Backup drive / Network drive

[ChimpMaster]

Looking for an inexpensive and easy to use backup option for my main PC at home.

Was thinking of getting a MyBook - reasonably priced at around £65 from Amazon (500Gb). Thing is, you either have to buy a USB2.0 version or a NAS option.

The NAS would be very slow on transfer rates while the USB2.0 obviously wouldn't allow the drive to be accessed on my LAN.

Ideally I want a NAS drive that has reasonable data transfer rates.

Can you recommend anything, or is the NAS MyBook a good enough option?

[TheFaQQer]

Buy a cheap PC, stick a hard drive in there that's big enough, and leave it switched on, sharing the drive over the network.

[ChimpMaster]

Buy a cheap PC, stick a hard drive in there that's big enough, and leave it switched on, sharing the drive over the network.

Hi FAQ - unfortunately this is too bulky, more expensive than the MyBook and doesn't address the issue of slow transfer rates, so for those reasons - you're out.

[TheFaQQer]

If you're going to be backing up over a network, then whatever you do will have slower rates than a USB.

I guess you could have a gigabit LAN to boost the network performance, though. Some NAS drives (I used to use an SC101 from Netgear) have their own proprietary format, so there is also additional time in writing and reading the data as it needs to be converted.

USB model, attached to your PC (left switched on), and then shared over the network?

That way you get the network attached storage, plus the USB transfer rates from the main PC that you want to back up.

[ChimpMaster]

USB model, attached to your PC (left switched on), and then shared over the network?

That sounds interesting. Wonder if it will work? I'll look into this a bit more - thanks.

[TheFaQQer]

That sounds interesting. Wonder if it will work? I'll look into this a bit more - thanks.

I don't share my USB drive over the network.

I have PC left on, USB drive attached to it for backup. Share the internal drive, so that it's a bit quicker over the network. No problems.

I can't remember what the drive is - possibly a MyBook. Is that a Western Digital one? If so, then that's what I use - 1.5TB.

[Flat Eric]

I use a D-Link DNS 323. It's NAS enclosure that supports RAID. It has a print server, Itunes server, AV Media Server and has Gigabit Ethernet and it is based on linux (which you can hack into and run pretty much what you want on it )..

It comes with no drives.

M.

[Sausage Surprise]

I've got a Thecus N2100 with 2 x 250GB SATA drives. Plugged into router and accessed via mapping a drive from the othe PCs in the house.

This one

http://www.store2go.net/shop/ultimat...100+%5BYes%5D/

[gadgetman]

I'm relying on a 4 disk RAID 5 array (2TB total) to provide my security, along with DAT backups of some critical stuff. I've had one drive go down in a year and it worked fine whilst I hot-swapped it out.

I lose 25% of total capacity but at least this way I get to use the drives rather than having a complete duplicate that will (hopefully) rarely be needed.

Only thing I'm not covered for is two drives going down at the same time but this could be said for the USB option too.

[dmini]

I got one of the mybook things on Saturday - it went back yesterday
My opinion - garbage.
I put it on my network - followed the instructions - you HAVE to install mionet (up to 500Mb) and then got "disk mount failed". Eventually , got it to mount for a bit - very very very slow. Cancelled my backup - then lost connectivity. Tried the advanced manual, rescanned, reset device - powered eveything off, tried again - on about the 20th attempt got on the stupid device - on a new drive letter!!- deleted any data I had put on. Took device back.
I have no idea how I eventually managed to get on it - what I did different each time when I finally got on.
Don't recommend it!!
Will probably be geting a Thecus device - more expensive - but recommended by other contrators here.