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Hard Drives
By Anca Gagiuc on Aug 5, 2013 in Technology | 1 Comment
Moments of our life materialize into memories; photos, movies, music, their number increases from one year to the next. In a world where the electronic format has gained supremacy, our devices need a secure, offsite replication spot where th
ese electronic records of days gone by are backed up and secured.
These days information has moved to the cloud, in theory. Practically we still feel the need to possess the information in a material form, one that we can actually touch and take with us to the highest mountain where internet is not yet present. And for that we have portable hard disk drives.
There are many choices in such drives these days, and it’s difficult as ever to choose the best. Depending on your needs, you might find the following helpful.
Western Digital My Passport
This is a small drive (0.82 x 4.4 x 3.2 inches) that can store up to 2TB of data. The newest versions of it feature the new USB 3.0 cable, which is still compatible with USB 2.0. The new port gives the hard drive a significant performance boost, speed-wise. It has multiple back-up options including making automated duplicates of any file you save and upload what you save to a Dropbox account. The WD Drive Utilities can run quick or complete drive tests to look for bad sectors, it can also set the sleep timer to limit power consumption, use “drive erase” to reformat the drive, or register you for customer support. WD Security is an application that locks the drive with a password; however, “WD cannot retrieve your password. If you forget your password, you will permanently lose access to your data.” The price ranges from $80-$150.
Seagate Backup Plus
The successor of GoFlex is also a success representing the new wave of drives for Seagate. It can store up to 4TB of data and has an automated backup feature: as soon as you connect it to your computer, it will duplicate everything. Innovatively it incorporates the social networking feature, moves fast and has an interchangeable USM interface. The price ranges from $100-$200.
Lenovo ThinkPadSecure
For those who are not easily security-wise, Lenovo has a keypad right on the drive. It can remember up to 10 passwords, thus can be easily shared between family members, colleagues or temporary operatives. It can store up to 750GB and its price ranges between $170 and $200.
LaCie Rugged USB 3.0 Thunderbolt
This little fellow is super-fast if you opt for the versions with up to 256GB storage capacity; it reaches up to 385MB/s due to the SSD inside. The no moving parts inside means less to break in case of a drop, and the device is drop resistant. It has a hardened aluminum case and a removable rubberized bumper that protects your data even if you drop it from 4 feet high. For the 1TB version the HDD performs up to 110MB/s, still a 35% improvement over FireWire 800. The included software protects your data with AES 256-bit encryption. It is compatible with both the Mac and the PC due to the USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces. The price ranges from $200 to $230.
What external hard drive recommendations would you add to the list?
While “The Cloud” may sound like a user’s digital storage dream come true (at least the Service Providers behind cloud services are marketing the cloud as such) there are serious repercussions including legal issues you need to be aware of and which the cloud providers are (deliberately) not telling users about as they spend upwards of a billion dollars trying to get consumers to move to the cloud. You can read about the dark side of the cloud at the Tech Republic article ‘Cloud-service contracts and data protection: Unintended consequences’ located at http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/security/cloud-service-contracts-and-data-protection-unintended-consequences/9487?tag=nl.e101&s_cid=e101&ttag=e101