Back up Options for Notebook users..

Us Notebook users can't keep a copy of our mp3's on our machines, but external drives have come down in price quite a bit.

What do you guys think of THIS product? It is a USB 2.0 (backwards compatible) external 7200rpm 80 drive.

There are also Firewire drives, but I havn't had any luck finding Firewire PC Cards. Plus, the added cost of the card plus the more expensive Firewire version of the external drive may be too much...

USB is slow, but if this is only a backup, it may not be too bad. Either that, or I'm just used to USB from connecting to the empeg...

Thoughts? Someone suggested a tape back up,but that seemed more expensive, smaller in capacity and a bit old-fashioned.

EDIT: Fixed Link

wouldn't the problem be that you would be backing up to another HDD that could die too

I was thinking of that too.... but can't really see any other way to go about it...

thats why I haven't bought a back up solution I was thinking maybe a dvd-r drive they are getting cheaper but that would still be a lot of disks

I would suggest folks who are interested in these products look at the Addonics drives as the 'interface' cable can be changed from USB (2.0) to Firewire for less than $100 - this way you can start with USB2.0 now, then when Firewire becomes really common and/or Firewire PC Cards start being available you then upgrade the interface to Firewire, but keep the disk(s) and the data intact.

Look for a earlier post in the BBS in the last few days on the Addonics drives. They are my pick for notebook backup.

Checking out Addonics now... thanks for the link.

Does anyone know of a Firewire card for a notebook that uses a "dongle"? Many cards lately seem to either stick out past the notebook or take up two slots...

IDK where you guys are looking, but there's no shortage of FW Cardbus adapters... Almost everybody that makes a PCI card adapter makes one or more Cardbus ones too; Belkin, Keyspan, VST (SmartDisk), Western Digital, etc, and then there's all the no-names.

[Edit]Keyspan's, Belkin's, and Mac/PCAlly's are dongle-ed, among others[/Edit]

That other link was started by me too when I was thinking of running a 2.5" backup drive. But that isn't too cost effective. I'd be better off selling the drives on eBay or here (my spare 2.5" empeg drives).

I am leaning towards the PC Card option. It seems a lot faster than USB 1.1 and barely more expensive. I think I might actually have a PCI adapter too... hmm.. Upon looking, I noticed that someone sells the Addonics "Combo Hard Drives" in two configurations: "Combo Hard Drive kit with PCMCIA Interface cable" for $95 and "Combo Hard Drive kit with CardBus/PCMCIA Interface cable" for $110. What is the difference? Does the first include only the cable and the second has the card too (incase you want to buy a 2nd one, there would be no need for a 2nd card).

Compared to the product link in my first post (which sells for $220 and I found somewhere else for $208), this set up will cost $110 + plus the cost of a hard drive (which can go for as little as $118). So, for $228 + two shipping charges instead of one and a little assembley.... I can get a drive that will work at 3 Mbytes/Sec (PCMCIA) vs. 700KBytes/sec (USB 1.1) AND offer me the ability to upgrade to Firewire, USB 2.0 or whatever... (My notebook doesn't have USB 2.0)...

Thanks for all the input guys... hopefully this will be of use to more people. I know I am not the only person using a notebook. This would have helped me a lot after I erased all of the songs by artists that begin with the letter C from my RioCar...

PCI is for the PCI slots in the back of a desktop computer. Cardbus is for the little credit card sized "PC Card" slot in a laptop.

USB is 12mbps, with massive protocol overhead (which is why synching your Empeg is faster w/ 10mbps Ethernet than 12mbps USB); Firewire 400; USB 2 is 480, but will be slower than FW in real use, and Firewire actually exists.

You can get a Firewire enclosure for a 2.5" or 3.5" drive for about a hundred bucks, then put whatever drive you want in it.. if you're not going to be carrying it around, go 3.5" since they're much cheaper. Or for somewhat more than an enclosure + drive you can get one that's already built if you don't want to deal with putting the drive in the case.

My "700KBytes/sec (USB 1.1)" was from the Addonics web page. Maybe their USB is really slow?

Roger said in a recent thread:
"From memory...

In v1.0, USB speed is about 300Kb/s. Ethernet speed is about 450Kb/s.

Peter put a lot of effort into the protocol in v2.0 (it was called v1.1 back then). Bulk ethernet transfers to the player should now get about 700Kb/s. USB is unchanged.

Download from the player is unaffected by the extra work.

CardBus and PCMCIA both share the same sized cards. CardBus is based on PCI technology whilst PCMCIA is ISA.

You can tell them apart because the CardBus card will have a wide gold strip along the edge connector. And also by the fact that you can't stick them into an old PCMCIA slot.

- Trevor

Just to add some specifics, if you look at one edge of the cards where they insert into the machine, you'll see there's a tab that works as a key, cut out like a rabbet joint. The one on a PCMCIA card has about 2/3 of the width removed. The one on a CardBus card has about 1/3 of the width removed, which is the physical device that prevents you from inserting it into older slots. PCMCIA uses a 16-bit bus, whereas CardBus uses a 32-bit bus, one of the major differences between ISA and PCI. (PCI can also use a 64-bit bus, but that's a whole different story.)

how about a cheap and chearful desktop with an ethernet card and a huge hard drive a lowly p200 would do the job not portable but is one option

Wow, I was way off on what Cardbus meant!

I just checked my notebook and it has two Texas Instruments PCI-1225 CardBus Controller (each has a slot on top of one another). Am I right to assume that most modern notebooks (this one is about 18months old) would have this?

I was looking at just getting a mini tower and popping some drives into it... but I will probably be doing most of my "backing up" at work, so I need something portable.

Yup. Most modern notebooks should have one at least. But check to make sure!

DVD+RAM drives and media are getting reasonably cheap now which could be a possible solution. The variant that doesn't work properly in most DVD drives is getting cheaper anyway. Ones that work in a DVD player are still quite expensive.

I use a Adaptec CardBus SCSI card with a SCSI->IDE adapter board connected to a IDE drive to backup my laptop.

- Trevor

hi.

this way you can start with USB2.0 now, then when Firewire becomes really common and/or Firewire PC Cards start being available you then upgrade the interface to Firewire, but keep the disk(s) and the data intact.

I don't know about the addonics system, but with all the external drives I used so far, Windows (ranging from 98 over ME to 2k and finally XP) all handled external harddrives that are connected using FireWire different than those connected via USB, effectively removing that data integrity. Linux on the other hand didn't have any trouble at all accessing a disc via FireWire that was formated via USB connection. Basically, Windows handles USB discs like floppies (no partitions) while FireWire discs are handled in the same way as SCSI or internal discs (with partitions). Linux could access both devices in both ways (USB with/without partitions as well as FireWire with/without partitions).

MacOS9 didn't have trouble to use them in consistently either, don't know about MacOS X though (never tried that).

cu,
sven

Maybe the drive is to be formatted first? Before installing in this enclosure? Thanks for bringing this up. I will write them to find out. It was your suggestion for firewire that got me looking into these options in the first place Sven! The site claims that it is a simple switch of the cable to upgrade your connections (all the drives enclosures have the same proprietary connection) without the need to get new drives. It didn't mention NOT having to FORMAT those drives though... Maybe they have special drivers that handle this....?

Most of their enclosures do not include drives. So they couldn't really advertise this as a mobile backup tool because I don't have any way to format a 3.5" drive with my notebook..

Hi.

Maybe the drive is to be formatted first?

Actually, that was the thing I did first, with my first external enclosure (a USB one), it didn't work. Windows just kept saying that it wasn't formated, so after I did reformat it while it was attached via USB (which wasn't that easy using Windows tools), it worked well. The FireWire enclosure, however, worked perfectly fine with a pre-formated and pre-partitioned disc (though I only defined one partition).

Maybe they have special drivers that handle this....?

Maybe, hopefully, that is. I would certainly ask for a refund if they wouldn't work the same (with data intact) with each cable.

cu,
sven

i have an addonics pocket ex drive (the 2.5" system), and i have no problem using both firewire (from my sony laptop) and USB (on a desktop) to access the same drive using stock win2k drivers. no magic is involved.

i'm very happy with the addonics product, and have no problem recommending it.

--dan.

wouldn't the problem be that you would be backing up to another HDD that could die too

But the chances of both drives dying at the same time are pretty small.

tanstaafl.

thats true but I'm not very lucky

Hey everyone, what do you think of this product? It has the 811 chip for Firewire AND has a USB 2.0 connection for $150US: http://fwdepot.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=60&PHPSESSID=1af7c008fd20af238d129b3ccd8f71e7

It seems cool because I could use the USB (it says it has 2.0, but I should still be able to connect to it via my notebook's 1.1 interface right?) and if it ends up being too slow, I could just get a firewire card and I wouldn't need to upgrade the cable (like with the Addonics).

I think I am going to order one of these Combo units today from the link above... Does ANYONE have any opinions on this product before I purchase? I will be buying a drive for it (or whatever product I end up buying) seperately.

http://fwdepot.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=60&PHPSESSID=1af7c008fd20af238d129b3ccd8f71e7

Okay, that's it! I'm buying it to backup my mp3's. And no "I told you so's!" allowed! (Except for Sven who talked me into getting a Firewire unit with the right chip).

Okay, that's it! I'm buying it to backup my mp3's. And no "I told you so's!" allowed!



You held out longer than I would have....

I guess my post may be a little late. I have backed all of my mp3 onto CD ROM...it was a LOT of discs but they will last a lot longer than I will and I can share them now too

I have backed all of my mp3 onto CD ROM...it was a LOT of discs but they will last a lot longer than I will and I can share them now too



Nah... The Firewire/USB case is MUCH better for that... cdrom's are ok, but with the drive, you can do copyright violations with much greater efficiency and speed (hypothetically speaking of course)...

Visiting someone who has some files you want? ZIP. Need to give some... ZIP. Latest demo from works t3? Firewire RULES.