Backup external HD

[gsteffens]

I'm looking to get a hard drive to have externally from my gaming rig that I could put backup files onto, such as documents and game save-files and such.

Any recommendations? I don't need an amazingly huge drive, somewhere around 100 GB or less would probably be fine.


What other ways of connecting other than USB would be available, or should I stick with USB?

Thanks much!!

 

[lyecdevf]

Well, there is firewire, which is a lot faster and now eSATA. Both are faster than USB!

 

[gsteffens]

I'm not familiar with that, any link?

 

[saltynay]

I'm not familiar with that, any link?

Wikipedia <--- do it yourself
These are the possible connections
FW400 - firewire - slow
FW800 - firewire - fast
USB2 - slowest
SATA - internal but can be routed out of the case - faster
eSATA - external more convenient - faster
SCSI 68pin
Fibre Channel - fastest
SAS/SATA (Multi-lane)
Lan/NDAS/iSCSI
Pci-express

Is physical size an issue?
Budget?

For that gb capacity then a 2.5" drive is in that area they are small/ robust and can normally be powered through a usb cable. like www.span.com - IEUff120 - MMD2120UB - USB2 - Fujitsu, USB2 Fujitsu portable Drive, Fujitsu HandyDrive - Fujitsu USB2 HandyDrive-III MMD2120UB Portable 14x8x2cm 5400rpm (120gb) Black
For price/gb then a 3.5" option is better although the capacity will be higher. WD elements/ my book or seagate freeagents
1.8" is possible aswell tiny but pricey

 

[BongWizard]

i'd definitely go for something with eSATA interface compatibility here... but that's not so limiting as the speed of the actual drive itself... i'd recommend this one (Newegg.com - GeIL Black Dragon 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory) for a great balance of price and performance... its 500GB, but with eSATA you're really looking at higher end externals

 

[PhikMan]

hey bongwiz...thats a set of dual channel ram...he's after a portable Hdd...

 

[joowan]

i have a 750GB eSATA WD mybook that i have, but i never used the eSATA wire, because it takes years to load, i use the firewire.

but i back years of movies, music, pictures, basically anything i want to keep when i reformat my computer.

and it works dandy since my internal is only 320gb

 

[gsteffens]

I have an ABIT IP35E board, I'm not sure if eSATA would work with it? I'm sorry if I am being ignorant but I'm still pretty new to the custom computer setups... Budget, I'd like to stay under $100 with the reason being I don't need an overly large size, maybe 100GB approx?

We are getting a new desk setup for the computer so extremely soon space will be no issue.

Thanks much!!!!!

 

[Evolv]

You could use an external hdd with a USB 2.0 interface as well. I have a Western Digital Elements to back up my data and has a USB interface. Works really well, I even run some games which are installed on it.