Mobile Hard Disk Drive Backup.

[buddy]

Hi All,

I frequently travel and pick up vital pieces of infromation which i transfer to my Mobile back up Hard disk drive, i then transfer this info to my Computer back in Thailand.

Question is i have a "generic" mobile hard disk drive but find that this may be the weak link in securing my info untill I get back to LOS.

So i wish to tap into your knowledge and experiences as to what you consider to be the best and most reliable mobile hard disk drive you can purchase in Thailand?

Pricing and seller info would be great.

Best regards

[lopburi3]

Hard drives do fail regardless of who makes them which is a good reason for backups. As long as you do keep making the backups believe you are as safe as can be on that front (one brand is not going to be that much different and different models can be very different even among brands and by the time enough information is available it would be outdated and new models in use). You might want to remote access or store in cyberspace if that vital as you could lose both laptop and drive at same time. Believe the chance of both your laptop and backup drive failing to be much less than catastrophic loss from theft or fire.

[BarnicaleBob]

I purchased an Acer one terrabite external hard drive from Carrfour on sale for 2600 baht a few months ago. I use it every day, it has been doing a wonderful job for me and I have had no problems with it at all.

[astral]

IME external cases, with any old disk inserted can have problems with power from the usb port.

I now use a Seagate 500Gb drive

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/expansion/expansion_portable/

[barryw52]

All Drives can fail. The physically large backup drives bases on3.5in disk now go up to 4TB but are much larger to cart around but great if youhave a lot of data like I do some times.

The small drives based on 2.5in disk are small and very portablethese are generally up to 500MB but you can get 1.5TB some have external powerto save USB power issues and you can also get some with an ESATA interfacewhich work with some laptop and PCs for much higher speed transfers. You could back up to 2 different small drives carry one in briefcasecarryon luggage and one in checked luggage, not 100% fail safe but chances ofboth drives failing at same time is remote unless the plane crashes that is!

[astral]

Better to leave one drive at home!!

[Digitalbanana]

Walking around Pantip this weekend I saw mostly 2.5 inch external USB 3.0 encased drives from around 2000THB for 500GB to 4500THB for 1TB.

[bkksw]

"Question is i have a "generic" mobile hard disk drive but find that this may be the weak link in securing my info untill I get back to LOS.:"

Really, there is no such thing as a "generic" hard drive. You might have a generic enclosure, but the hard drive itself will be a name brand. Some hard drives are better than others, but mostly they're all pretty good these days.

The enclosure has two ways it can fail. How it's powered (if by a separate power source), or the actual USB, Firewire, or other type interface. If its been working a period of time, its doubtful it's going to fail. You're much more likely to have a mechanical hard drive failure due to age of the drive, or shock (dropping it.) USB drives are sometimes found to be incompatible with different computers, but by and large this affects older drives and isn't so much an issue anymore.

If you need to move a large volume of data just once in a while, but not access it every day, look for a USB powered drive from a major manufacturer with a really good reputation. Pack it well, keep it from vibrating or being tossed around too much, and it should last years.

If you just need to move a few gigs of information.. consider a solid state USB thumb drive. A quality thumb drive is nearly indestructible.