Off the shelf external hard drive or build my own?

[htpok69]

I have a number of files that need to be saved and easily retrieved for my workplace. They also need to be protected.

I had been saving them to CDs and DVDs for some time, but they have just grown rapidly over the years and it's harder to separate them out easily on to the optical media.

I am planning using two hard drives for redundancy and also truecrypt for encryption.

So my questions is: is there any major difference in building an external hard drive with enclosure vs just buying something off the shelf?

 

[rgd1101]

how much data? a usb flash drive work well too.

 

[mouse24]

Not much difference except warranty, ease of use, aanndd... hmmm, thats about it I guess. Its basically just a hard drive in a box with a sata to usb connector.

I take it some form of drop box / ftp server wouldn't work?

 

[htpok69]

Right now it's about 50-100gb data. Not really that much, but we will continue adding on to it. I had considered USB flash drives but I was worried that they could be easily lost or damaged.

A drop box/ftp service won't work because this sensitive data and needs to kept locked up unless they need to look at it.

I have a couple of off the shelf external hard drives already and haven't had issues with them, but I didn't know for sure if it was the best solution. Plus there are so many varying reviews it's hard to know what's good and bad. I guess I will just have to take my chances.