Good advice. I believe keeping an external device, that contains back up
files, plugged in
offers only a false sense of security. Will check out the Feeecom drive.

Mike

"Keith Foster" wrote in message
...

"Mike" wrote in message
news:hhnKf.2539$0z.1211@trnddc01...
Hi, I'm looking for recomendations for an external hard disk drive
that'll be used primarily for digital photo storage
and bac up until I build a new PC. For now I'm thinking a drive of
around 200gig should do it.
PC Magazine likes the Maxtor OneTouch II External USB Drive, but several
users report problems with this drive.
OTOH, maybe thousands are happoily using the drive. Basic drive
requirements - quiet, fast, durable excellent software is a plus. It
sems FireWire is trhe preferred interface.

Thanks,

Mike

I've just bought a 250Gig Freecom from PCWorld - £94.
Software seems to be designed for porting/syncing between home and office
machines but I'm using for backup each evening (having first produced and
copied a system disk image and made a BartPE bootable cd).
I plug the drive into the USB port and "update" from Windows Explorer.
There are other (Freecom software) options - Sync on drive plug-in, auto
sync etc but, since a friend's machine got zapped by a surge during a
thunderstorm (fried the keyboard) I quite like keeping the backup drive
unconnected and unplugged from the powr except when backing up.
Keith