# Two Situations



## whodunit (Mar 29, 2004)

1. We need to get numerous pics and documents from an assortment of desktops, laptops, phones, and cameras to one storage place.

a. I've heard external hard drives while inexpensive are prone to failure.
b. A friend suggested an SSD and thinks 500gb ought to do it for us.
c. Another friend mentioned a "personal cloud."

Thoughts?

2. My wife's laptop expereinced the dreaded coffee spill on the keyboard and now the screen is black. We are being told that the files are probabnly fine.

a. Shouldn't I just be able to connect my laptop to hers with a USB and 
acess it like a drive.

Thoughts/ideas?

Not computer savvy so keep it simple. Hoping it's something I can do at home because an "expert" requires money and time.


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## painterswife (Jun 7, 2004)

Backing up to the cloud is great if your upload speed is decent.

Get a bigger backup drive. They are cheap and efficient. You will need to pull out the harddrive and put it in an adapter to pull the files off of it. Just connecting with a usb cord will not work.


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## whodunit (Mar 29, 2004)

External hard drive or SSD? Seems like many of the externals get bad reviews and have a high failure rate.

Does the internal hard drive have a plug for an adapter? Is this something a novice can pull off? Would it be the same with our very old desktop that wehave some minor files and may pics on?


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## painterswife (Jun 7, 2004)

whodunit said:


> External hard drive or SSD? Seems like many of the externals get bad reviews and have a high failure rate.
> 
> Does the internal hard drive have a plug for an adapter? Is this something a novice can pull off? Would it be the same with our very old desktop that wehave some minor files and may pics on?


External hard drive allows you to backup all your files from several devices. It will connect by usb or you can get a network one.

This hard drive dock will work well to get files off of the laptop.


https://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Dual...id=1482776375&sr=8-2&keywords=hard+drive+dock


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## AnchorRanchFarm (Nov 17, 2016)

I would suggest backing up to cloud storage using Google Photos/Docs/etc. I really don't like Google as a company...but not enough (yet) not to use their products. Photos, keep in mind, will NOT be saved in the original detail, unless you pay for storage. And one digital photo original can take up a LOT of storage space. But as an actual back-up option this works well and the quality is at least far better than anything achieved before digital cameras.
I would also suggest backing up everything regularly onto an external drive. Solid state or whatever suits your fancy. You can buy or find for free various programs that will do this for you. Hook the external drive to a computer and hook all the other devices to the computer.
This way if the external drive fails you at least have the cloud backup, which though lower quality than the originals is still better than nothing.


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

I have a external drive HDD and I have been using it as a backup disk for many years now and have never had a problem nay friend has the same brand and is doing the same thing backing up his computer on it as well and neither of us have had any trouble the brand is called* G-Drive Mini.* I got mine already formatted for a Mac. 
And he bough his already formatted for Windows. 
Mine hooks up either by Firewire or USB. I use the Firewire connection on my Mac. And its small compact size is nice at 3' X 5" .

G-Technology G-DRIVE mini Review (1TB)



> The G-Technology G-DRIVE mini is a 1TB portable hard drive designed for Mac users who want an elegant yet rugged enclosure with plenty of connectivity options. The HGST G-Technology brand has long been synonymous with quality, earning a special place in the hearts of Mac users and creative professionals. The G-DRIVE mini does nothing to tarnish that image, providing a combination of performance and capacity with near silent operation.





> Inside the enclosure, the mini always gets 7,200 RPM hard drives, which is not common in the portable hard drive space (most use 5,400 RPM drives) and comes out of the box formatted for Mac users. Where other drives provide the minimum amount of accessories in the box, HGST includes dual FireWire cords, a USB 3.0 cord and a black carrying pouch for the drive. The current generation of G-DRIVE mini with USB 3.0 ships in 500GB and 1TB capacities with a three-year warranty. Our review model is the 1TB capacity. The drives are shipping now with a street price of $185.
> 
> G-DRIVE mini Specifications
> 
> ...


 This happens to be reviewed for Mac users but I am sure the =Windows version is just as good.
* A simple initialization is all it takes to prepare G-DRIVE mini for use with WindowsÂ® systems!*


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## Steve_S (Feb 25, 2015)

I have a few Western Digital External Hard Drive (USB-3) and have used these devices since Bernouli's (OK that is a very long time) without ANY issues. In fact a WD Passport holds my entire video collection which I have collected over 10 years.... 1.8 Terrabytes worth. I have another which is my Backup Drive that my Operating System and personal files are backed up to. Stick to a quality BRAND like Western Digital, Seagate and you'll be fine. These are not "hot" 7/24 like an internal HDD as you attach them when needed / wanted.

Files on your dead lappie are indeed fine UNLESS the electronics failed... Coffee could have gotten onto the HDD but assume that it did not. You will have to extract the drive from the lappie, most like a 2.5" IDE or possibly SATA drive (depends on vintage of machine) and you will need an adapter with cable to plug that into a PC IDE or SATA port to copy your files off. There are USB plugs with IDE or SATA interfaces to do this as well but I think they are about $50 now. You can plug a regular internal HDD on them to transfer the data to a PC or other device but these are not intended as a permanent use adapter.

SSD Drives have improved a great deal in the past 5 years and what is on the market today is far better than predecessors. They make ideal Operating System drives due to speed and performance. A Good Intel, WD or Seagate 250 GB should run about $75. +/-. I use them for OS drives and in one of my machines for conversion drives... I convert video files (movies & TV Shows) with different formats like FLV or AVI to MP4 which is very resources & I/O (input / output) intensive and SSD improves on that very significantly.

Many complaints about portable drives originate with people who abuse them by dropping, bashing, tossing and travelling with (and subsequently bouncing them around) the drives. Most portable drives are still spinning a platter whereas SSD is strictly chips - no moving parts and not subject to the same type of damage.

I am NO FAN of personal data being stored on a cloud... Collaborative work / projects, blogs etc, sure but your personal files, letter's, emails, tax forms etc... absolutely NOT. Also consider how much the uploading & downloading of said data will cost you in data / bandwidth x devices that access that cloud data... YOU are the only person that can decide what risks are acceptable and how much of your privacy you are willing to surrender should something go awry at some point in time. Never assume that an external agent will have your best interest at heart while doing their job (external agent being a corp like Google or MS with Onedrive).


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## arabian knight (Dec 19, 2005)

And that G-Drive mini I mentioned, uses a hard drive from LaCie.
LaCie, which is the premium brand of Seagate technology~!
When I worked at a computer parts manufacturer making hard drive parts we made many suspension parts for Seagate. Those suspension parts held the read/write head.


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## Nevada (Sep 9, 2004)

If you are archiving data that is not likely to be accessed with any frequency to speak of then burning them to DVD for storage is a reasonable way to save them. But be aware that DVDs are thought to only last about 10 years before "CD rot" sets in, and will need to be copied to a fresh DVD.

But to access the same data on multiple devices a free cloud service it your best bet. I use Google Drive, since they offer 15GB of shared storage to gmail users for free. If you have sensitive information that you don't want anyone to see, such as a password file or financial information, then encrypt it with axcrypt. Their 128-bit strong encryption version is free.

https://www.axcrypt.net/

Dropbox is also popular but they only give you 2GB for free, which is a little restrictive for most peple. Google Drive is much better at 15GB for free.


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