External Hard Drives

[hotdiggity]

I just posted this on a schools board, but I think it's important.  For anyone who is starting law school, or does not have one.  Buy an external hard drive if you store outlines and notes on a laptop.  I just remember this temple law student who came into the shop i work at as a tech during undergrad extremly upset because finals were in 2 weeks and she lost all of her data.  If you lose your laptop, have it stolen or it just craps out on you, you're screwed.  So I am just suggesting people who rely on their comps to buy USB hard drives, they don't have to be real big.  10gbs will do and learn how to back up their files on about a weekly basis.. Hopefully you'll never need it, but it could be the difference between a good and a poor semester.

[Erapitt]

10 gigs would likely be a flash storage device rather than an external hard drive.  I recommend both for anybody.  You can pick up a maxtor 200 gig hard drive for $150 bucks.  Well worth it, especially if you listen to MP3s.

[hotdiggity]

the largest flash drive on the consumer market right now is 2gbs.  you can also get a microdrive made by hitachi that hold 6 or 8gbs and do a good job, but they are expensive.  I was just saying the smallest external hard drive you can find will do the job.  i bought a case and used the hard drive from an old desktop as mine.  it's about 80gbs now.  the cases are cheap. about $20 and you can find a small hard drive on ebay very cheap.  i just seen a 10gb for 10$.  get a decent case though, and preferable one with a one touch back up button.

[Erapitt]

Yeah, but you have to be careful because you get what you pay for.  Cheap HDs are known to crap out, then what?  You are just as screwed.  Go for a good one, its a good investment and $150 bucks isn't much money.

[reverendlex]

I always hated trying to convince customers that backups were a 'good thing' (I'm channeling Martha Stewart, pre indictment). It's even worse trying to explain that data recovery from a fried HD is really expensive.

Backup HDs are good. Burning a CD once a week with all your notes is good. Flash drives are good.

However, while I have a backup HD (mostly to back up computers I'm working on), I've noticed that all my law school notes are less than 500mb, including my 1L,2L summer jobs. An iPod would hold it all.

Damien- which shop did you work at? I used to work at Springboard.

[Erapitt]

I always hated trying to convince customers that backups were a 'good thing' (I'm channeling Martha Stewart, pre indictment). It's even worse trying to explain that data recovery from a fried HD is really expensive.

Backup HDs are good. Burning a CD once a week with all your notes is good. Flash drives are good.

However, while I have a backup HD (mostly to back up computers I'm working on), I've noticed that all my law school notes are less than 500mb, including my 1L,2L summer jobs. An iPod would hold it all.

Damien- which shop did you work at? I used to work at Springboard.

Correct, but why not kill two birds with one stone?  Wouldn't you want everything on your computer safe and backed up?  I don't do regular backups of my entire hard drive or anything, but I do have one complete backup on my external.  Also, I have all of my MP3s and Photographs stored on the external.  Seems like a small investment.  Think of it as insurance.  The avg. joe spends thousands on that a year, why not spend $150 bucks on your data?

[hotdiggity]

I work as a tech part time at a circuit city now, it's mostly spyware and viruses but we get the complicated issues at times as well.  I just think a external hard drive is good because you like erapitt said you can put everything on there.  I have over 3000 pictures going back to high school that i keep transferring from one cpu to another and i like having all of them at the same time too.  I didn't back up my school files and lost all my work from my first 3 years of undergrad.  Not that I neeeded it, but I would have liked to be able to go back and see how much I've done in 5 years of college.  THe main issue is backing up data no matter hwo you do it.

[rider06]

im not in law school yet or anything, but assuming all your notes are in Word format wouldnt you just need one of those thumb drives that has like 128 or 256 mb?  i mean will i really take a gig worth of notes in a semester?