Hi, I am considering adding a second hard drive to my PC as a back up to the first one. So I would like to be able to disconnect it every time I go online in case i pick up a virus that wud wipe everything. Whats my best option? Buy an externel 200G HD that connects to the PC via USB 2? Best/cheapest place to get it? Or would a second internel one be better? Cheers, Paudge
For backups like that I would recomend a second external one. YOu don't need to buy it as an external. I bought an external enclosure for $60 and a 250GB drive for $250, and this total less than the $400 250Gb drives I have seen. But that would only be for data. Another option is to make a complete copy of you hard drive to an other hard drive. Then you could just switch them if you get a virus with no program or data loss. This is better for the extreme paranoid and ones that don't want to waste time. But there are disavatages. I use the external with data dumps, as I like to use it to store mass amounts of data. But will need to also think what do you really want. A mirror of your hard drive or a data storage centre.
Indeed ... get yourself the ADS enclosure for ~$40-60 CAD and you can pop any PATA drive in there and ur set -- and when you are done backing up, you can even pop the drive back into the tower if you choose to.