Chance are, you don’t have a backup for your computer. If you do, when was the last time you used it? Stop reading and run your backup, nothing much to see here (unless you are looking for a sub $100 2TB external drive).

You could go out and buy a ready to go external drive ready to go. Those are generally overpriced and not very versitile. I prefer to buy an external case (no drive) and a hard drive then put it together myself. The advantages here are:

• cheaper
• you can open it up and swap our the drive much easier that a prebuilt one
• far more options for cases (size, color, connections)
• building one yourself is much cooler than buying one off the shelf

You may be thinking, “but a pre-built one comes with free software”. Big deal. There are very good (better) options that are free. On a Mac you can use Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper. On a PC…well, there is probably something. Google can help with that, or maybe some nice PC users will leave suggestions in the comments.

So what case? Some have fans, but personally I don’t like them. Too noisy. A well designed case can keep the drive cool enough without a fan via a heat sink effect (case touches drive, heat passes to case). If you don’t plan on swapping out multiple backup drives I like the basic ones from Rosewill. Their USB model is a whopping $21 at NewEgg. For $4 more you can get the eSATA version. This does require your computer to have an eSATA card, but it would allow the drive to work at its maximum ~110Mb/sec speed (what mine tops out at over eSATA or internally).

I’ve owned a number of drives over the years and currently have about 20 drive in service for our video department. The current options are Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung, Western Digital, and a few other that are much more expensive and for servers and other high end applications. What you need for external backup is reliable. Fast is good too. Cheap…never hurts. I have had great success with Seagate, and they have a solid reputation among video guys. I have used Samsung as well, but had an issue with one model and it was an ordeal dealing with them on it. Long story, probably my next post. Usually good drives, but poor customer service rules them out. Western Digital has a few solid options. However the one that I’m most impressed with: the HItachi 2TB 5K3000. It is a 5,400rpm drive. That means its cool and quiet. Very quiet. It is also very fast. It gets the highest transfer rates of any drive in our system. Right now, just $65 at Newegg after a rebate.

Why not a 7,200rpm drive? They cost more, run hotter, fail more often, and the advantages of a 7200rpm drive are not really helpful for backup purposes. On a system drive or regularly used data drive, absolutely go with 7,200rpm. However for a backup you just need lots of space, something quiet (it will probably be on your desk), and something that runs cool so you can use a cheaper, quieter fanless case.

What about installing the drive? How hard is it? Super easy. Slide the drive into the mounty thing (SATA drives don’t use those nasty molex cables like IDE drives. Rather they use nice connections on the drive that slide right into the case). Then once the drive is in place, fasten two screws. Put this inside the case, fasten two more screws and you are done. Can you turn a screw driver? You can do this.

So thats it. $105, or $85 if you buy by May 15 and send in for the rebate on the drive.