:>/ Should I get 3 new hard drives?

[MELLY]

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I have a Dell XPS 400 with:

160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)

MEMORY: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz and Raid

256MB ATI Hyper Memory PCI-Express X16 (DVI/VGA/TV out) Radeon X600 SE

Hello :roll:

I hope I'm in the right forum for my subject :?:

I am looking into the best way of creating hard drive space
to protect my scheduled back-ups & for safely storing and
protecting my precious photos & important files.

The first suggestion I received is to add an additional,
new & bigger internal hard drive to the 160 gig hard
drive my Dell XPS 400 came with.

The Second step would be to take my older 598MHz Dell XPS T600
with Intel Pentium III &:256MB RAM Memory & replace the existing
small & old hard drive currently in it with two new & of course
bigger hard drives. Although I have no idea what size hard drives
this old computer is capable of comfortably supporting.

My question is, how good is this option? Would it be wise to invest
& use three new hard drives to connect my two computers as a back-up
system to keep my scheduled back-ups, photos & files safely? Or is
there a another, better/wiser way to create the safety and protection
I need? I am very open to any suggestions as there could be better
options out there for me.


I am not experienced or rich enough to make this decision blindly.


Thanks you all.

 

[alcattle]

Adding anything to a Dell usually means having to upgrade the power supply. If you want backups and added storage but not always right there ready to use, get an external case or just a pre-built external drive. I have a 80gb w/USB. I can back up anything, I have backed up a Dell and an iMac. It was less than $100 when I got it and you can get double the size today for same price.

 

[g-paw]

Agree with alcattle to put together an external hdd and I would use a SATA hdd. While it's been about 5 years or so since I bought a Dell, I never had a problem adding an additional hdd but don't know about the newer Dells.

 

[darkangelism]

adding a hard drive to an XPS 400 will not need a new power supply.(they support 4 drives) If you add another 160GB drive you could do a raid 1 mirror, which would be better, but not a backup solution, the best backup solution is multiple copies, burn a CD, external hard drive and copy on your other system.