Considering the forbidden: Not owning a computer!

[amphibious]

Over the years I've discovered that the majority of my time management problems have been caused by my computer: staying up too late to work on projects, getting into debates on IRC, waiting "just a few minutes longer" for files to finish downloading, etc. I'm starting graduate school on Tuesday and the next three years are going to be 100% booked. Most days will allow me about six hours of sleep and an occasional eight hours. To combat using my computer into the wee hours of the morning, I'm considering selling it. My school has computer labs that just happen to close during the exact hours I need to be sleeping, forcing me to conform my sleeping habits.

The only problem is that I need somewhere to put my data. I have about 60gb of files I can't do without, but that I don't need to bring with me on a regular basis. I do need around 4-6gb of storage that is portable. I've looked at USB flash drives, USB powered mini hard drives, normal external hard drives, and various forms of online storage (steganography with flickr and saving files to gmail if I can somehow get around the 10mb attachment limit) but I have concerns about how trustworthy the offline solutions are and how usable the online solutions would be.

I need something that I don't have to worry about dying, something that is durable enough to take with me wherever I go, something that's MacOS and Windows compatible without drivers, and preferably something I can run apps from (specifically, gaim). Multiple devices would be perfectly acceptable as well.

Any thoughts on keeping 60gb of data absolutely secure and 4-6gb of cross-platform compatible data mobile and secure would be greatly appreciated.

 

[MobiusPizza]

External HDD would be the best solution

The mini 2.5" notebook HDD would in theory be more durable due to their better anti-shock characteristics

Again regular backups are very important for any storage methods

Your College computer system should be well managed and backuped frequently. You can put your homeworks there to keep a copy of.
Your 60GB of other stuff can be backed up by multiple DVDs

 

[amphibious]

Are DVDs really that stable of a solution? I've heard about, but not personally experienced, decay in both writeable CD and DVD media, as well as "archival quality" media. I suppose I'm a bit worried about that.

 

[ixelion]

If you want your data to last several years then your best bet would be a high quality tape drive, however I dont know if there are any portable tape drives.

A very large USB stick would also be good, and data is not likely to be lost, but again if you are looking for really long term storage solution then tape drive is for you.

Most people find tape drives unnecessary as most people dont need their data 10 years down the road, a USB flash drive would be a better solution.

 

[amphibious]

Originally posted by: ixelion
Most people find tape drives unnecessary as most people dont need their data 10 years down the road, a USB flash drive would be a better solution.

External USB tape drives exist... but they are veerrrryyy expensive, their capacities kinda suck, and they probably require drivers and special software. I don't necessarily want one thing that I can use forever, I'm perfectly happy figuring out other ways to move my data around in the future, I'm just concerned about the drives dying, the flash memory disappearing, etc.

Is there such a thing as an external 0+1 RAID box? 🙂

 

[MobiusPizza]

Originally posted by: amphibious
Are DVDs really that stable of a solution? I've heard about, but not personally experienced, decay in both writeable CD and DVD media, as well as "archival quality" media. I suppose I'm a bit worried about that.

High quality DVD medias last 10 years if stored in dark areas well
I've never seen any of my disc degraded