External hard drives

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atrusomder

Isaiah 55:8-9
Can I use a External hard drive for more than one computer?
I was looking into getting something like 500 GB because I need to back-up data from two computers running two separate OS- do I need to purchase two externals or will one do the trick?

TIA
 
GWguy

GWguy

*
It will work, but you might not want to using the drive as one partition. I would create multiple partitions for the different OSs, each partition formatted in the native OS it will be used on.
 
C

CAE

New Member
If you backing up many machines that are all the same (like Windows), then you can move it around.

Bigger question - What software are you using to do backups?

Lately I'm in love with Crashplan (Online Data Backup & Storage – CrashPlan – Backup Software, Disaster Recovery)! You can put crashplan on all your computers, and back them up to the one machine with the hard drive, so you don't have to move it around. This works over a LAN or even the Internet; the computers don't even need to be in the same place. As long as you have Internet access, you can backup lots of machines to that external hard drive. Check it out!
 
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EmptyTimCup

Guest
atrusomder said:
Can I use a External hard drive for more than one computer?
I was looking into getting something like 500 GB because I need to back-up data from two computers running two separate OS- do I need to purchase two externals or will one do the trick?

TIA
Click to expand...



depends ...... if you are backing up an Mac and PC ... you will need to install NTFS Driver for MAC OS X
 
The_Twisted_Ear

The_Twisted_Ear

A proud Conservative!
I am bouncing between three different laptops. I use Outlook Express. The neat thing is I keep my e-mail on the external drive (Express lets you dictate where the files go) and can get to all my mail regardless since I have it on the external drive. I use FireFox Sync so all my systems reflect the same bookmarks, etc. Life is great!
 
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Warron

Member
You can also get a network capable external hard drive that connects to your router and is accessable by any computer on your network. They have them at best buy.

I have one and it works fine for backup, although the transfer rate is slower then usb. Also, when I restart my computer it is sometimes slow to detect the network drive again.
 
Mongo53

Mongo53

New Member
atrusomder said:
Can I use a External hard drive for more than one computer?
I was looking into getting something like 500 GB because I need to back-up data from two computers running two separate OS- do I need to purchase two externals or will one do the trick?

TIA
Click to expand...
Yes, that is so obvous, I'm suspecting you may have NOT asked your full question? Do you want to have one hard drive connected continously to two computers?

You can't do that through USB, you can do it if you use it as a network drive and they make External Hardrives now with a network port. Like Warron warns, a stand alone External Hard Drive connected to a network is really slow, you need processing power to talk on the network and an external hard drive doesn't have it. It would be faster to back up both computers, by plugging it in USB2.0 to one computer, finish and move it to the other than it would be to work off the Network.

Another option, Connect the External Hard Drive to one computer and leave it on and connected, and share the external hard drive over the network for other computers to use it through the computer its connected too. This will use the processing power of the computer its connected to, to talk on the network and it will be much faster than by itself connected to the network.

Always go larger than you think you need, I'd really think about 1TB.
 
Bavarian

Bavarian

New Member
I bought a 1TB network hard drive and have it on my in-home wired and wireless network. Use it mainly with a XP and a Vista machine and also a WIN7 laptop. Works fine. Great for backup, file sharing and file transfer.
 
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