Got a new computer "toy" today

[disneysteve]

For the longest time, I've been wanting to get an external hard drive for my computer. I periodically back up certain files but I never back up everything that I really should be backing up. I got the MacMall catalog last week and they had a 1 Terabyte (1,000 GB) external drive for just $89.99 after rebate. I was shocked by the price and immediately went online to get all the details. It looked good so I ordered one. A terabyte of memory should keep me in shape for years.

The drive came today. It is quite small, only about 4.5 x 7.5 inches so it hardly takes up any space standing on it's side.

I'm just starting to use it so I don't know about performance yet. I'm sure it is slower than the more costly ones, but for that price, I'm not going to complain.

I'm not a gadget guy. I mean I like reading about them and checking them out, but I rarely buy any. I just thought this was a great deal.

[SnoopyCool]

Sounds good. We just had a crash and I lost everything because I was lazy and didn't back-up everything as I should have. Hopefully my computer friends can revive the old hard drive. Lesson learned.

[momof1in150]

Steve - I have had one for about 2 years and I love it. I am not a gadget person either but love the convenience of backing up to the external drive. I use Norton Ghost and back up "My Computer" and "My Documents" at least once a month. My DH would like to see me do it weekly but so far this has worked well.

[MoneyTrev]

A terrabyte for under $100! Wow, that's a steal! If its faster than technology 5 years ago, then its worth it as the majority of the people wouldn't mind the speed of technology 5 years ago. It can still run today's demand.

[kork13]

Wow, that's more than I can imagine needing for many years...

As to the rate of technology development, I believe there's some kind of "rule/law/theory/whatever" about it... that computing power capabilities double every 10 months, or something like that? That's why technology becomes out of date so quickly.

[Broken Arrow]

That's an awesome deal!

[arthurb999]

If you are just backing up once a week/month or so... the speed shouldn't be an issue.

[Inkstain82]

I still can't believe how fast computer technology changes.

I remember playing on a Commodore 64 as a kid. I remember buying a computer with an 8GB harddrive and thinking that would be enough drive space to last a lifetime.

I bought a laptop recently, and the specs for the cheapest ones would have been the top of the line just two years ago.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by MoneyTrev

A terrabyte for under $100! Wow, that's a steal! If its faster than technology 5 years ago, then its worth it as the majority of the people wouldn't mind the speed of technology 5 years ago. It can still run today's demand.

Originally Posted by arthurb999

If you are just backing up once a week/month or so... the speed shouldn't be an issue.

My thoughts exactly. I figured even if it was no faster than my current hard drive, it is 12 times the size and will be used mainly for storage. I don't care if I need to leave it running over night to do the back ups. Access speed isn't as big a concern for me.

Originally Posted by Inkstain82

I remember playing on a Commodore 64 as a kid. I remember buying a computer with an 8GB harddrive and thinking that would be enough drive space to last a lifetime.

I started with a VIC-20 and then upgraded a couple of years later to the Commodore 64. I loved that computer. Honestly, I think it was as much fun as anything around today. I don't miss the cassette drive that took 20-30 minutes to load a program, but I do miss the simplicity of everything. I had a lot of fun with that computer.

[tulsa_sr5]

I remember when hardrives hit $1/MB during my college years in the early 90's, $1/GB wasn't even that long ago.

At $1/mb that new drive would have cost $1,048,576

[GrimJack]

Originally Posted by Inkstain82

I still can't believe how fast computer technology changes.

I remember playing on a Commodore 64 as a kid. I remember buying a computer with an 8GB harddrive and thinking that would be enough drive space to last a lifetime.

I bought a laptop recently, and the specs for the cheapest ones would have been the top of the line just two years ago.

I bought a 20 megabyte hard drive for my Amiga in 1990 for $750 and did not think I would ever fill it, heh,heh!

I am jealous DS - we paid $300 for 500 gigs - I will always be on the trailing edge, sigh

[red92s]

I had a external HD crash on me and have since started using an online backup service (Carbonite). I'm hoping someone will make a small portable RAID setup with 2 redundant disks soon, or that the prices on solid state drives begin to drop more. With the amount I travel and move my drives around, I'm not sold on the reliability of a non-redundant drive with moving parts.

That being said . . . 1 TB for $90 sounds pretty incredible!

[Broken Arrow]

Originally Posted by GrimJack

I bought a 20 megabyte hard drive for my Amiga in 1990 for $750 and did not think I would ever fill it, heh,heh!

Ooh, you were one of those elite geeks with the best toys back then weren'tcha?

I'll never forget the first time I ever laid my eyes on an Amiga 500. Having only seen the likes of IBM PS/2s and Apple IIs, I thought I saw Jesus himself when this buddy of mine brought in his Amiga and demoed Shadow of the Beast by Psygnosis. (It should say something that, after all these years, I STILL remember that video game off the top of my head.)

Oh man, and I was all kinds of jealous when I saw what the Video Toaster could do! Truly ahead of its time. Way ahead.

That being said . . . 1 TB for $90 sounds pretty incredible!

I still have a hard time finding ANYWHERE that would sell 1 TB for less than $100 right now.

[Investing First Steps]

I've found external USB hard drives to be very slow and I love them anyway. It's amazingly convenient to just be able to carry around your whole hard drive with you. I can live with the slowness for all the benefits you get.

Also, circa 1990 I ran a BBS and I had a 660 megabyte hard drive. When I told people this they called me a liar. I can now get a cheap keychain with more space than that.

[red92s]

Originally Posted by Broken Arrow

I still have a hard time finding ANYWHERE that would sell 1 TB for less than $100 right now.

Newegg.com has a couple in the $120 range. Not "under $100" . . . but it won't be long.

I must be dating myself to say that my first computer (gift from my parents when I started college in 2001) had a 40 gig HD. My dad did say that the first computer he bought had a HD equivalent to 100 large floppy disks and thinking "how could anyone ever fill up 100 floppy disks".

[tulsa_sr5]

Originally Posted by red92s

Newegg.com has a couple in the $120 range. Not "under $100" . . . but it won't be long.

I must be dating myself to say that my first computer (gift from my parents when I started college in 2001) had a 40 gig HD. My dad did say that the first computer he bought had a HD equivalent to 100 large floppy disks and thinking "how could anyone ever fill up 100 floppy disks".

I remember the hand me down laptop i used in college had no hd, but had 2 floppy drives. Was so much nicer than just one. After booting off the dos disk you could have a wordperfect disk in drive a and a save disk in drive b.

desktops with small HD and windows were starting to become common around that time, as i recall 1000 got you a really cheap POS. anyone remember packard bell?

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Broken Arrow

I still have a hard time finding ANYWHERE that would sell 1 TB for less than $100 right now.

Originally Posted by red92s

Newegg.com has a couple in the $120 range. Not "under $100" . . . but it won't be long.

This one was $129.99 minus 2 different $20 rebates, bringing the final cost to $89.99. There was also a shipping rebate from UPS so even the shipping was free.

[Johansen8]

I want to be able to have the backups automated so that at the end of the day when I turn the computer off it backs up before completely shutting down. Also I want it to back up EVERYTHING in an easy to restore format.
We did some backups before and all it did was backup certain folders. We lost all our emails and some other important files.

[momof1in150]

Originally Posted by Johansen8

I want to be able to have the backups automated so that at the end of the day when I turn the computer off it backs up before completely shutting down. Also I want it to back up EVERYTHING in an easy to restore format.
We did some backups before and all it did was backup certain folders. We lost all our emails and some other important files.

You can set this up to happen with Norton Ghost. I don't think you want to back up the whole computer daily. I would back up "My Documents" and your e-mail daily but the whole computer weekly.