Wow. 2TB for a benjamin, after rebate . . .

http://www.macmall.com/p/5822303?dpno=7 ... e=zwb12166

So Well wrote:Thanks for the replies.

Question about Western Digital. Note I already have software on my PC to do the backups. So should I go with WD Elements in order to avoid the software that comes on WD My Book models? http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=8

It seemed simpler before. A friend gave me an external hard drive, we had no discussions about it, I knew nothing about the drive, brought it home, plugged it in and used it for backups for several years and did a couple of full-image recoveries without any hassle. Simple performance.

If you don't want to do anything but plug them in and go so to say then yeah other wise you can get any of them and format them and not have to deal with the software. Your call on that.

Here is the link on how to overcome the CRAPWARE WD puts on some of their newer drive system. For doing this they should be ran out of business. This is not for the faint of heart, but I did it successfully on one of mine. This is a two part operation, and in the end only hides the CRAPWARE, some day they might come up with a way to REMOVE it completely. I only did it to one drive due to the fact I had lots of data on the other and didn't want to loose it.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... _topview=1 Jim

My brother came over Sunday night and left a new WD Elements drive that he had no use for. Monday morning early, I plugged it in and Norton Ghost popped up automatically, "New external HD Recognized. Run Backup?" I clicked "Yes" and three hours later the backup finished successfully. Now that is the kind of user-friendly simplicity I expect.

Brother will bring over an unused desktop this weekend and we will see if we can recover to the hard drive from my new backup. He said it almost always works, but we should do one recovery just to have peace of mind.

GumbyCT wrote:

Most professionals will tell you anything on a spare drive is a "copy" and not a backup. They will insist sensitive data be backed up multiple times to something like a CD, DVD, or tape (back in the day) to give you multiple shots at your data. Because, as you found, drives will/do fail.
HTH

Gumby, I will get another external hard drive and do exactly what you say.

Thanks to everyone who responded.