Harddrives and evil hands

[aimeekitty]

socal sakura update
current estimate looks like weekend of March 7th as the best guess!

HARDDRIVE HELP PLEASE:
so,... my computer is full and there's not much I can delete off it, so I need to get a secondary harddrive to help out with all the graphics stuff I'm doing lately.

Any recommendations for extra harddrives?

(or should I somehow make the internal harddrive on my computer bigger? I'm currently using a 160 GB Maxtor inside........ I'm not sure how/what... it's been a while since I've tinkered with my computer.
... my Mac is a dual 2.5 ghz powerpc G5 with 2.5 gb ddr sdram.

.... in other news, look what I made this weekend!

follow the fake cut to more stuff

Comments

harddrives

[somebnllyric.livejournal.com]

Lacie is pretty good for images. I would recommend getting two however, one to backup stuff. I know it sounds overly expensive, but totally worth it, because whatever drive you DO get will fail at some point. it's not an if---will happen. this way you won't loss your gorgeous art!

hope that helps!

[ziggybecket.livejournal.com]

You can find 1TB (1,024 gigabytes) external drives now for around $150 sometimes as low as $100 if you're lucky.

Those will be USB so it will be a slower then your main drive. You can get a Firewire version and that will be just as fast as your main drive, but cost more.

You can get 1TB internal drives for about $100 too. It's up to you how much work you want to put into upgrading your computer. :) Changing the internal one and transferring your data is probably better and cheaper in the long run?

PS: And if you wanna go crazy ass hog wild with storage you can go with Drobo. I have one and it's great! It will protect you from any one hard drive failure, but it is crazy expensive for what you want. But a ton safer.

But I agree, at this point, whatever you do, get two HDs. One to maybe upgrade your current drive and another for backup. Use Time Machine. It's so simple and effortless and it protects your stuff.

Back-ups are a necessity

[amanda-now.livejournal.com]

I second this comment. Always have a back-up.

[rhoboat.livejournal.com]

Get an external! They're not that expensive these days, and any of the big brands will probably work decently. They're also great for backing up files. I have a 1 TB Western Digital MyBook I use for vidding. :)

[merrycalliope.livejournal.com]

I got an external harddrive when I ran out of space and it's great! I store all my music, pics, etc on it and just save the internal HD for actual applications. I was dubious about it at first but now I'm in love. ^o^

[slave-to-anime.livejournal.com]

Hard drives are cheap, especially relative to that system. If in doubt, just do some basic mirroring and buy 2 drives. If it's really important, look into robust backup solutions. A couple of terabytes shouldn't set you back more than a few hundred. For media, that's plenty.

You could upgrade the internals, but that's going to be dependant on your system. That said, implicitly, I'm guessing you have a PowerMac? Does it have slide in drive bays? You might just be able to buy a hard drive and stick it right in as a secondary.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I'm worried, because while looking on the amazon reviews of both seagate and wd 1 tb external drives, .... both had a significant amount of 1 star reviews saying things about the drives failing after a few days, or at any point...

I'd like to get 1 tb, probably. the most important thing is getting something that is supremely reliable. I can't afford to loose data, and I"m not sure I have time to have double redundancy on everything.

*_*

It's been a while since I opened up my computer... how can I find out if it has slide in drive bays? I have a Dual PowerPC G5

[slave-to-anime.livejournal.com]

Well, you counter local failures by keeping mirrors and offline backups. If you're using OS X 10.5, one thing that can help is having an extra hard drive in your system set up as a Time Machine drive along with that large drive, since that'll also keep revisions. For the paranoid like me, I keep my photo data on 2 external drives, of completely different make/model, both of which I keep powered off when I'm not reading or writing to them. It at least reduces the odds of a failure to an acceptable level for saved pics.

For the data that's critically important, cannot lose stuff (job related, for example), then there is really no avoiding looking into an offsite (read: probably online) solution to help. You'll probably want to inquire around work for recommendations about that, since that's beyond the scope of my knowledge.

Urg, I looked up the spec sheet for the Powermac G5 and actually, I guess it doesn't have the slide in drive bays (I guess they started them only on the Mac Pros). So I guess you'll have to put in one drive more conventionally.

[miss-jane.livejournal.com]

I have a sexy Maxtor external drive. My boyfriend got it for like, 47 bucks.

Actually, I just talked to him and there are only 4 left. Sorry :S. But external drives are really cheap if you know where to look (check Staples :3!)

[amanda-now.livejournal.com]

For less than $200 you can a whole tetrabyte now, externally. That's what I do, anyway. I use Maxtor and Seagate.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd vote for a Flash Drive over External, but that's because of my experience with an external hard drive. It 'tipped' over [no great fall off a table or anything] and I've lost everything. I might be able to get it back, but it'll cost me anywhere from $300 - $3000.

Unfortunately Flash Drives only come as big as 64GB [but they're basically indestructible]

If you do go for a external hard drive I'd recommend avoiding Fantom [that's the one I had]

I hope you find what you're looking for!

[ruggels.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest first backing things up using Carbonite (www.carbonite.com) its $50.00 a year for unl;imited size back ups, and as such, you could have your stuff backed up while you look for another drive, when drives get full they are on the edge of fialure di3s to the aworkthey ned to do minus useable swap soace. Backing up on Carbonite takes about a week (leaving your ocmputer on all the time), but after than it's invisible and painless.It's for P.C. nly at the meoment but a Mac version is supposed to be out within a month or two. Thsi has saved my bacon more than once.

Scott

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

thanks for the warning and advice! I have about 3 gb free now that I've backed up and removed some stuff, but it's only a matter of time before I hit the wall again, (I'm sure I will within the month) so I want to do preventative measures.

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

I'd go with the internal, too, just 'cause they're cheaper proportionately. Something else to consider: make backups onto disks, ideally DVDs-- at 4.3 gigs it can be slow going but at least it'll be harder to loose the data.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

yeah, I'm backing up a lot on dvds lately, but it gets a bit "ugh".

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

Heh... yeah, I know what you mean. On the other hand, I've lost a hard drive to a catastrophic damifino situation without backups and that was a BIG "ugh". ^_^

[hezmanagirl.livejournal.com]

We just got a Seagate 1T external drive for about $100. Our last computer totally imploded a few months ago so we're not taking any chances with our new harddrive.

I'd also like to add that I'm such a dork I'm still laughing that you spelled it "bewbs" and it took me a few seconds to figure out what you meant. *facepalm*

[batchix.livejournal.com]

omg that's awesome! left hand ftw!

[unmei-no-yume.livejournal.com]

I am not a huge fan of Maxtor and neither are my nerdy computer friends. A few of us have had teeeerrible experiences with Maxtor which only fed our distrust of it so I'm surprised to hear you haven't had problems with yours. I hate to stick to big name brands but Seagate and Western Digital are really pretty good and reliable. In general as others have said, hard drives have gotten cheaper. You can get a terrabyte for almost half of what it cost a few years ago. If you are getting an external I highly suggest making sure you have firewire and such because that makes transfers go a LOT faster. there are quite a few specs to look for as well, including security features. I will gladly ask my bf and other friends for input. Is there a particular size or any other requirements you're thinking of?

Costco, btw, usually has some decent deals. I highly suggest either buying from them or from another source online. I don't know if you have a Fry's near you but while they SEEM like they have good deals, on this sort of thing - not always. I've gotten pretty wary about Fry's "good deals" over the years.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I'm worried, because while looking on the amazon reviews of both seagate and wd 1 tb drives, .... both had a significant amount of 1 star reviews saying things about the drives failing after a few days, or at any point...

I'd like to get 1 tb, probably. the most important thing is getting something that is supremely reliable. I can't afford to loose data, and I"m not sure I have time to have double redundancy on everything.

[theangrystar.livejournal.com]

I also suggest getting a back up drive. ;( I my laptop harddrive failed and I lost sooo much.

[dlgr.livejournal.com]

1 Terabyte ((1,000 gigs)) go for like $129.99-$149.99 noawadays...if you fill that all up I will worry about you. lol!

[supergrouper.livejournal.com]

Western Digital's "passport" portable hard drives. They run on USB power and are tiny- I carry mine in my purse. No more lost data. I :heart: my pasports.

[rei-0.livejournal.com]

I managed to get a 1tb western digital external drive from Newegg for about $100 before Christmas.

As for actual backups, I tend to use dvds. Although my most important stuff fits nicely onto 1 or 2.

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

wow, Am I a dweeb for knowing that it was D's hand before even clicking on the link? Why yes, yes I am!

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

no, that makes you cool.

[snapdragon76.livejournal.com]

:DD