My, it seems that I have a contest going with my good friend Crystal, seeing that we’re both geeks in the computing department. I’ve already blogged about both of us having the same Logitech C510 HD webcams, and recently I learnt that she had bought a Seagate 500GB external hard drive to backup her data. Dunno why, but something was already poking me and asking, “How come you don’t have one?” Resistance is futile (as I’ve always maintained) but such is my geeky nature that I always need to justify myself before I part with my hard-earned dollars.
To cut a long story short, I’ve been running my Windows 7 desktop for over a year, and have never had any trouble with the OS. It purrs really smoothly on my system with an Intel dual core processor and 3GB of RAM. It was only recently when Crystal told me about her latest Seagate purchase that I realized I had never backed up my data before! Umm, minor course correction there—of course I’ve occasionally stored some important files on a flash drive, that sort of thing. However, (and this is the scary part) I’d never ever backed up my whole C: drive. What if my OS goes belly-up tomorrow? It’s not a case of paranoia but it will and can happen. It happened to my previous Windows Vista OS. OKOKOKOK, that seals the deal. I had to get an external hard drive (so don’t say I’m a copycat, Crystal LOL)
The next question—what external HD should I get? I dislike Seagates; I’ve had problems with their hard drives in the past. Strike one. I’ve had pleasant experiences with Western Digital hard drives, in fact I have a WD 500GB internal HD churning away in my desktop. I finally settled on a WD 500GB Passport Essential external hard drive for $70. They’re available in a variety of colors and I chose red (can you guess why, my friend?) As the name implies, this baby is passport-sized and only 0.6 inches thick. It’s now found a place on top of my desktop and connected permanently to it.
Moreover I like the backup program that comes with the Passport; it’s WD Smartware and it’s very easy and intuitive to use. All I have to do is connect it to my desktop and it automatically handles the mundane backup chores. Every time you create a new file or modify one, Smartware automatically backs it up to the Passport, seamlessly. If you disconnect and connect the drive later it will resume from where it left off. Piece of cake.
Needless to say Smartware comes with a whole host of features, which I won’t elaborate on here. Oopsie, I feel I should state that it does not backup Windows system files and folders, only your data. If you intend to backup your whole hard drive you’d have to do a disk image and I’m not going to touch on that now (perhaps I’ll image my C: drive when I’m in the mood). In case of a system meltdown you’d still need to reinstall the OS and applicable programs. However, after that you just need to do a restore of your data and things should be fine. So there!