Confused about external HDDs

K

Klyla

New Member
I'm about to buy an external hard drive to back up my system. I am not very geeky so I'm confused (yes I read the stickys) about what format I need.

My system is an HP Pavilion about 5 years old. I've got a 40gb drive and a partitioned 120gb drive.

I know formats keep advancing and I don't understand what kind to buy. Is an SATA compatible with my oldish PC? Or do I need an IDE drive...or what?
I see some Seagates and WD's on ebay that look interesting but I see IDE, SATA, SATAII and don't want to end up with something not compatible.

Second question is whether to buy one of the HDDs that have a "one touch" backup software included. I'm only going to be backing up about once a week, don't have a ton of pics, videos, music, etc. Just some home-based business stuff in Quickbooks, and typical household stuff. (We are not gamers either.)

Any recommendations on size and my other concerns would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to overbuy (I suspect a 500gb is overkill) but I also want a place to store my digital pics from vacation trips, birthday parties, etc.

TIA! :)
 
An external drive for a system that old would need to use USB or possibly firewire to be able to connect it to the PC without buying anything extra. The drive itself could be any interface as long as the enclosure it's in uses USB. Most external drives will be USB/Firewire and there are a few eSATAs out there.

I wouldn't get a one touch backup drive unless it's the same price. You can script simple backups with a batch file (which we can tell you how to make if needed) and run that at a set time every week/day/month/etc with windows scheduled tasks.

Get more space than you think you'll need but don't go crazy.
 
Thanks for your input. I do have USB (2.0 I think) on the front of the PC. I use it for digital camera uploads and for my microphone for IM.

I have Windows XP and don't plan to upgrade to Vista.

So are you saying either USB/Firewire or eSATA will work for me? (I don't have Firewire as far as I know.) All the drives I'm considering have USB2.0 cables.
 
No, I was saying that USB will work and firewire might work but if you don't think you have a firewire port make sure you get a USB external drive. eSATA wont work unless you buy an SATA controller addin card. The drive that is in the external drive casing can use any interface (IDE/SATA) but I don't think they will tell you what it is, just that the external uses USB or whatever.
 
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