SATA Docking Stations

[Ruidoso Bill]

Is anyone using a SATA Dock and multiple hard drives for backup? The 1tb + hard drives are getting cheap and I have been looking at a docking station, you can even hot swap the drives. One article I read also stated old VCR storage cases are great for storing 3.5" drives. I have pretty much had it with the online storage other than where I sell to backup, it is so slow and when you got lots it really is really a pain. Maybe I need a T1 line but upload on broadband is 1 MB, they do a great job on download speed but that is helping me with the slow upload.

 

[Dave_W]

I have several old hard drives that I've turned into external-HD using an external box, works like a champ. However, I just bought another one of these (see HERE ) and at $109 for 3Tb of space, it's cheaper than just buying the internal hard drive and adding it to my system. But if you do have a couple old hard drives laying around I would suggest buying a box and putting those babies to work. I'm now on my 3rd Seagate 3Tb, my first 2 were the "Back-up Plus" version that I believe are the same less the cheesey backup software that is included. But at $35 a Tb, you can't beat it.

You know, I find it odd that I'm using disc drives that contain 3,000 Gb worth of space and needing more than one of them. I remember when 750 mbs seemed like an empty desert that stretched as far as the eye can see, now I'm buying my 3rd 3,000 Gb disc and hardly blinking an eye....crazy!

 

[§am]

You can pick up 3TB drives for £<100 these days, but a lot of these are still USB2 connected so still have a bottleneck when copying to.

The problems with docks are, most of them require a tray for your HDD to sit in and they only come with enough to fit the enclosure, so you will either need to source more trays or keep swapping them between your drives (assuming it's a single drive dock).
If you are looking for a docking type solution, look for something with at least a gigabit network interface, and dependent on what OS you use, what file format it uses to store data with.

I had a NAS which used a file system only readable by a similar/same NAS, or the need to install a version of Linux and then some major mods which would then make the disk readable - not what I wanted to hear when the enclosure died (but luckily the data on the drives was not critical stuff which I didn't have another copy of).

I have an AD domain setup at home (but that's 'cuz I'm an IT man), but now all my backups are kept on NTFS formatted drives.
Should my box fail, or the OS die, or other failure which doesn't render my drive dead, I can simply unplug from its current housin, plug into another Windows box and simply import the drive and have my data back within minutes).

Again - its all going to depend on your needs, budget, and a little technical know how too

 

[Dave_W]

Nice SS381 (...if that is your real name! )

I'm not an IT guy but I'm a bit of a wannabe computer nerd. I've done some networking but nothing in comparison to the real world. Which brings me to my question - when looking at external hard drives I see these drives designed for "cloud" back up. How exactly would an external be considered a "cloud" drive? In the past I thought "cloud" was just a term for utilizing network space, typically on the net so maybe I don't understand what they mean by cloud to begin with. Also, these so-called "cloud" HD all run about 2x the price of a similar sized HD, so I'm thinking there must be something different about them... right?

 

[§am]

Dave - Real name is in signature

As for your external cloud backup drive.
Well where do we start with such amazing marketing methods!!

In network terms, 'the cloud' always referred to anything outside your internal network, something you had no control over.
More recently with the advent of 'cloud computing' and 'cloud storage', this came a little closer to having more control over, but still not as fully as if it were under your direct control.

So what are these 'clouds'??
Well as an example, iCloud, Dropbox, Skydrive, etc are all areas where you can store your personal data and be able to access it from anywhere with an internet connection. These are 'true' cloud based solutions.

Recently though as you've found out, external hard drives are becoming available (and this statement may not ring true to all of them), which claim to be cloud backup drives!!
What are they? Well for a vast majority of the newer ones, they are essentially NAS boxes that attach to your router (directly or indirectly), and give you access to the content on them from anywhere with an internet connection (and also to anyone else who you give access to).
It's the only logical reason why the would cost so much more then say a normal external hard drive - you're paying for basically a route from anywhere in the world direct to your hard drive at home!

Sorry for the long winded answer - its close to 01:00 here and I'm blabbering on!!
Course, happy to help answer anymore IT related questions, but for now, I'm gonna head for my own cloud in the sky and catch a few winks

 

[Ruidoso Bill]

I don't care about being able to access it from the internet, however having a tower full of drives on my network would be sweet!

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

I have been using a NAS backup and it si accessible for the internet if I want it to be. WD uses the Memeo backup software which backs up files as soon as they are written. You can also set it to save the last X versions of the file so you can look back several versions of whatever you want. That is a nice feature. It is a no brainer for backup. I also have another NAS drive that I get a weekly backup on.

 

[§am]

NAS's are great, the only problem is, if the hardware fails, you're looking at replacing it before you can access your data again - and even replacing it, has to be with a manufacturer that supports the original file system used on the NAS that failed. Not a problem if you're buying the same or upgraded device, but if you want to move to another make, think long and hard.
This is because there is no standard file system across the various NAS's.... yes they use standard and sometimes even bespoke file systems, but even the standard ones can be made to look bespoke by the way some manufacturers implement them!!

If you have a bunch of spare drives, just buy an enclosure that can house x drives and use a windows OS.
If your hardware fails... you simply move your drives to another PC (or windows OS), and within minutes your data is back in accessible order again

As for backup solutions - oh where do we begin... so many, so varied, so many options/features.

I personally use something called 'robocopy'.
It's command line based, but its a very powerful tool indeed.