Can an external hard drive be used for primary file storage as well as an archive for back-ups?

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Daniel C

I have read several product reviews for various manufacturers' products and they almost always dial in on the utility of the product being reviewed as a back-up target. I want to store photos and music on a portable external hard drive and I wonder if I am barking up the wrong tree. I don't want to buy something that has no practical applicability for me. I use an on-line back up service (Carbonite) and do not need more back-up capability. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Yes, an external hard drive can be used as primary file storage (partitioning is recommended), as well as for archive back-up. So it depends on your purpose. Carbonite takes care of back-ups and I use it too, but unless things have changed it only backs up your computer hard drive and not an external drive. External drives can fail, get stolen, you could have a fire, etc., so if you store primary files on it you should have a secondary backup. You could back up your photos to DVD if the originals are stored on the external drive.

What external hard drive is the most reliable?

Goushirou

I've been reading multiple reviews for various brands such as iomega western digital and seagate and for each brand people are complaining about them breaking or dieing and as a result I am super confused. So what IS the most reliable brand? More specifically whats the most reliable portable external hard drive that has at least 500gb of space?

Answer
Honestly Western Digital is one of the most reliable..

The people who complain online are the very few that get defective drives, so don't mind anything you read.. Unless it's from a trusted source.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002QEBMB4?ie=UTF8&tag=eawatolobefa-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B002QEBMB4

That's a 1TB Western digital for under $100..

Here's a 1TB Iomega that stands upright:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003GALRIA?ie=UTF8&tag=eawatolobefa-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B003GALRIA

$75 for that one.. Nice.

$80 for Seagate:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001UI49XA?ie=UTF8&tag=eawatolobefa-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001UI49XA


Also, I'd be sure to get a 3.5" vs the 2.5 laptop hard drive versions, which are quite a bit slower..

Hope that helps :)

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What type of external hard drive should I buy?

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jml210

I am looking to buy an external hard drive. I have a few questions. What should I get? It seems that every review I read on amazon people complain about connectivity problems and also the system dying. Some people say some are loader than there computers. I would like something above 500 GB. I have a computer that is windows xp and I ordered a computer with windows 7. I also need to make sure the drive will function with both so i can transfer itunes to the new computer.

Answer
I think western external hard drives are better than others .And as far as reviews are concerned different people give different reviews for same product .
I think A good External hard drive should be portable,lightweight,have good capacity to store the data ,the transfer rate Should be fast,and it should be good looking
I think western external hard drives fullfill all these parameters

how to remove the partition on my portable external hard drive?

braveheart

i have an 80gb portable external hard drive which is parted into two{40gb each} and now i want to remove the partition.can anyone share their knowledge on how to do it???

Answer
You have a couple of options that'll do the trick:

1. If you have 80 gb of free space on your internal hard drive, then you could move all of the data from your external hard drive partitions onto your internal drive.

Then you could use the fdisk command to remove the partitions from your external drive and create a single 80gb partition, and then copy the data back from your internal drive to the external drive.

Be sure to make a backup first though - it's easy to make a fatal mistake with the fdisk command and accidentally format the wrong hard drive (speaking from painful personal experience).

2. Purchase a partition management program like Partition Commander or Disk Director. Both are reputable programs that'll let you move or delete partitions without losing your data (see links below for reviews on both of these programs).

This last approach is a lot easier route to go, and money well spent.

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how to remove the partition on my portable external hard drive?

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braveheart

i have an 80gb portable external hard drive which is parted into two{40gb each} and now i want to remove the partition.can anyone share their knowledge on how to do it???

Answer
You have a couple of options that'll do the trick:

1. If you have 80 gb of free space on your internal hard drive, then you could move all of the data from your external hard drive partitions onto your internal drive.

Then you could use the fdisk command to remove the partitions from your external drive and create a single 80gb partition, and then copy the data back from your internal drive to the external drive.

Be sure to make a backup first though - it's easy to make a fatal mistake with the fdisk command and accidentally format the wrong hard drive (speaking from painful personal experience).

2. Purchase a partition management program like Partition Commander or Disk Director. Both are reputable programs that'll let you move or delete partitions without losing your data (see links below for reviews on both of these programs).

This last approach is a lot easier route to go, and money well spent.

Can I transfer music from my computer to my external hard drive without losing play counts on itunes?

Joe

I want to organize my music and put it all in one place, in my external hard drive. I currently have it all split up in different folders on my computer so if I were to move it I'm expecting it to say "Cannot play file. The original file cannot be found." Is there anyway to transfer it onto the external drive without having to import it all over again and lose my play counts? Thanks and sorry for the complicated question.

Answer
Yes. This is pretty simple â just transfer my music from my work computer onto my Maxtor OneTouch, take it home, and transfer the music onto my home computer â but I rely on all of my song ratings, accumulated over thousands of hours of listening while I work, to populate my iPod Shuffle with songs from the âMy Top Rated Songsâ Smart Playlist. I couldnât find any information on how to transfer my music, while still retaining my song ratings, but I finally figured it out.
Before you do this, youâll have to first transfer the actual files to your new computer. You may choose to burn CDs, DVDs, or use a thumb drive; but using a FireWire cable is easiest for large libraries, unless you have a portable hard drive.
The first step to this process is to review your storage settings under your iTunes Advanced preferences, which can be found by selecting Preferences from the Edit menu (Windows) or iTunes menu (Mac), and then selecting the Advanced tab
The first option, âiTunes Music folder locationâ indicates where your iTunes media content is stored by default. Remember that this only includes the media content and not the library database itself. Whether all of your content is located in this folder is going to depend upon the next two settings found on this screen:

Keep iTunes Music folder organized determines whether tracks in your iTunes Music folder are automatically organized based on the track information found within each file. With this option enabled, iTunes will move and rename files within the iTunes Music folder as necessary into an ARTIST\ALBUM folder structure, and name each file based on its track name from within the tags itself. If this option is disabled, then files within the iTunes Music folder will be left with whatever name and sub-folder they were in when you first imported them, regardless of changes to the tag information within iTunes itself.

Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library determines whether files that you add to your library are automatically copied into the music folder, or left in their original location. When you import new content with this option disabled, iTunes simply âreferencesâ the file from wherever youâre importing it, rather than making a copy of it in your iTunes Music folder.

Tracks copied into the iTunes Music Folder become âManagedâ files (in that iTunes will manage the location and naming of these files), whereas files that are not copied into the iTunes Music folder are âReferencedâ filesâiTunes stores a full path to the file, but does not actually take any further action with those files in terms of organizing, renaming, moving, or deleting those tracks.

Note that content purchased from the iTunes Store or ripped from CD is always stored in the iTunes Music folderâiTunes is actually creating new files in this case so it has to have somewhere to put them by default. Therefore, this setting only affects existing files from your computer that are added to the iTunes library using the File, Add to Library option or by dragging-and-dropping them into iTunes from another folder.

So why is all of this important? How you have configured these options is going to determine how much flexibility you have when moving your iTunes media content elsewhere. In a default configuration where all of your media files live within the iTunes Music folder location ("Managed" files), and have been organized by iTunes, the process of moving your library may be considerably smoother than for a user who has a bunch of âreferencedâ tracks living in various locations and possibly even on different drives.

While iTunes can move your files to a new location in either scenario, the only way to move a library that consists of referenced files is to actually convert them to an entirely managed library in the process. Users who have built their own file-system organization for their media content and want to preserve that layout will likely find the process of moving their content to be much more challenging without creating a whole new iTunes library and reimporting it.

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How do I recover lost files from a corrupted portable hard drive?

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Burlymon

I purchased a Toshiba 1TB portable external hard drive for xmas and decided to back-up an old computer before I replaced the OS. While I was conducting said back up, the computer restarted for âsystem updateâ purposes and I attempted to abort, unsuccessfully. Once the computer restarted I was unable to access the hard drive and received an error message of either âunreadable or corrupted filesâ. I had a similar issue with my Sony Bloogie (HD cam) getting wiped clean in the X-ray machine at the airport and Iâve paid for recovery software (such as Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery) that didnât work. So I am weary of making any more purchases. Advice anyone?

Answer
Typically a third party data recovery program is what you need to try.

I see one program you paid for did not work, that is always possible with a data recovery program not all data can always be recovered.

When you have a drive that you want to recover data from it is important to not use it until you have a program ready to go.

There is many different programs to use and usually the more expensive programs can recover more. Its important to do allot of research and look for reviews on products before making a purchase.

You can try your best and if you can recover what you need your in luck. If the data your trying to access is very important there are data recovery specialist who would be best able to help you.

What type of external hard drive should I buy?

jml210

I am looking to buy an external hard drive. I have a few questions. What should I get? It seems that every review I read on amazon people complain about connectivity problems and also the system dying. Some people say some are loader than there computers. I would like something above 500 GB. I have a computer that is windows xp and I ordered a computer with windows 7. I also need to make sure the drive will function with both so i can transfer itunes to the new computer.

Answer
I think western external hard drives are better than others .And as far as reviews are concerned different people give different reviews for same product .
I think A good External hard drive should be portable,lightweight,have good capacity to store the data ,the transfer rate Should be fast,and it should be good looking
I think western external hard drives fullfill all these parameters

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