Re: External hard drives

[flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

Lisa and anyone else who might be interested,

≪Any recommendations on external drive makes & models?≫

There are basically 2-1/2 options for external hard drives. The decision
criteria reduce themselves to the following three: size of the drive
(physically if portability is desired, and logically for maximum storage
capacity), type of physical connection, and whether the drive should be
accessible to the entire network or only to the machine to which it is
directly connected.

Option one: external hard drive with a USB physical connection,
essentially a fat memory stick with more storage space than the usual
finger-sized USB stick. I have such a device from the company Trekstor,
which stores up to 20 GB; it has the physical dimensions of about five
credit cards stacked one on top of the other. Advantage: small,
portable, needs no external power supply. This will be visible only to
the machine to which it is directly connected, not to the network
(though possibly invisible to the network if the device is shared). 20
GB is large enough to store a considerable amount of data, but hardly
large enough to make a bootable image of an entire operating system
these days. 20 GB is by no means the limit, it is just the one I
happened to carry in my pocket. Note: fat memory sticks draw their power
over the USB link, and therefore drain the batteries of a laptop.

Option two: a variation of option one, with a different physical
connection, namely FireWire. Available in various dimensions, both
physically and logically; also draw their power through the FireWire
connection and therefore drain the batteries of laptops. Visible only to
the machine to which it is directly connected (possibly visible to other
machines on the LAN if it is shared). Advantage over option one:
FireWire has faster transmission speeds than Fast Ethernet or USB. When
I upgraded my Mac PowerBook from Panther to Tiger, I removed the
original 80 GB hard disk and had it mounted in a FireWire case to use as
a bootable backup operating system. There are several companies which
offer such cases with either USB or FireWire connections; ask your local
neighborhood computer store, which will should be able to supply you the
 and also mount any hard disk for you in the case.

Option three: external hard drive with a fast ethernet connection. In
this case the external hard drive has a separate IP address and is
visible to all machines on the LAN and functions as a file server; many
such devices also offer physical connection to a printer, and therefore
function as LAN print servers. Available from many manufacturers in
different sizes (both physical and logical). This option requires using
a hub or switch to which you connect the external hard drive via Fast
Ethernet, as well as a separate electrical power supply. My LAN file
server is a Western Digital. Advantage: larger storage capacity compared
to the above two options.

Some external hard drives deliver with onboard copy/clone/image recovery
software. Some USB hard drives also come with an external power supply;
there are endless variations from umpteen different manufacturers. I
personally use the Western Digital external hard drive with a separate
IP address as a file server behind my firewall for storing large amounts
of data and image backups, and the USB fat memory sticks for traveling;
the FireWire option is my emergency backup for the Mac PowerBook.



We could discuss the pros and cons of Windows versus Mac OS X
indefinitely and still not reach a conclusion which would be acceded to
by all users. Some people like Fords, other people like Chevies. Be
thankful that Xy will run on both platforms; those who are more
comfortable with Windows or who need other programs which run only in
Windows can have their cake and eat it too, and just the same for those
in the Macintosh world.


I take issue with those who maintain that ≪there is just more software
choice and variety available for Windows. More development going on.
More aggregate brainpower being applied. And a LOT more freeware --≫

It's not quantity that counts. It also depends on what industry you are
working in. Quark Express, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and PageMaker
were all written for Mac and only later adapted for Windows, in which
environment they run markedly less efficiently. I've worked for
newspapers and magazines and other publishers and they generally prefer
Mac to Windows. For another example, my wife works in the radiology
department of the university clinic of Bern and uses certain
professional image processing programs (such as Osirix) which you'll
probably never see in your life though your life may depend on one if
you ever need a CT brain scan. They run only on the Mac, not on Windows.
This is industry standard in medical clincs. Nuf said.