Best way to get external storage?

[manlymatt83]

I have a huge desktop machine at home that I don't use AT ALL anymore except for the 60 GB storage it has.

I'm 100% laptop at the present time (I have a docking station with monitor at home which I can dock my thinkpad into).

What's the best external storage method out there, so I can take all that stuff off my home computer, sell it, and just carry it with me and/or make it remotely accessible? The more important stuff I can throw up on my dedicated box in Texas.... but a LOT of this stuff is not stuff I need all the time.

Should I just get an externa lhard drive and be done with it? Are external hard drives smaller than regular internal drives? Do they make external hard drives that are the size of laptop drives?

Thanks!

-Matt

 

[jkresh]

they make small external hard drives (which use laptop drives) so not much bigger then an ipod (and up to 200gigs), bigger ones based on desktop drives are much cheaper per capacity but it depends on how much you need. 16gb flash drives are now available for acceptable prices (less then twice the cost of 8gb ones) so ...

 

[manlymatt83]

OK wow... 16 GB flash drive for $50 on ebay.

Should I just get that and forget the extenral hard drive? What if I read from that a lot? like put my entire mp3 collection on it?...

 

[ribbon13]

the can handle lots of reading, but limited writes

 

[Blain]

Capacity & security = External RAID 0+1 enclosure
Portability = USB drive
Access to the internet = Online storage solution
Old school = DVD-R's & CD-R's

 

[manlymatt83]

Originally posted by: Blain
Capacity & security = External RAID 0+1 enclosure
Portability = USB drive
Access to the internet = Online storage solution
Old school = DVD-R's & CD-R's

Well, right now I have a server in Texas where I can keep my other stuff. My assumption is that my mp3's will just go on my ipod and I'll be done with it ... or maybe on an external drive.

I'm really hoping this "100% laptop" thing will work. No matter where I move to, I'm not going to have a lot of room for a desktop in the new place. So my choices are external hard drive, external flash drive, or online storage.

 

[Old Hippie]

Access to the internet = Online storage solution

Maximun PC has a positive review of Mozy for online storage. Two GBs for free and 4.95 per month for unlimited storage.

 

[Ken90630]

Originally posted by: mjuszczak
OK wow... 16 GB flash drive for $50 on ebay.

Should I just get that and forget the extenral hard drive? What if I read from that a lot? like put my entire mp3 collection on it?...

Reading will not be a problem, nor should writing for that matter. Most good quality USB flash drives out there should be good for anywhere from 10,000 to 1 million write cycles before failing, and how likely is it that any of use would ever get anywhere near that mark?

Techniques like wear leveling and BBM (Bad Block Management) make write-cycle limitations virtually irrelevant nowadays. Buy a good quality flash drive from SanDisk, Corsair, Kingston or the like and you shouldn't ever have to worry about read or write cycles.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd get a bargain OEM desktop HDD and buy an enclosure for it. That's just me. (beware of ebay btw)