External Hard Drive

bos

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Currently we have an older Gateway PC and a newer Sony laptop. We use the laptop 99% of the time and it has 2 hard drives - all of our MP3s and photos are on the 2nd one.

I back up all of our images on DVDs every once in a while, but should probably get an external hard drive at some point and connect it to the wireless network.

The end goal is to get a server in the basement that all data is saved on, eliminate the PC and get a 2nd laptop.


You should look into the new Microsoft Home Server systems that hit the market. they seem slick.
 

ISUFan22

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Apr 11, 2006
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You should look into the new Microsoft Home Server systems that hit the market. they seem slick.

I heard about them, but very briefly. Sounds spendy. Not going to put a bunch of money into that type of setup - can achieve the same/similar results for a lot cheaper I would assume.
 

bos

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I heard about them, but very briefly. Sounds spendy. Not going to put a bunch of money into that type of setup - can achieve the same/similar results for a lot cheaper I would assume.


Price wasnt too bad. And it interfaces well with alot of equipment. If you are into storing things reliably, you will want to go with a RAID setup and that isnt necessarily cheap on its own.
 

jbhtexas

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Oct 20, 2006
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Currently we have an older Gateway PC and a newer Sony laptop. We use the laptop 99% of the time and it has 2 hard drives - all of our MP3s and photos are on the 2nd one.

I back up all of our images on DVDs every once in a while, but should probably get an external hard drive at some point and connect it to the wireless network.

The end goal is to get a server in the basement that all data is saved on, eliminate the PC and get a 2nd laptop.

How old is the Gateway? You could probably turn it into a decent "fileserver" pretty cheaply.

Deja Vu...I recall having this discussion in a prior thread...
 

bos

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How old is the Gateway? You could probably turn it into a decent "fileserver" pretty cheaply.

Deja Vu...I recall having this discussion in a prior thread...


We've probably had it in 10 threads. =)
 

bos

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The Gateway is from 2000. Ancient in the PC world.


So that makes it an early pentium 3 maybe? Should be decent. You might even get away with getting a cheap PCI EIDE raid card and you can build in some redundancy.
 

TykeClone

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Oct 18, 2006
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I heard about them, but very briefly. Sounds spendy. Not going to put a bunch of money into that type of setup - can achieve the same/similar results for a lot cheaper I would assume.

Old PC + Linux + Samba

Makes for good, cheap disk space assuming that the older PC can handle the bigger drives.
 

bos

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If he has to stick a card in it, he might as well get a cheap PCI SATA RAID card...

I thought so too, but Im not sure how cheap he wanted it. He may have some IDE drives sitting around instead of buying SATA new ones. But youre right, if he was looking to go big at this point might as well go SATA.
 

drmwevr08

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Nov 25, 2006
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Wow, this thread just spiralled right over my head quick! I think I learned what I needed to though before that happened... I'm just wondering where you guys get the dough for the multiple computers and all the cool add ons... Your still eating, right? :wink:

Thanks!
 

bos

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Wow, this thread just spiralled right over my head quick! I think I learned what I needed to though before that happened... I'm just wondering where you guys get the dough for the multiple computers and all the cool add ons... Your still eating, right? :wink:

Thanks!


Well for me it helped to work at places that replace technology fast and dispose of things I find useful.
 

drmwevr08

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Well for me it helped to work at places that replace technology fast and dispose of things I find useful.

I would not be above taking the leftovers! Unfortunately my place of employment replaces things only when they die or become COMPLETELY obsolete. Even then they typically save it all in the basement for about 40 years! :biglaugh:
 

brianhos

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Wow, this thread just spiralled right over my head quick! I think I learned what I needed to though before that happened... I'm just wondering where you guys get the dough for the multiple computers and all the cool add ons... Your still eating, right? :wink:

Thanks!

It comes from the slush fund that you have to hide from your wife. Actually now I buy all this stuff and she knows about it, and if she says anything, I just remind her how much her scrab booking costs. Then she lets me buy my toys.
 

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