Add HD and use it rather than the current drive?

John Casler · « **on:** 28 Nov 2007, 06:34 pm »

Not a very Computer savy type and I notice during "defragging" that HUGE chunks of my current HD are shown as fragmented, yet do not defragment at all.

Is it possible to take one of these "external HD's" that run via the USB ports and simply transfer all the files and programs to it and simply use it for most everything?

Please speak in simple terms since I am not up on all the SATA, and whatever differences between drives

The computer is a DELL Desktop about 5-6 years old

Imperial · « **Reply #1 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 08:16 am »

Quote from: John Casler on 28 Nov 2007, 06:34 pm

Not a very Computer savy type and I notice during "defragging" that HUGE chunks of my current HD are shown as fragmented, yet do not defragment at all.

Is it possible to take one of these "external HD's" that run via the USB ports and simply transfer all the files and programs to it and simply use it for most everything?

Please speak in simple terms since I am not up on all the SATA, and whatever differences between drives

The computer is a DELL Desktop about 5-6 years old

Yes, you can.
But these external drives are not very reliable for usage say every day all the day... They need to cool down now and then and will some times fail if they are on 24/7.
And, just use an IDE drive, no need to think about SATA drives...

The following is one of the possibilities...
Your best option is to add a second much larger drive inside your computer, and then "clone" the first one onto the new.
Then defrag the new drive... Then you could add an external backup drive... and use that one for backups..
The oldest drive... is old.
"work" drives could very well be of the slower 5400 spin type. a shop will know what that is, as these are more reliable, or they could be of the "enterprise" or such type, designed to be extra reliable and can run 24/7.

Now, you mean it does not defrag properly anymore, or you think it does not defrag it all anymore?
I need to see the defrag screen to tell you what it what.
Can you post a screen dump? a picture of the defrag process?

And you should also think about getting a new psu for you computer..!!! 6 years old psu's are gonna start to be a bit tired!
This should be done now, in conjunction with say a new HD. NB!!!

However... there is something called a "personal server"...
Seagate Mirra is one of them. That could be what you are looking for.
But the general rule is to always have backups available and not trust any single drive entirely..
The Mirra is a good choice for the un-savvy user...

Imperial

bpape · « **Reply #2 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 11:00 am »

At 5-6 years old, you're on borrowed time with that hard disk. I'd second the recommendation to add a hard disk and clone it. However, I'd just ditch the old one and use the new one. Hard disks are ridiculously cheap.

Bryan

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #3 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 11:04 am »

With respect, Imperial, I suggest a SATA drive if your machine is equipped to handle it. IDE is essentially dead and has been for awhile. I'd be trying to prepare for future compatibility, FWIW. And I agree- if your HD is older than 5 years old, you're on borrowed time. You can get a 750 GB perpendicular drive or a (slightly more reliable) 500 GB drive for considerably less than you probably spent on the cheapest cable in your Big Rig.

ctviggen · « **Reply #4 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 11:47 am »

I think what Imperial is saying is buy IDE (which John's computer likely has) instead of SATA. The problem for John with buying SATA is he'd have to also buy an interface, which can cost a bit more. However, if John thinks he'll be upgrading his computer in the future, a SATA hard drive would be good, as you can't really find IDE drives or motherboards any more.

zybar · « **Reply #5 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 11:56 am »

Quote from: Rob Babcock on 29 Nov 2007, 11:04 am

With respect, Imperial, I suggest a SATA drive if your machine is equipped to handle it. IDE is essentially dead and has been for awhile. I'd be trying to prepare for future compatibility, FWIW. And I agree- if your HD is older than 5 years old, you're on borrowed time. You can get a 750 GB perpendicular drive or a (slightly more reliable) 500 GB drive for considerably less than you probably spent on the cheapest cable in your Big Rig.

Since his computer is 5-6 years old, it won't have a SATA interface, only IDE.

To be honest, after you buy a new big drive and a SATA card, you are almost half way towards the cost of a new computer! You might want to just buy a new computer during the holiday season.

George

bpape · « **Reply #6 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 11:59 am »

For an older machine that doesn't likely have SATA headers, you can go to www.mwave.com On the menu on the left go to hard drives and then from the menu in the middle that comes up, select IDE. They have them from 80GB to 750GB.

Bryan

satfrat · « **Reply #7 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 02:09 pm »

I just use 2 external 750G hard drivers with super quiet fans via USB port, my HTPC recognizes them as G & H drives and you can either paste or simply desigate these drives as your HD storage drives. Mine have a switch so I only turn them on when I need them on. Only $99 (minus the hard drive) at http://www.cellarcinemas.com/cgi-bin/store/HTPC-EHD.html This is what I use for my small scale system. There is much more involved storage system here at a much steeper price.

Cheers,
Robin

John Casler · « **Reply #8 on:** 29 Nov 2007, 11:49 pm »

Thanks everyone for the tips. That is exactly the info I needed to know.

Thanks again.

NewBuyer · « **Reply #9 on:** 30 Nov 2007, 06:54 am »

Quote from: John Casler on 28 Nov 2007, 06:34 pm

...Is it possible to take one of these "external HD's" that run via the USB ports and simply transfer all the files and programs to it and simply use it for most everything?...

Be careful trying to simply transfer programs to a different drive, especially an external drive. Many programs, once installed to your main drive, have registry entries written to your operating system that expect the program to be in the same place at next program startup - so the installed program will fail if you try to just drag-n-drop it somewhere else. Some programs simply won't install or run at all from any external drive.

Best of all (simplicity-wise) would be for you to install a second internal hard drive into the system. Yes IDE drives are still very available (and cheap), and extremely easy to install. Then you wouldn't need to move any files either.

You probably can't defrag all your files because your harddrive is close to full. The defrag process needs a certain amount of free space on the drive in question, or free space on another internal drive, to complete the process adequately.

Thump553 · « **Reply #10 on:** 30 Nov 2007, 02:58 pm »

Don't stress too much, my system is as out of date as yours. As NewBuyer said, the simplest thing to to do is to add a second internal hard drive of the IDE type (also known as PATA). They are still very common and best of all, cheap. Check out the ads in your SUnday paper, odds are Staples, Best Buy, CircuitCity or the like will have one on sale at a great price in a week or two. Best of all, it should come with software that makes setting up the hard drive and transferring data from the old one a snap.

It's possible that your computer is so old that it may not be able to address all the capacity of large new drives. I'd still buy as large a drive as is reasonably priced. There are software ways around this sort of limitation (which I don't recccommend-one hiccup and the whole drive is inaccessible-it happened to me) but even with the limitation, I'd buy the big HD and plan on using the extra space when you get a new computer.

Incidentally, all of my FLAC files are stored on external, USB hard drives that are on 24/7. I haven't had one fail yet and have been using them for at least two years now. Again, if you watch the sales carefully you can find the USB models for sale very cheap.

woodsyi · « **Reply #11 on:** 30 Nov 2007, 03:04 pm »

John,

With the price of HDs being so cheap, copy all your music into one external USB drive and keep it as a back up. You can get another one to play with. George is right about a new PC cost. You can get a desktop for a song now days.

randytsuch · « **Reply #12 on:** 30 Nov 2007, 04:44 pm »

Hi John
If you need some PC help, installing an internal HD, let me know. I could stop on the way home one day, and give you a hand. I've done it a bunch of times.

For backups, if I was you, I would buy an external drive, and copy all your files to it, and just store it away. I bought a 500g external for $80 (after rebate) on BF from staples online. I'm sure there will be more deals on 500g externals before christmas.

Randy

Imperial · « **Reply #13 on:** 16 Dec 2007, 06:08 am »

Well, I just recieved this here HD cabinet now:

I've not yet gotten around to get a HD drive for it.
I thought I would build my own HD drive!

I'll report back when it's running and say what I think of this!
I've not yet ordered a S-ata HD for it. Any Ideas?
I was thinking of the new Samsung SpinPoint F1 series, say the 750Gigs with 32MB buffers.

Imperial

GBB · « **Reply #14 on:** 16 Dec 2007, 06:28 am »

Quote from: Imperial on 16 Dec 2007, 06:08 am

Well, I just recieved this here HD cabinet now:
As with this here thread I thought I would use this one as a fileserver!

Imperial,
Be careful - this case doesn't have a cooling fan so the drive tends to run a bit hot. That's not a problem if you use it for the occasional backup but could be trouble if you want to leave it on 24/7 as a file server. I bought one of these and ran it that way and the 500Gb drive (a Maxtor) died after 6 months. Maxtor replaced the drive after a long wait but couldn't do anything to help me recover the lost files. So I'd recommend investing a bit more money and buying a well ventilated case for your file server. Or have a spare so that you're covered in case of failure.

---Gary

Imperial · « **Reply #15 on:** 16 Dec 2007, 07:00 am »

Hm...Thanx for the tip!
I'll modify the case then when!

Right, I'll have to get a cool running drive I guess as well!

I thought I would try to clone my C: disk onto this one an run my laptop from my external drive! (Sort of for backups as well...)
Have you tried that? My Laptop do have boot on usb I believe!

Imperial

Tweaker · « **Reply #16 on:** 16 Dec 2007, 07:38 am »

Nice option here for anyone wanting to add an external drive,or drives:
http://www.cooldrives.com/jbquswsa23gh.html

GBB · « **Reply #17 on:** 16 Dec 2007, 03:46 pm »

Quote from: Imperial on 16 Dec 2007, 07:00 am

Hm...Thanx for the tip!
I thought I would try to clone my C: disk onto this one an run my laptop from my external drive! (Sort of for backups as well...)
Have you tried that?

I haven't tried booting my laptop from USB but I suspect going into the BIOS setting would let you do that. Just change the boot order so it checks USB prior to the local HDD.

When I upgraded the HDD in my laptop from the original 40GB to 120GB, I used EZ Update software from Apricorn. Take a look here:
http://www.apricorn.com/products.php?cat_id=52

It creates an exact image of the HDD so one can simply swap drives and go. It might be useful for what you're trying to do as well. Either make an image of your desktop computer to run on your laptop or clone your laptop HDD and then add the files you want from your desktop. There are probably other ways of doing this but the price was low enough that I was happy to have the pre-built solution.

---Gary

Imperial · « **Reply #18 on:** 17 Dec 2007, 02:49 am »

Right, I've just put in an older Seagate S-ata 160gig drive (From my old machine that was busted by a lightning strike here.
And The drive started up! Wow! Inside the Vantec cabinet! It seems to be in working order!!!
Woho! That was good news indeed!!!

as that was my old backup drive! I was sure that one had melted!!!
About a 100Gigs of memories!!! Woho!!!

Well at least it's so easy to assemble and dissasemble it can serve as a drive-interface for my old drives!!!
And I've attached a fan to it as well, so it gets cooler. And yeah it did get hot after a while that cabinet!!!

I'm back!!! Oh yeah!!! And one functional and temperature controlled file server: Check!

It is much faster than my internal laptop HD as well! Wow!
Gary! If you had not told me about your experience I might have never tried this!
Thanx a MILLION!!!

Imperial

Imperial · « **Reply #19 on:** 17 Dec 2007, 03:43 am »

By the way...
I've come across a superb software, regardless of what external unit one chooses!
http://www.memeo.com/ !!! This is knock out stuff! And I'm starting to understand where Mac found their "Time machine idea..."!
Really something you should look into J Casler!

This appears to be "Time Machine" for windows!

Imperial