Ext HD

[rpoint16]

I am computer illiterate & have a dumb question.

I have a one year old WD My Book 320gb external hard drive. Works fine. How long do these last? Meaning, I have 180 Gb of music saved, & if it malfunctions, crashes, burns up (?), etc... I'm screwed. I don't know the dynamics of how hard drives work.

I run the full Norton security, but I still need to reformat my internal HD every 6 months or so to clean it up.

Should I just by one of those new "portable" ext HD's & back up my WD?

THX!

 

[Geoff]

I wouldn't count on it as the only place to store those files. WD external drives are known to become corrupt and have errors every so often, so I would either keep a copy of the files on your internal hard drive, use another drive to keep a backup, or store the files on media such as dual layer DVD's.

 

[The_Other_One]

Never use a single location as your only means of backup. I try to keep files in many different locations. My music files are basically on my two external hard drives, main PC, and a DVD or two. Regardless of your hard drive brand and it's reliability, any hard drive may die.

 

[rpoint16]

Never use a single location as your only means of backup. I try to keep files in many different locations. My music files are basically on my two external hard drives, main PC, and a DVD or two. Regardless of your hard drive brand and it's reliability, any hard drive may die.

Great point.
THX