USB 2.0/Firewire Portable Harddrives for backup

[graystrickland]

I'm considering buying five ide drives (Mon - Fri) and putting them in USB 2.0 / Fireware aluminum portable cases. There are several on teh market now. They convert any 3.5" or 2.5" ide drive to a portable drive which can be accessed via USB 2.0 or Fireware (both). The boxes cost about $40 a piece if you shop around. The drives cost what the drives cost. Given current pricing, that would mean $250 buys you a portable 200gb maxtor drive. This would beat the heck out of any tape system of equivilent capacity, unless you plan to archive (as opposed to backup) quite a bit onto tape. As for archving, I would use (after it is approved by Retrospect), a DVD burner -- probably a format chameleon like the Sony DRX-500ULX portable which burns/reads DVD -R/-RW and +R/+RW.

 

Q. Anyone have any comments, suggestions or criticisms of this concept?

[kaikow]

I'm planning on building a Win XP system that would have two external drives (USB or Firewire).

 

I would alternate using each drive to make a full system backup, keeping the drives disconnected and unplugged when not being used to protect from electrical damage.

 

I would use a CD-RW and DVD drive for incremental backups and to replace a ZIP drive.

[rfrisken]

I follwed the same thought process as you...as I had a Onstream DI-30 that was on it's death bed and I needed to think of a replacement. I priced out other tape backup systems...and the price just did not make sense. I ended up with 2, 30 gig maxtors...and 2 Startech USB 2.0 cases. Dantz has no problem with backing up to these devices so life is good. This combo was under half the price of a comparable tape system....and no tape maintenance!!!! My only problem is that my particular system is having a bit of a struggle with USB 2.0. I have a Dlink DUB-A2 PCI adapter installed on an Intel SE7500CW2 mobo and I just can't seem to get it to do backups. If I use the USB 1.1 ports on the mobo I get backups...but they are slower than they would be at USB 2.0. I am working on the problem now to see if I can't get this to work out.