External storage

[beamer]

Just bought a new laptop from Dell, and was wondering that as I take so many photos would it be a good idea to get one and whats the best deal and where?

any suggestions appriecated(sp)
Steve

[phill-type-r]

Hi Steve :smile:

Right, as you have a new laptop, you'll have a DVD-RW or if your lucky and the laptop cost a fair bit, you could have a blue ray writer (Something that stores 5 or more times the amount of data on compared to a DVD) but costs huge amounts..

Personally, having any form of backup is VERY important.

One thing I dont think Dell would have done, would be to have partitioned the drive, which means the hard drive you have installed in your laptop, will be just one big drive rather than small 'parts' of the drive.. It basically allows you to make the drive into different sizes, so if something happened and as long as you copied the files to another partition or part of the drive, you wouldnt loose it.. I'd guess (as I dont know the setup of the laptop) it would be all as one..

An external drive can be cheap or expensive... Its all dependant on size of the drive. See here:

http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1465

There are loads of other places to buy from, so I'd check them out...
Otherwise you can use the DVD-RW to burn off which cost pence... Either way, is a good idea to back things up, the choice is yours really :smile: These can be had from here:

http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1725

So either way, would hold a lot of pictures... :smile: Get both :wink:

[beamer]

Cheers Phill

don't have blu ray and not partitioned

Can I work with my pix from an external hard drive?

good site there;) and quite cheap

[bigknd]

Like Phil said, Svpcommunications are a good source, I use these guys a lot and am very impressed with there prices and next day delivery, have a look here Steve.

http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?sku=Buffalo_DriveStation_SATA_USB _2.0_Hard_Drive_-_500GB&products_id=838&osCsid=5189dd8449cb6a061bb8303ae730cd6c

Not sure about the "fanless" design though!!

[beamer]

Like Phil said, Svpcommunications are a good source, I use these guys a lot and am very impressed with there prices and next day delivery, have a look here Steve.

http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?sku=Buffalo_DriveStation_SATA_USB _2.0_Hard_Drive_-_500GB&products_id=838&osCsid=5189dd8449cb6a061bb8303ae730cd6c

Not sure about the "fanless" design though!!

It wouldn't be on all the time so would that make any issues being fanless?

[phill-type-r]

Cheers Phill

don't have blu ray and not partitioned

Can I work with my pix from an external hard drive?

good site there;) and quite cheap


Try places like, Micro Direct, Ebuyer (its NOT the same as ebay!!) and even Scan... These are places I use and would recommend others using. I've had great service from all of them and wouldnt put someone through bad service :smile:

For example, Ebuyer:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/cat/Hard-Drives/subcat/External-Desktop-Drives

Take a look and hopefully you'll see something that takes your fancy :smile: But I would definitely recommend you buy some DVD-R's or something that you can put things onto something. I wouldnt have a system without a back up of some sorts :smile: This is why I have a hard drive total of over 2 Terabytes (2000 Gb's :smile:)

[phill-type-r]

It wouldn't be on all the time so would that make any issues being fanless?

I dont think it would really matter to be honest, but I could prefer some sort of fan next to a hard drive..

Its just like the cases I have at the moment for my Server and my gaming PC. They have big, 120mm fans in front of them, spinning slowly, but it keeps them cool.. Not the type of thing you'd get in a external drive, more like 40mm fans or something but still nice to have.. Hard drives dont want to be too hot or else problems can happen :frown:

[bigknd]

It wouldn't be on all the time so would that make any issues being fanless?

Sorry Steve, my sense of humor :rolleyes1: for your use of storage something like this would be ideal, really just for you to decide how much you want to pay and what size to go up too. :smile:

[beamer]

Terabytes

Bleeding heck thats scary, In thought gigabytes were the in thang!!

Have used ebuyer albeit via a mate and are good;)
will have a look around thanks for the help;)

[beamer]

Right to make things clearer from my side!

On average at a race day I could take approx 250 pix at an average of 2.5 mbs each thats just on fine image (on Nikon RAW they can be upto 7.5 mbs each) so just don't won't to drown my hard drive with all these as quite a lot are deleted as they are rubbish, so, would rather I uploaded them elsewhere and edited from such a place other then cluttering up my laptops hardrive. Does this mske sense?

[phill-type-r]

Its fine mate :smile:

As I said in my reply to your first post, if your laptop drive was partitioned, you could have a partition for just putting your downloaded pics onto the laptop for sorting. Putting it onto a external drive is going to be slower and will take longer to do anything with, as the speed isnt all that great..

so...

If the laptop is partitioned (however it is) use a partition just for the pics and then you can burn, delete whatever you do or dont want and then keep the ones you do want, on another partition or even direct to a DVD-R...

Does that help??

[phill-type-r]

Terabytes

Bleeding heck thats scary, In thought gigabytes were the in thang!!

Have used ebuyer albeit via a mate and are good;)
will have a look around thanks for the help;)

I might have to buy a few more!! :hysterical: I'm the same with taking pics, I do take a few to many at times....

[beamer]

Cheers Phill thats been very helpfull

[phill-type-r]

If your ever needing some advice or help mate, my MSN is always on :smile: Feel free to give me a shout :smile: It goes for anyone to be honest :smile:

Feels good putting something back into something, I've not too much of an idea on :redface:

[Phil]

I assume you are running a wireless network

If you attach http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/NetworkStorage/SC101.aspx to your router

Problem solved

[beamer]

Fancy doing a beginners guide to partitioning a hard drive!!

[phill-type-r]

I assume you are running a wireless network

If you attach http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/NetworkStorage/SC101.aspx to your router

Problem solved

Expensive really and not really what I'd recommend myself.. Good product mind, a friend has one... :smile: Shame its only IDE drives inside really :frown: You could just connect this also to a router or to a switch :smile:

Personally, nothing like having a PC with 8 hard drives in :biggrin: Shame my motherboard only supports 6!! :hysterical:!!

[phill-type-r]

Fancy doing a beginners guide to partitioning a hard drive!!

Could talk you through it in 10 minutes :wink:

[briharri147]

Burn them all to disc's and be done with it, their always at hand if you need them, or even better for storage use SD card.

Brian

[bob]

I use a second hard drive....but an external is the same but you can transfer the drive from PC to PC...

[phill-type-r]

Fancy doing a beginners guide to partitioning a hard drive!!

I'll try and get this done tonight if I can for you mate, I'll try to put up pics where needed too so its a little easier :smile:

Bob's got the right idea, but in a laptop you dont get the same choice cos of the space! I'd say, second drive if you wanted, but definitely grab those DVD-R's... They are so cheap, you'd be silly not to :smile:

[beamer]

Thanks

[Numpty]

I edit my pics on hard drive then burn 'em to CDR. Most pics are only about 1mb each in jpg format so there's room for over 600 on each disc. The other advantage is I can put the CD in my DVD player and flick through the pics on my telly! :smile: