Wednesday, November 09, 2005

A friend asked me if I could recommend an external hard drive for her computer to help her back up photos of her new baby. As with most things technology related, I do have a preference when it comes to external hard drive manufacturers. In this case it grows from experiencing the frustration of many drive failures over the past few years. The most common brand out there -- available from practically every Staples or Office Depot -- is also one of the cheapest: Maxtor. Unfortunately, I have yet to have one of these drives last for more than a couple of months. At one point, Maxtor sent me a total of 4 drives as each one quickly went bad and had to be replaced. Eventually I got so tired of repackaging drives and shipping them off, I gave up and purchased another brand. Aside from the danger of relying on a fickle hard drive for backup, another problem I have with Maxtor drives is that they are noisy.

The drive manufacturer that I have finally settled on is La Cie. Their drives are more expensive than Maxtor's but they have been completely reliable over more than a year of heavy use. Their heavy metal shell provides heat dissipation for the internal workings and keeps the drive nearly silent, but it does make it a weighty package to carry in a briefcase. These drives are best suited to expanding a stationary home or work computer, not for shuttling large files around.

Other than size -- and La Cie's offerings now go up to a full terabyte by pairing 2 drives within a single case -- one should look for the interfaces available on the drives. USB 2 and Firewire 400 are close to the same speed so you just need to check which one your computer has. If you only have an older USB 1 connection, the drive will still work, albeit much more slowly. If you have a computer less than 2 years old, you most likely have USB 2. You can avoid the problem of connections altogether with La Cie's Triple Interface models: USB 2, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800 (available on some Macs) all in one little box. As for computer compatibility, virtually all external hard drives will work with both PCs and Macs.

[Note that some drive manufacturers cut costs by not including cables. Be sure to check the box before you buy.]

Backup is an incredibly important issue for both home and work computers. Now that many irreplaceable things such as digital photos are stored on the computer, it makes it even more important to set up a regular plan to keep at least a second copy around. When it comes to photos, a good tip is to sign up for an online photo printing service such as Shutterfly or Snapfish and upload all your photos, even if you don't intend to order anything. Their remote servers will act as a handy off-site backup system for your computer. If you ever need to retrieve your files, most services will send them to you on CD for a reasonable fee.