External Harddrive Just For Backing-UP
 

I'm in the market for an external harddrive--only to backup project files I'm working on, in case Murphy's Law strikes. Therefore, this external harddrive doesn't have to be fast; it's only for backing up purposes. I already have two large and fast enough internal HDs.

Can someone recommend a solid model that you are happy with and would serve me well in this capacity (no pun intended)? I have a Dell workstation and am using XP Pro. It would be nice to get one that's under $100, but that might be difficult.

This is what I bought last week.
 

I bought an external bay from http://www.icydock.com/home.htm Since I seem to go through drives every couple of weddings, I wanted a hotswappable bay. And the thing from icydock is very well built. I've tried about 4 of my drives, and I only had a slight issue with one drive, but we figured out it was the drive itself. The benefit to this type of device is, you get to choose your drive. If you buy an external, you never will know what you will be getting inside, and the weakness of most externals seems to be the casing.

I have no problem recommending this thing from icydock. I am impressed with the construction. And my experience with thier tech support is outstanding.

My heartfelt advice is to buy TWO drives for back up. I have had several die on me without reason, so I
took to the process of always backing up important (on going) projects to
two hard drives. One is always "off-line"- unplugged from both
CPU and wall power.

I am on Mac, so I use carbon copy cloner. A great little program and
each day I "clone" to one of the two drives.
That way if both the main internal CPU
drive dies AND a back up dies, I only lose one day of work.

I bought a drive enclosure and trays from Granite Digital and I get
250 gig seagate barracuda mechanisms from New Egg for <$100.00.
*Finished projects* get saved on a cuda drive and then that mechanism is
then pulled from the tray and safely stored.

Just got one myself a few weeks and so far I'm happy with it. Western Digital "My Book Essential" USB 500 gig. Got it on special at Best Buy for $300 Canadian, about $250 US. Get at least 3 times as much space as you think you need <grin>

I've had to do some editing to this thread. Please try to just address the technical issues and avoid generalizations about the quality of products built in different countries because that quickly degenerates into political arguments.

This will be a naive question, I'm sure, but the external HD doesn't have to be
connected around the clock, correct? I would only connect it and use it
after making project changes--if you understand what I'm trying to say.
In other words, what's on the HD will stay on the HD whether it's connected to the PC
or back inside it's original box, for example.

I would imagine you could unplug it, etc. The thing I bought has a power switch. I also love the hotswappable function.

That's correct - you use the 'remove hardware' tool in the system tray in windows to disengage the drive and then unplug it if you like. Plug it back in and it immediately reappears in the drive list. One of the selling points of the Western Digital drive I got was it automatically powers down the drive when you turn off the computer with it connected and powers it back on when you turn the computer on again, a very convenient feature.

The way mine is configured is
C: 2 x 250G SATA drive RAID(0) for 500 gig total - OS, programs, documents, windows scratch file
D: 200 gig EIDE - Project files, video capture, photoshop and audio scratch files
E: 500 gig USB external - music library, loop library, picture library, backup

Microcenter has a Western Digital 500 GB external (USB) drive on sale for around $170 after rebate. That's about as low as I have seen. I'm also on the lookout for one just for backup purposes - Christmas time is a good time to finding good deals.

So Many good models to choose from. I'm assuming Seagate is popular; the Seagate ST3300601CB-RK 300 GB for only $150.00 is also alluring. That's an incredibly good price. Thanks for all the replies.

IMO, keep your backup drive DISCONNECTED and UNPLUGGED too
unless you are backing up to it. That way if you take a lighting hit
(rare in winter)
or experience a big power surge, your backup drive is off the grid.
If you carry it around with you, treat it with CARE, which means
at least a padded case and gentle handling. Oh, and in winter it
gets really dry. Electronics don't like receiving huge static electricity
shocks anymore than you do. I've had computers crash from them.

Here is an area I might be of help in....I work a normal day job as a director of information technology for a manufacturing company. As part of my job responsibility i have to make sure everything is backed up. Our archive is a 14 day Archive, with another backup done every quarter. To do that, we purchased a rackmount hard drive system from a company in reno called high-rely. www.high-rely.com The system uses the icy dock hard drive modules, and we have been extremely happy with the system. They have enclosures for 1, 5 and 7 drive combos. We have 2 of the 7 drive systems connected via e-sata, and they work great.