Extrenal Hard drive

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Well you can buy an enclosure, then add any size hd you like.
With an enclosure for a laptop type hd you will find smaller hd's, but a std
sized one you are unlikey to find anything less than 40gb

"Blair" <darrach@coille.com> wrote in message
news:%23P7fXt9mFHA.3300@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> I have been using my old PC as a backup medium for the last 2 years and it
> has worked fine but I am thinking of giving my old PC to a friend who
wants
> to start using a P.C..
> I could buy a basic dell PC which would act as a standby if my PC went
down
> but the cheaper alternative is to buy an external USB hard drive.
> My old P.C. had only a 10GB hard drive and that was adequate for my backup
> but when I searched for an external hard drive I found most were about 125
> GB to 250GB
> Can someone recommend where I can buy a smaller External Hard Drive/
> Blair
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Due to the lower price and availability of large hard drives, it's pretty
hard to find a smaller hard drive (internal or external). Stores can't sell
them so the've already discounted the heck out of them. Ebay might be a
possibility, though riskier. The enclosure idea was a good one, however.

"Blair" wrote:

> I have been using my old PC as a backup medium for the last 2 years and it
> has worked fine but I am thinking of giving my old PC to a friend who wants
> to start using a P.C..
> I could buy a basic dell PC which would act as a standby if my PC went down
> but the cheaper alternative is to buy an external USB hard drive.
> My old P.C. had only a 10GB hard drive and that was adequate for my backup
> but when I searched for an external hard drive I found most were about 125
> GB to 250GB
> Can someone recommend where I can buy a smaller External Hard Drive/
> Blair
>
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

In news:%23P7fXt9mFHA.3300@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl,
Blair <darrach@coille.com> typed:

> I have been using my old PC as a backup medium for the last 2
> years
> and it has worked fine but I am thinking of giving my old PC to
> a
> friend who wants to start using a P.C..
> I could buy a basic dell PC which would act as a standby if my
> PC
> went down but the cheaper alternative is to buy an external USB
> hard
> drive.


That's not exactly an alternative to a second PC. It protects you
against loss of the hard drive and its data, but it's very
different from a standby PC.

Regardless, you almost certainly should have a backup (even if
you had a standby PC) and an external hard drive is a very good
way to do it.


> My old P.C. had only a 10GB hard drive and that was adequate
> for my
> backup but when I searched for an external hard drive I found
> most
> were about 125 GB to 250GB


About the smallest hard drives made these days are 40GB. Those
are cheap enough that there's really no market for anything
smaller. Whether they make USB drives that small, I don't know
(but read below).


> Can someone recommend where I can buy a smaller External Hard
> Drive/


Buying a USB drive is only way way to get an external hard drive.
Another choice is to buy a sleeve which installs like a regular
IDE drive and has a door in the front. You mount a regular IDE
drive in a cassette which slides in through the door of the
sleeve (Sorry for the imprecise language, but I don't know what
these are actually called).

That sleeve-cassette combinations costs around $25 US, and in
combination with an older smaller drive (perhaps bought used,
someplace like eBay), may meet your needs.

You can also buy a similar container which connects via a USB
port instead of by IDE, and mount a smaller IDE drive in that,
but I believe those are somewhat more expensive than the IDE
device I mention. The only disadvantage of the IDE device is
that, unlike the USB one, you need to power off before inserting
or removing it.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Hello,
http://www.basoncomputer.com/
take care.
beamish.
"Blair" wrote:

> I have been using my old PC as a backup medium for the last 2 years and it
> has worked fine but I am thinking of giving my old PC to a friend who wants
> to start using a P.C..
> I could buy a basic dell PC which would act as a standby if my PC went down
> but the cheaper alternative is to buy an external USB hard drive.
> My old P.C. had only a 10GB hard drive and that was adequate for my backup
> but when I searched for an external hard drive I found most were about 125
> GB to 250GB
> Can someone recommend where I can buy a smaller External Hard Drive/
> Blair
>
>
>