Hard Drive Prices Skyrocketing

[Sign-Man Signs]

I must be the only one using a external/portable hard drive for all my files. 500 gb, usb connection. After losing internal hard drives finally went portable and haven't had a problem yet. What am I missing..oh yea, back ups. Sorry. $59.00 dollars at Best Buy or Walmart.

 

[James Burke]

On a side note I just got one of those cool SATA dual docking stations this weekend (called a Black Widow)...kinda looks like a toaster...and all I have to do is drop in a drive to access backups or anything I keep in long-term archives. At the end of the day, it goes in the fireproof lockbox.

JB

 

[WildWestDesigns]

In my experience, you either get good externals or bad ones. They either last years it seems or a month or two. Just have to be careful.

 

[SignBurst PCs]

I would never store my data on a consumer grade external. Backup, maybe, but not my primary data store. They use cheap drives and even if you don't run into overheating, you are probably going to lose the drive sooner than later.

If I had to use an external at all, I would get a high end drive and use a caddy (such as the Black Widow mentioned above) and make frequent backups. Even better, get a USB3 capable caddy (if your computer is equipped with USB3). It makes data transfers and backups so much faster.

 

[Sign-Man Signs]

I would never store my data on a consumer grade external. Backup, maybe, but not my primary data store. They use cheap drives and even if you don't run into overheating, you are probably going to lose the drive sooner than later.

If I had to use an external at all, I would get a high end drive and use a caddy (such as the Black Widow mentioned above) and make frequent backups. Even better, get a USB3 capable caddy (if your computer is equipped with USB3). It makes data transfers and backups so much faster.

Each his own I reckon. Been using mine for over two years now. What works for me may not be what works for others. Just saying.

 

[choucove]

Casey isn't alone in his recommendations to not use external storage as your primary storage. I'm definitely one of those people who has seen plenty of external hard drives fail and fail hard.

Just last week I had a lady come into my office with two external hard drives. She had just bought both 1 TB Western Digital external drives less than six months ago, and had ALL of her home business's data on them as that's what the store clerk told her to do. Guess what, they both had hardware failures! Sent them off to Data Recovery Services and she's looking at over $1,000 to have information recovered from both drives. And no, this is not the first time I've had customers in this situation.

Now, it just seems so much more feasible to spend the extra $40 - $50 and get a high-quality enterprise hard drive up front than the cost of the data recovery when the cheap drive fails. External backup drives are intended just for that - backup. Don't learn the hard way.

 

[phototec]

Even better, get a USB3 capable caddy (if your computer is equipped with USB3). It makes data transfers and backups so much faster.

Casey, Can you add USB3 to a computer that only has USB2?

Is there a PCI board available with USB3 option?

Just asking.

 

[choucove]

Rosewill USB 3.0 PCI-Express x1 card