{"id":2997,"date":"2011-07-18T00:01:44","date_gmt":"2011-07-18T07:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=2997"},"modified":"2013-02-10T21:54:32","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T04:54:32","slug":"an-external-backup-drive-that-pleases-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=2997","title":{"rendered":"An External Backup Drive That Pleases Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brace yourself: I’ve found a product that I really, really<\/em> like.
\n
\nOnce upon a time I swore by and recommended the Western Digital MyBook drives. Then I began to swear at them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The main problem with the drives was the annoying pre-installed software that you just couldn’t get rid of. Even today, that still ticks me off!<\/p>\n

Months ago I wrote a letter to Western Digital asking for an explanation. I was ignored, which is what I figured the bastards would do.<\/p>\n

Just last week, Windows Vista Backup failed on my primary writing computer. There was a drive error. So I did ScanDisk or Check Disk or whatever they’re calling it these days. No problems were reported, but Backup failed again.<\/p>\n

Reformatting the drive didn’t help; Backup failed again.<\/p>\n

So I went shopping for a new drive.<\/p>\n

At the store, it was with much delight that I skipped by the Western Digital MyBook drives, even though they were the lowest priced models. Instead, I picked up a Seagate external drive.<\/p>\n

Now I was hesitant about the Seagate drive. As with every other damn external drive, it came with pre-installed software. Even so I bought it, brought it home, and was happy to discover that, unlike a MyBook drive, the pre-installed software wasn’t on the Seagate hard drive’s firmware. That meant that I could avoid using it or just delete it outright.<\/p>\n

Upon stetting up the drive, I discovered that Windows Vista Backup still produced the same error.<\/p>\n

What. The. Fudge?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the MyBook drive wasn’t bad after all?<\/p>\n

Anyway, I had a new external drive and I was in need of a new backup program, so I tried the one included on the Seagate drive. It’s called Seagate Replica and I’m seriously impressed.<\/p>\n

If I were looking for a backup program, I’d get something like the rsync<\/code> utility in Unix. That’s the utility on which the Mac’s Time Machine backup is based. rsync<\/code> basically synchronizes your files between two storage devices. It’s pretty cool \u2014 well, once you figure out the options and set it up.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Seagate Replica is basically an rsync<\/code> for Windows. It’s backup is a mirror copy of your hard drive. Restoring files and folders is done by right clicking and choosing the Replica command. Nothing could be simpler. There is even a system recovery CD you can use to boot your PC and recover the entire hard drive after a disaster.<\/p>\n

Yes, for once, I’m not only satisfied with my external hard drive purchase, I’m delighted<\/em>. Mark your calendars. This type of thing doesn’t happy often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brace yourself: I’ve found a product that I really, really<\/em> like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15,17],"class_list":["post-2997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-pc","tag-troubleshooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2997"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4233,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2997\/revisions\/4233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}