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View Full Version : If anybody's looking for a cheap backup option


Daz
08-01-2007, 14:06
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-2980.aspx

£25 off until 10am tomorrow, £120 for a 500GB external disk, supports E-SATA and may (not sure if I'm interpreting the blurb right) have a PCI- E-SATA card or bridge so you can use it. Comes with USB anyway if not.

Absolute bargain, thinking of getting it myself for backups/archiving :)

Desmo
08-01-2007, 14:18
I'm confused. That link takes me to the 500GB for £122. What's the £25 all about?

Daz
08-01-2007, 14:20
It's on special offer, £25 off until tomorrow :) Typo on my part :embarassed:

Matblack
08-01-2007, 14:25
I'm holding out for one I can plug into the network and her a print server, it is a good deal though :)

MB

Daz
08-01-2007, 14:27
Aye, handy if you already have a box on 24/7, which hopefully I will be soon. .24 pence per gig is just unbeatable for an archive solution.

Desmo
08-01-2007, 14:29
I thought I could get it for £25 ;D

MB, I've got a 120GB Buffalo thingy that does what you want. Got a built in print server and ftp server too. It's probably less than a year old and has hardly been used.

Make me an offer if you want. I'll either say yes or tell you to **** off ;D

It's like this thing ... here (http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=71&categoryid=31)

Feek
08-01-2007, 14:52
Ta Daz, sent around the office and I think three people are buying one.

Mark
08-01-2007, 15:09
/tempted.

I need to upgrade the external disk on my media box. It's full. :/

Belmit
08-01-2007, 16:21
Damn it. Ordered. :D

Davey_Pitch
08-01-2007, 16:29
Tempting, ever so tempting. I'm way out of space on Lynne's hard drive, something like that would provide enough space for us to keep going for ages and ages.

Daz
08-01-2007, 17:26
Ta Daz, sent around the office and I think three people are buying one.
4 of us have had one :D

Another part of the server I'm planning. 2 disks RAID-0 for the virtual machines, one internal for booting and file storage, then this external for backing up the lot. Nice and safe :)

Welshy
08-01-2007, 17:58
I'm tempted to buy one and sell it on for profit...

edit: nope maybe not, just found another 500gig for £127

Daz
08-01-2007, 18:10
Storage is too cheap these days to try and make a profit out of it anyway :) well, unless you're a supplier or something :p

Mark
08-01-2007, 21:27
It's cheaper to buy an external HDD than it is to buy an internal one and shove it in one of the enclosures I already own. Someone please explain this to me. :)

Daz
08-01-2007, 21:31
Doesn't make sense does it? ;D

I guess it's something to do with the branding of the drives. Though I dont know many vendors who offer 500GB.

Mark
08-01-2007, 21:32
I just can't figure out the £25 off bit. Doesn't seem to say that anywhere.

Daz
08-01-2007, 21:34
I get daily emails from Tesco with a different offer in each one. Never normally click the links so I dont know if it's unusual to not show the extra discount.

Mark
09-01-2007, 16:48
It's still showing at the same price if anyone hasn't had chance yet.

Daz
10-01-2007, 16:13
Price has reverted now :)

Got mine here, and for those who are interested, it's the Hitachi 500GB drive. Going on OcUK for £130ish quid plus delivery ;)

Comes preformatted at FAT32 so you'll want to sort that out (cluster size to the massive!), but I'm really pleased with it :)

Belmit
10-01-2007, 16:18
Mine almost cost £130 anyway as I chose Saturday delivery. At least I know it'll arrive then though. ;)

Daz
10-01-2007, 16:21
Basically getting the enclosure and cables etc for free ;)

The E-Sata 'upgrade kit' was as I thought by the way, not a controller card, just a plate which acts as a bridge to a SATA port on your motherboard.

Which is probably better anyway, as you cant be bottlenecked by the PCI bus. Not that you'd do it with 1 disk, but you never know what else is on there :)

Mark
10-01-2007, 17:16
No sign of mine yet. :(

Mark
10-01-2007, 18:04
I have you now



It's a wee bairn


It's tiny (but perfectly formed) compared to the WD Media Centre that's now stacked on top of it. Shoulda got two. :/ :)

Now, to format or not to format. It's not as clearcut as Daz's case because the smallest file that's likely to end up on it will be in the multi-megabyte range.

Daz
10-01-2007, 18:10
But the cluster size man! WONT SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CLUSTER SIZE!11!!!1

Mark
10-01-2007, 18:11
32K. If the average filesize is a gigabyte, I doubt anyone will notice. :p

Still leaning towards NTFS though as FAT is generally crap. :/

Daz
10-01-2007, 18:14
Mine's either being split between NTFS and ext3 or reiserfs, or entirely the latter (whichever it may be).

.5TB of FAT is fantastically inefficient, and indeed, just generally crap. Wouldn't touch it outside of flash memory.

Mark
10-01-2007, 18:19
Mine's all NTFS then. I have an ever-increasing amount of TV programmes that I might get around to watching, in about 5 years time. Having 1TB just for the media box should help. :p

Stan_Lite
11-01-2007, 05:52
Bugger.

T'internet has been down for 3 days here and I missed this :(

I need to replace the 500Gb WD drive that went tits up recently (still under warranty but can't put it in for RMA or data recovery - if you get my meaning ;) ).

Stan :)

Belmit
13-01-2007, 15:14
Mine arrived this morning.

Out of interest, what did everyone get as the default disk name? I'm just curious as I'm pretty sure the security seal was broken on the box, and the SATA bridge plate was ever so slightly bent. It isn't a problem and probably just coincidence, but wanted to check. And yes the drive is blank. :)

Mark
13-01-2007, 15:52
SWISNIFE1 I think.

Don't ask me why. :)

Belmit
13-01-2007, 15:56
Ah good, same as mine. :)

mejinks
13-01-2007, 17:28
I don't trust iquon. I had dealings with them several years ago and there RMA policy was for you to pay to have the stuff sent back to Ireland and then pay to have the new stuff sent to you.

Mark
13-01-2007, 17:47
The only problem I've found so far is that the power connection isn't very secure. Seems secure enough if left alone, but I've already knocked it out once while fettling with the back of the PC.

Mark
15-01-2007, 01:04
Has anyone got one they haven't reformatted? I meant to note the capacity before reformatting mine but forgot. :/

Nothing serious, just curiosity. :)

Belmit
15-01-2007, 11:13
I checked it but didn't write it down. The total was 499.xxxGB, which obviously translates to something a lot less in reality (can't be bothered to work it out!).

Daz
23-03-2007, 13:23
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=108761

Seriously, how cheap can storage go!

Rich_L
23-03-2007, 15:04
:shocked: That's ridiculously cheap!

Probably going to pick up another one next month, though will probs get one of the iomega ones because it fits the style of our set-up :p

*blatant pimp* - 2 blue LED's = 2x500Gb - with room for another one to sit on top of the Shuttle laid horizontally, lol :D

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/6399/cimg0704zx9.jpg

Mark
23-03-2007, 17:58
Ahh, you have the same problem I do - ever growing media collection.

It's tempting to sack the WD drive that's sat with my media box as it doesn't fit in, but with prices ever dropping I'm sure it can wait. :)

Dr. Z
23-03-2007, 18:00
I have 2Tb of space and its not enough - tempted to lob in an extra few Gb but I am running out of space, power and cooling potential. New / better case might be a better plan but then thats spending the money for the drives! :p

Mark
19-04-2007, 11:21
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=115248&C=Newsletter&U=07P05-1_HD&T=11755159

Not quite as good as the Ebuyer deal, but still, it's there.

Davey_Pitch
29-04-2007, 14:27
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/118937

500GB for £89.99 inc VAT. Almost bought a 400GB exteral HDD from PC World but after a quick text to Daz realised that while it was a good offer (£85), better could be had online. So so tempted to buy this drive, thanks to Newsgroups I could really do with the space.

Feek
29-04-2007, 21:09
That's very tempting, even if just for backup purposes. I assume I could use the built in Vista backup applet thing to schedule backups?

Daz
30-04-2007, 11:30
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/118937

500GB for £89.99 inc VAT. Almost bought a 400GB exteral HDD from PC World but after a quick text to Daz realised that while it was a good offer (£85), better could be had online. So so tempted to buy this drive, thanks to Newsgroups I could really do with the space.
£10 off through Google Checkout too.

Feek - it's just a drive, so I would assume so.

Daz
30-04-2007, 13:49
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deal/29091/iomega-500gb-external-usb-hd-77-39-/

That one too :)

Burble
30-04-2007, 14:03
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deal/29091/iomega-500gb-external-usb-hd-77-39-/

That one too :)

5 have been ordered! Temporary storage is always at a premium at work (I don't like thrashing the EMC or Netapp boxes with temporary crap) so these will do very nicely.

Daz
30-04-2007, 14:04
Amazing how cheap 2.5TB is these days. Imagine how much you'd pay for that only 2 years ago!