hard drive backup

joejon wrote on 10/23/2007, 2:05 PM

I have a lot of 8mm tapes of video that I need to get into another format. Bluray is too expensive yet and it takes too many dvd's. I thought I would put the video files on a hard drive, or should I say several hard drives. I'm looking at the 500Gb drives (I'll probably need 3 of them). Any recommendations on a reliable drive. I would hate to transfer all of the video I have and have a drive go bad. I probably won't be able to transfer them too far into the future since my D8 camera sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, and I won't be able to get another one since they're discontinued. I've had 2 Western Digital (internal) drives go bad, but it seems like they all have problems now. I have a WD drive in a 12 year old computer that still works. Anyway, recommendations would be helpful. This will be a lot of work capturing all this video. Thanks

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 10/23/2007, 2:35 PM

I've got about 40 Seagate 7200.10 320 and 500gig drives and never had a problem with any of them. I buy them all from Newegg.com

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148135.

FuTz wrote on 10/23/2007, 2:40 PM

If I were in your position, I'd transfer everything on 500Gb drives, any brand, then wait a few months when prices drop even more and re-copy again on other drives, different brand or same brand if by then there have been no complaints.
500Gb drives are around 120 bucks now so it's not that much expensive compared to any other way of stocking. Your time *indeed* is more valuable than this, no ? ;)

xberk wrote on 10/23/2007, 2:48 PM

I've stored a lot of my video on Seagate external drives (firewire/USB)..a little more money to buy the external but for long term convenience should pay off.
I'm wondering myself how many of these things can I buy and store? Going to be a nice market for the guys who develop something like 200 gigs on a single DVD. I know I'd be interested.

joejon wrote on 10/23/2007, 6:19 PM

I checked the hd out on their web site. I was thinking of external drives, but thought maybe it would work to get the internal drives you recommended and getting an external enclosure and swapping out a new drive when I need one. I wouldn't need to use the drives that much once I have my video files on them, only when I need them once I plan on editing. Maybe that's too cumbersome. I don't know, I've never bought an internal drive and encloser before. If you think that's a good idea, what kind/brand of enclosure is good? Thanks

RalphM wrote on 10/23/2007, 6:47 PM

If you watch for sales, you can buy an external drive for little more than the cost of the same drive and a cheap enclosure.

John_Cline wrote on 10/23/2007, 7:07 PM

Unless it's an eSATA external enclosure, you'll find that a USB 2.0 or Firewire enclosure is going to be mighty slow with a sustained transfer rate of around 30 megabytes/sec. I got a Kingwin KF-91 "rack" for my machine and I just pop in the drives as I need them. It's full-speed SATA and has a cooling fan to keep the drives happy.

Kingwin KF-91 rack ($22.99 at Newegg)

Kingwin KF-91-T tray ($11.99 each at Newegg)

John

xberk wrote on 10/23/2007, 7:10 PM

>>what kind/brand of enclosure is good?<<

I've used enclosures of various types with mixed results. But they do work and you get what you pay for. Check Internet reviews etc for quality enclosures. If I remember right, you will have to format the drives that go in the enclosure by installing the drive in your desktop first. But it's very simple to switch drives in the enclosure, although to me it's still a pain. These days, external drives are getting closer and closer in price to internal drives. I've had a few enclosures go bad on me. I don't mess with them now.

reidc wrote on 10/23/2007, 7:26 PM

I've been looking at this unit. External, takes bare drives, a bit pricey:

http://wiebetech.com/products/specsheets/RTX_100_Q_spec.php

any thoughts?

Reid C

UlfLaursen wrote on 10/23/2007, 9:13 PM

I got about 40 Seagate 7200.10 320 and 500gig drives and never had a problem with any of them.

I have had several Seagates too both 7200.9 and .10 and never a problem.

/Ulf

UlfLaursen wrote on 10/23/2007, 9:17 PM

I've been looking at this unit. External, takes bare drives, a bit pricey:

I have an "Icy dock" it was quite cheap

http://www.icydock.com/product/mb559uea-1s.html

with several docks - it works great, and so easy to change drives.

In Denmark I could only get it prebuild with 320 GB disk, but you might get it w/o any in the US.

/Ulf

Jeff9329 wrote on 10/24/2007, 7:16 AM

I don't use an enclosure, I just take a bare drive and connect with a USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA cable similar to this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156101

I have had excellent results. I then put the drive back in the bag with notes and put in my home safe.

A lot of my video/data is not used very often and I am archiving for the future, so I really don't need the drive readily available or even near a computer. IMO, these cables are the best invention in years.

kairosmatt wrote on 10/24/2007, 8:15 AM

I've had great luck with My Books from Western Digital.

I'm thinking about getting a new one. Is there any speed advantage to an external hard drive that uses ethernet instead of USB?

I know there are networking advantages, but thats not too important for me.

craftech wrote on 10/24/2007, 9:15 AM

Since IDE drives are cheap, I use them inside of one of these mobile racks with an IDE to SATA converter attached to the back of the rack. I plug that into an available SATA port. The drive is easily and cheaply changed. When the system boots, whichever drive I have in the rack at the time shows up immediately.

John

joejon wrote on 10/24/2007, 9:45 AM

I've only had external drives that hookup via usb, so sorry for being so dumb about the setup you mentioned. Could you explain further? It looks like the IDE hd slides into the opening and it's not really enclosed, so it would be easy to swap drives, is that correct? What is the converter for and how do I hook it up to my computer? What cables do I need? Have you ordered from this monoprice.com place before? The items you metioned are so cheap ($8-9) that it seems a little strange. Again, I plan on at least 500Gb drives, will that mobile rack work okay with that? Thanks for your input.