Customer of mine (a doctor) needed a new PC for his office and asked me to price one out, which I did. Apparently just because you have money doesnt mean you will part with it because yesterday he called me with this request.

Take his PC from home to replace the Pentium 100 beast he was using in the front office - he has a laptop he uses anyway and apparently the only one using the desktop was his wife (screw her I guess). With a memory upgrade the HP (cringe) he has at home is going to do the job perfectly. All he requests of it is billing and insurance form submittance - pretty easy tasks. Good thing cause its a 1.2 GHz Celeron with 128 MB ram on Windows XP. Obvious upgrade to 256 MB will be necessary (cheesy HP XT 963 uses PC100/133 ahhh).

Anyway on to the question. The old PC relied on a tape backup drive that is on its way out.......he said to order what he needs to back up the new PC. Im quite sure considering his cheapness he means cheaply order what he needs - I need opinions on what would be the best solution.

The requirements are:

1. Backups must leave the office at night in case of fire

2. The operator of the PC is NOT knowledgeable in ANY way of computers

My suggestion will be a second hard drive in a removable tray and an imaging program set to image the harddrive at the end of the day......turn off PC.....remove drive and leave. Pretty simple and I can setup the imaging program so they dont even have to touch it. Im thinking of using PowerQuest Drive Image.

Other possibilaties:

Same imaging setup with USB hard drive.....more expensive but smaller package to carry around.

DVD burner and RW disc......not sure I can set this up to automatically backup though. I dont have any experience with automated burning software.

Maxtor One Touch hard drive......sounds great but is pretty expensive.

ANYTHING YOU CAN SUGGEST

Another thing is the secretary says she just leaves the backup tapes in her car overnight (which in Iowa can get really cold). Apparently (by the luck of god) this hasnt so far affected the tapes - what affect will it have on a hard drive???

Thanks for any info you can give.

If you want to do backups for dummies, try these Maxtor extermal drives. All you have to do is initially set it up, then when push the button it will back up the data you need it to.

Brandon Cisneros

EDIT: whoa i guess im blind, i totally missed those last couple paragraphs of your post. However, the maxtors are nice and easy. I have an idiot tech, so this is what he has to use to back up stuff.

USB keychain drive...

He can get 256 megs and it's pocket-portable.

Hell, guy wants a gig or two, if he has the green he can make it happen (although it sounds like he can squeeze a penny 'til it screams)

Could also go with a 250 meg Zip disk drive.

Actually I need the ability to backup atleast 6 GB.....so the pen drive is probably not going to work. The external Maxtors would work but they are more expensive than an internal drive and removable drive bay. Is there any disadvantage to removable drive bays - Ive never used one before.

Ah! Six gigs...

Tape Backups usually aren't rocket science (software is usually pretty friendly).... especially if you set it up for him.

Still, if he's a pain in the ass, and you don't want him callin' yer house asking crap all the time... then yeah, I'd suggest an external USB hard-drive. I'm pretty sure if you spend ten minutes to show him how to use it, he'll get it.

I could be wrong. I've met a lot of people whom, outside of their profession, can't seem to find their ass with both hands and a flashlight...

I suppose you need to know how much he is backing up before suggestions can really be accurate and appropriate. Is he backing up gigabytes and gigabytes of files or only a few measly text files?

Like Dark suggested, if he is not backing up too much, then a USB keychain drive will be more than sufficient.

However, I would NOT recommend ZIP drives at all. I use computers every day and go through hundreds of computer parts every week. The ZIP drives die so fast it is absurd. If you are setting up this backup deal, then they willn hold you responsible for getting it back online if a component fails. Though not hard, this is just tedious.

Brandon Cisneros

EDIT: The minimum OPERATING temperature for those drives is 5^0 Celcius aka 41^0 Farenheit. As long as she is not using them in her freezing car, they should be alright. That sudden temperature change might end up being a problem (outside to inside) but I doubt it. To be safe you should tell her to wait a half hour before using it after taking it in (just to protect yourself mainly)

What about the secretary leaving it in the car overnight......will the cold eventually kill the drive???

Should I suggest letting it warm to room temp for a couple hours??

OH! 6 gigs.

The type of drive that is in a removable drive bay works just fine, though transfer rates can be hurt a little. That, however, is negligible for backups.

The thing that worries me about them is that the connector on the back which connects the portable part to the part in the computer gets damaged with repeated use. They work fine until that gets worn out. You might want to buy a backup removable tray, just incase the previous one gets damaged or refuses to work.

*cough*cough*I've got some 160 gig drives for $90 *cough* cough*and 80 gig ones for 50*cough*cough *here *cough*

Now that my throat is cleared, give it some thought. If he is too dumb to remember to backup using a removable tray then maybe the Maxtor (or something similar) is needed

Brandon Cisneros

Quote: Originally posted by Gamma_Goblin I suppose you need to know how much he is backing up before suggestions can really be accurate and appropriate. Is he backing up gigabytes and gigabytes of files or only a few measly text files? Like Dark suggested, if he is not backing up too much, then a USB keychain drive will be more than sufficient. However, I would NOT recommend ZIP drives at all. I use computers every day and go through hundreds of computer parts every week. The ZIP drives die so fast it is absurd. If you are setting up this backup deal, then they willn hold you responsible for getting it back online if a component fails. Though not hard, this is just tedious. Brandon Cisneros

Yeah, I have a ZIP drive that developed the Click of Death. Lots of data gone. I got it replaced then EBAYed - I will *NEVER* go that route again.

He is wanting his entire drive backed up. All these medical form submiting programs have an insane amout of settings and getting them working the first time is a frickin chore - I want to backup and restore the whole damn system.

Until I came on as their computer geek they didnt even use anti virus software - they had broadband internet throughout the building and had a collections of over 2000 infected files on just one system - OUCH! Anyways, all their tape backups were infected because the dont keep a monthly backup, they just overwrite the last one. I want to be able to keep a monthly copy as well. The space used on their current machine is 3 GB. So I need atleast 6 or 7 GB space.

Quote: Originally posted by Gamma_Goblin OH! 6 gigs. The type of drive that is in a removable drive bay works just fine, though transfer rates can be hurt a little. That, however, is negligible for backups. The thing that worries me about them is that the connector on the back which connects the portable part to the part in the computer gets damaged with repeated use. They work fine until that gets worn out. You might want to buy a backup removable tray, just incase the previous one gets damaged or refuses to work. *cough*cough*I've got some 160 gig drives for $90 *cough* cough*and 80 gig ones for 50*cough*cough *here *cough* Now that my throat is cleared, give it some thought. If he is too dumb to remember to backup using a removable tray then maybe the Maxtor (or something similar) is needed Brandon Cisneros

Reference the wear and tear I could put the hard drive in a external USB enclosure. Will those last longer. I have an external USB 2.5" enclosure that has a 20 GB notebook drive in it that I use for mp3s and movies. Everyday I plug it in at work, everyday I plug it in at home. About 8 months and no significant wear yet. Hmmm......what to do. Im not concerned about the time taken for the backup as compared to the tape drive it will surely be quicker.

I was actually referring to a removable tray in a 5.25 bay. I've never had a USB drive wear out, but I haven't had as much time with them either.

Brandon Cisneros
EDIT: one like this

Does anybody have any suggestion on a removable tray - brand and model.....maybe a link to Newegg or Tigerdirect to what they use.

I went ahead and ordered a Vantec tray/bay from Newegg and a 40 GB WD hard drive. Also have a copy of Powerquest DriveImage 7.0 on the way. I will let you know how it turns out.