Hard-Drive or Cloud Storage? (Help needed on external Storage options)

[Little Ralphy]

My laptop is full and I need some more storage space. It’s mostly photos of the family to be fair. Does anyone know anything about this? I’ve had a look but there seem to be so many different options.

Network hard drive – I like the sound of some of these. I use my laptop but Mrs Ralphy uses her ipad and some of them claim you can move photos directly from the ipad to the hard drive wirelessly. But some of the reviews claim it’s not so easy. Does anyone have any experience of this?

External hard drive – just plug in and move data across. Are these quick? Can you use this with an ipad as well?

I guess then there are the different types of memory storage, SSD etc. Can I hook them up to my xbox?


Cloud Storage – I like the idea that if I’m in work I can access data via the internet if I wanted to (although in all honesty, I’d probably never use it from anywhere but home) but is it worth a regular fee and how quick is it? I’ve got about 500gb worth of photos/videos and more to come, would it take me forever to move these to any of the data sources?

Any ideas?

I used the search option and the only similar thread I could find is from 2009 (below), I figure technology and pricing has moved on a bit since then, but mods feel free to merge if you prefer.

http://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/11668-external-hard-drives?highlight=drive

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

My laptop is full and I need some more storage space. It’s mostly photos of the family to be fair. Does anyone know anything about this? I’ve had a look but there seem to be so many different options.

Network hard drive – I like the sound of some of these. I use my laptop but Mrs Ralphy uses her ipad and some of them claim you can move photos directly from the ipad to the hard drive wirelessly. But some of the reviews claim it’s not so easy. Does anyone have any experience of this?

External hard drive – just plug in and move data across. Are these quick? Can you use this with an ipad as well?

I guess then there are the different types of memory storage, SSD etc. Can I hook them up to my xbox?


Cloud Storage – I like the idea that if I’m in work I can access data via the internet if I wanted to (although in all honesty, I’d probably never use it from anywhere but home) but is it worth a regular fee and how quick is it? I’ve got about 500gb worth of photos/videos and more to come, would it take me forever to move these to any of the data sources?

Any ideas?

I used the search option and the only similar thread I could find is from 2009 (below), I figure technology and pricing has moved on a bit since then, but mods feel free to merge if you prefer.

http://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/11668-external-hard-drives?highlight=drive

Cloud is best - check this site for facts, FAQ, reviews and price comparisons

http://www.thetop10bestonlinebackup.com/cloud-storage

 

[Brennan]

^That

Cloud storage is the way to go.

 

[Little Ralphy]

How quick are they? Thanks for the link, reading the reviews, some people say it's quick but don't give any sort of timeframe.

 

[njligernj]

Network hard drive – I like the sound of some of these. I use my laptop but Mrs Ralphy uses her ipad and some of them claim you can move photos directly from the ipad to the hard drive wirelessly. But some of the reviews claim it’s not so easy. Does anyone have any experience of this?

I use a networked hard drive but it has a wired connection. Once you introduce "wireless" into any product it means the reviews will be almost nothing but people who couldn't figure out the wireless. If you are truly moving lots of photos then wireless might be a little frustrating (a single 1gb video file will transfer a lot quicker than thousands of pictures/music files which add up to 1gb). I'm not a fan of wireless for these types of things but it does exist and it can work. Someone else will have to fill in the blanks on that option though as I don't have direct experience.

External hard drive – just plug in and move data across. Are these quick? Can you use this with an ipad as well?

Not going to work with the ipad AFAIK. But they are the best/quickest option if you don't mind moving the ipad files to the PC first before backing up onto the external.

I guess then there are the different types of memory storage, SSD etc. Can I hook them up to my xbox?

SSD is not appropriate for this -- right now they are cost prohibitive as a pure storage solution. I put a SSD into my PS3 but that wasn't for storage it was just to speed up some game loading times etc. SSD is mainly to speed things up right now (booting Windows from a SSD is one of the best PC upgrades you can do) not to store things.

Cloud Storage – I like the idea that if I’m in work I can access data via the internet if I wanted to (although in all honesty, I’d probably never use it from anywhere but home) but is it worth a regular fee and how quick is it? I’ve got about 500gb worth of photos/videos and more to come, would it take me forever to move these to any of the data sources?

It is going to take a long time if the files are small. As I mentioned before the number of files is just as important as the size of them. If it's a lot of small files that will take a long time with any method but an external hard-drive would be the quickest and easiest option by quite some distance. (Unless you wanted to install another internal HD.)

You can pick up a 2TB HD for a decent price these days. If you have USB3 make sure the external has that too (is your PC fairly new?) as it will speed up transfers.

On the off-chance you or a friend has an old PC lying about with a decent size HD you can pull the HD out, throw it into a hard drive enclosure (about 20-30 quid) and turn it into an external HD. Cheapest option if you have access to one.

 

[njligernj]

How quick are they? Thanks for the link, reading the reviews, some people say it's quick but don't give any sort of timeframe.

Depends to some degree on the speed of the UL pipe of your internet connection. If speed is your primary concern then cloud isn't the right choice IMO.

 

[Little Ralphy]

I use a networked hard drive but it has a wired connection. Once you introduce "wireless" into any product it means the reviews will be almost nothing but people who couldn't figure out the wireless. If you are truly moving lots of photos then wireless might be a little frustrating (a single 1gb video file will transfer a lot quicker than thousands of pictures/music files which add up to 1gb). I'm not a fan of wireless for these types of things but it does exist and it can work. Someone else will have to fill in the blanks on that option though as I don't have direct experience.

Not going to work with the ipad AFAIK. But they are the best/quickest option if you don't mind moving the ipad files to the PC first before backing up onto the external.

SSD is not appropriate for this -- right now they are cost prohibitive as a pure storage solution. I put a SSD into my PS3 but that wasn't for storage it was just to speed up some game loading times etc. SSD is mainly to speed things up right now (booting Windows from a SSD is one of the best PC upgrades you can do) not to store things.

It is going to take a long time if the files are small. As I mentioned before the number of files is just as important as the size of them. If it's a lot of small files that will take a long time with any method but an external hard-drive would be the quickest and easiest option by quite some distance.

You can pick up a 2TB HD for a decent price these days. If you have USB3 make sure the external has that too (is your PC fairly new?) as it will speed up transfers.

On the off-chance you or a friend has an old PC lying about with a decent size HD you can pull the HD out, throw it into a hard drive enclosure (about 20-30 quid) and turn it into an external HD. Cheapest option if you have access to one.

Thanks for that, I'll read it through and give it some thought. There are loads of files to be fair and probably all small as they are mostly photos. Hence why I'm worried if I'm using a cloud system it'll take forever to do the initial move across.

 

[njligernj]

There might also be a "hacky" way to wirelessly send photos from the ipad to an external drive. You install an app called GoodReader (there might be others) and I think there is a way to network your files via SMB servers which would allow direct transfer to a drive. Not 100% on that option though but it might be possible. I believe there are external HDs with wi/fi and network capabilities as well (more expensive) so you could get a few of your suggested options all in one. All gets a bit more complicated at that point too of course.

 

[BigDunc'sFod]

^That

Cloud storage is the way to go.

Except he has 500GB of data already and it is going to grow

Cloud is the best for redundancy if you trust it, but uploading (or remembering to upload in the first place if it is not automated) is a hassle and can hammer your internet connection.

I tend to like having control of what happens with my backups etc., so I have a couple of 2TB drives that I rotate every few months (in case of failure). I have too much data to make cloud storage worth it - for now.

 

[Maxwell]

So if I have around 500GB of data, Cloud storage isn't worth it?

 

[somuchfun]

I have an additional 2TB network drive at home so I can have a small SSD drive on my laptop and put all the other stuff there via WLAN. You can also plug it in through Ethernet. I'd suggest considering that as an option.

 

[CahillsCornerFlag]

I've got a 1tb external harddrive, very easy to use but not lightning quick. Nice to know that if this crashes however, I wont lose anything.

 

[Baines' left foot]

I use DropBox as I got about 25GB free with my phone. It's good and every photo I take on my phone gets uploaded straight away, so you'll never lose a photo.