External Hard Drive Queries (1 Viewer)

Firstly: I'm pretty untechnical so please bear with me.

I'm looking to buy an external hard drive to back up, in the main, photos and music.

Searching Amazon has led to Western Digital devices - any problems so far?

Reading reviews they talk about the formatting systems - FAT32 (I've seen that on the blue screen when the laptop crashes!) and NTFS.

I'm using XP so guess that the drives will run without conversion BUT if the drive is formatted in FAT32 and I upgrade to a Vista machine (which reviewers say requires NTFS) in future will that mean I will not be able to access the data?

Any comments much appreciated.

I bought a WD external drive around six months ago - No problems with XP (just left all the set-up options as the default). What I like about is that the backup software is very user friendly and has incremental back-up which means it will only include files that are new since the last back-up ( this is a great time saver if you do not want to do a full back-up).:t:

Roger, depends on what and how you want to back up? If you want to back up the whole drive I recommend an external drive that comes with software to do this easily, a few vendors sell HDs with one touch capabilities such as the Maxtor Onetouch drives, now on MkIII. If you only wish to back up pictures or extend the storage of your PC then any external hardrive will do, choose one that supports your needs and interfaces (USB2 / Firewire etc)
NTFS (New Technology File System) is more secure than FAT32 and you can convert your drives to this quite easily, the system even checks to make sure all the programs will still operate before changing the drive structure. If you buy an external drive it would be better to have it in formatted in NTFS

For an easy guide to converting drives have a read of
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984.aspx
But the maion reasons are
FAT32
A derivative of the file allocation table (FAT) file system. FAT32 supports smaller cluster sizes and larger volumes than FAT, which results in more efficient space allocation on FAT32 volumes.

NTFS File System
An advanced file system that provides performance, security, reliability, and advanced features that are not found in any version of FAT. For example, NTFS guarantees volume consistency by using standard transaction logging and recovery techniques. If a system fails, NTFS uses its log file and checkpoint information to restore the consistency of the file system. In Windows 2000 and Windows XP, NTFS also provides advanced features such as file and folder permissions, encryption, disk quotas, and compression.

Regards Steve

i bought from amazon a 'western digital elements' 500 gig external drive. it needs to be simple for me and it was. connect to mains and usb and it was running in seconds. moved all my music and media stuff over to free up space on my main pc. check out the reviews on amazon?

You don't need to worry about File Systems, it is possible to convert from FAT32 to NTFS without loss of data, so if you start with one and have to change then you can.

Co-incidentally i am just about to order the same one a WD 500gb from Amazon - £84

There really are no technicalities involved: WinXP / Vista has it all wrapped up - just plug 'n play.

Thanks all!

What a resource this group is! All my queries thoroughly dealt with.

thanks

Roger

I put off spending money 'til end of the month.

Haven't backed up to CD for a couple of weeks because I was about to buy the external drive.

Of course I've had a major laptop crash today! - no sign of life at all. Eventually friendly technician brought things to life again but I've had such a nasty shock that I couldn't wait for the post and so visited PC World on the way home.

The result of their advice has been the purchase of a Freecom 400GB for just under £80. Feels very substantial, effectively silent, set up in a couple of minutes and all files backed up in under 30mins. Seems very good value.