Never enough of that storage stuff
Apr 15 '00
I am often asked the question by clients, friends, and family members how much hard drive space is enough? My answer is always buy as much drive capacity as you can afford! Hard drive prices are constantly dropping as the drive capacity envelope is pushed up against the wall; a 13.3 gig EIDE hard drive would have been unheard of even 5 years ago, now it is the standard in most new medium to low end PC’s! And lower prices mean that is very much a buyers market; I just bought a brand new Maxtor (only brand I use), 20 gig EIDE hard drive for $149.99 and that was before rebate!
I bought the drive instead of a new Tape Backup Unit I was going to purchase because the price was right and it made sense to do so. Let me explain.
Windows 98’ built in back-up utility from Seagate allows you to back up your precious application and data files to a file stored on your hard drive, as well as a tape. I have an internal Hewlett Packard (HP) T3000 tape drive, but I have out grown it and I need more storage capacity; I now have over 6.7 gigs of files to back up uncompressed (application and data files). Needless to say I needed more capacity.
I figured I would need a Tape Backup Unit with an uncompressed capacity of 10 gigs in order to support my needs now as well as in the future. So I started checking out the prices of Tape Backup Unit’s and found to my chagrin that the prices of the units had not come down in the last few years. The price for a brand new Colorado 20gig drive $349.00 (I prefer HP drives for reliability and service) and another $42.99 for a single cartridge and $189.99 for a five pack of cartridges. Now, I could have used my existing 3 gig cartridges for my incremental back-ups, but they would eventually have to be replaced.
You can do the math. The logical and economic solution for me was to buy a new hard drive, install in my primary workstation and back up to it.
And so I did! With this new hard drive I have ample room to grow. And the cost was nominal in comparison to buying a brand new Tape Backup Unit and tapes.
So when it comes time for that new computer, think of the future and if a higher capacity drive is offered at a reasonable price take it, you never know when you might need the extra space. And for those of you who have CD-RW drives; discs are cheap! Can you say back it up? I know you could.
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vemartin
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Member: Vincent
Location: Aurora, IL
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...A Great Empire cannot be Conquered from Without until it first Destroys itself From Within...
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