Which storage strategy?

[G]

Hi,

Me again. When I can, I help people out with their computer problems. Starting from scratch, setting up someone’s computer system so that it is all configured, e.g., HDD treated, Win98, applications, firewalls and so on, can take a very long time to do, if done properly – which I do. Every so often, they come back to me with a completely messed up system. Even though, I’ve made the point to them that they should not uninstall this or that, and not to delete anything that they have not created, and so on. Even safety measures I put in place they seem to mess up by uninstalling important programs used to get them out of trouble and so save me time in the process. You’ve probably been there and seen it to.

Ideally, I would make an image using Drive Image V4 on a partition and then hide it. If in the event they happened to reformat the HD then the image would be lost if in turn they diced with FDISK etc. Therefore, I’m looking for some way to store the image off site, in case of a catastrophic computer event, and putting their system back to how it was when I first built up the computer.

What storage device would you recommend? For instance, would you say an internal or external IDE CD-RW with a 1.5GB image file would be the choice to make, or would you recommend an alternative storage device, like a hard disk drive? Would you go with using an internal HDD and simply hook it up and transfer the image over or would you go for an external HDD with USB (or its equivalent) for example. I’ve seen a recommendation for BusLink?

If you go with the internal IDE HDD what model, would you go for? I’d rather have two relatively small HDDs (say, 30-40GB) than an equivalent large one to protect against HDD failure. As it’s for storage, only a sound model at low RPM is need.

If you go with the external HDD, which manufacturer, model, and the like (same specifications as with the internal HDD above)?

If there is anything you would recommend that I have not covered, I would appreciate any additional guidance.

In addition, which CD-Rs and CD-RWs would you recommend for using with Plextor 40max and Plextor 12/10/32S? Do you know anywhere they can be obtained at best prices in the UK?

All the best,
G

[otheos]

Well I guess a USB hard drive would work best as you won't have to open the case and most PC's have USB (but not firewire or SCSI). But since performance is not an issue and other than some PC's won't boot from a USB device (or won't see it in DOS), I'd suggest it. You can always prepare a floppy for DOS to see the USB drive.

A 5400rpm drive (low heat) from maxtor would do (I alwasy suggest Maxtor IDE drives due to their high level of support and excellent RMA so consider my opinion biased).

On the other hand you can create bootable CDROM containing the image (or more than disc if bigger). I know plextor's ResQ could do that and I have used it and works great (it's basically Ghost for Plextor :)). This is cheap and you can leave with the client and talk him over the phone how to do it. It may save you some trips. Other software should be making bootable image discs but I only have experience with ResQ so again look around before buying.

As for what discs work best for your optical drives, well I am inclined to say Ritek based discs, but again this is a matter of what i like about it. And for media there's only one thing to like: to work with your hardware. So Ritek works with my 20x burner at 20x (eventhough they're 16x certified), are read at full speed by all my readers, and even my DVD-player reads them perfectly when they're burnt at 20x (Verbatims for instant should be burned at 4x for my DVD-Player to read them without problem).

As for cheap prices in the UK, check this guy (really nice guy): http://www.business-ecommercesoftware.co.uk/business/svpcomm/index.html

and here (bit pricey but better that large retailers):
http://www.citrus-uk.com/cdr_blank_media/cdr_blank_media.html

[G]

Hi Otheos,

Thanks for the suggestion on the UBS HDD. The BusLink external UBS HDD that I had been thinking of getting uses the IBM GXP 40 or 60GB HDD. I’ve read some good comments about them. I take note of your Maxtor comments too. I think HDDs would be the better solution over CD-RW drives.

Also, thanks for the links, the Ritek pointer, and the tip about the Yamaha’s 2200S (EIDE) drive over the Plextor’s you mentioned from a previous post reply.

All the best,
G