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friend is about to lose her laptop, needs to back up 50gb of data

2K views 6 replies 5 participants last post by  flavallee 
#1 ·
My friend is about to graduate from college. She has been using her dad's laptop (which he got on a loan from his work) but will have to return it soon after graduation. She has about 50 gb of data, mostly images and some Word documents. I offered to transfer her data onto my 1 tb external hard drive, but she does not know when she will be getting a new laptop and we'll probably be far apart geographically. She does not want to store her data online for privacy reasons.

Basically, it seems like her only options are an external hard drive or a giant (or 2 giant?) USB flash drives. Could anyone recommend a specific model? She does not have a lot of data and won't have a lot of data any time soon, so I am wary of her buying a giant external HDD. But then again, it does seem more cost-effective to just buy a model with larger capacity. I am wondering if buying say two 32 gb USB flash drives would be a better option. Again, it may be a few years until she gets a new laptop and so she just needs something to store her photos and documents. She doesn't really need much more space than 50 gb. What are her best options?
 
#2 ·
Hi,
I'd go for the large external hard drive option - but I can't advise on USA(?) prices & makes/models. Your friend may well get a laptop/desktop sooner than planned as one's plans can change, so the extra capacity might be needed.
But I suggest you buy 2 so you can make a back-up for your friend and store the back-up away from the first copy.

Hope this help?
Richard
 
#3 ·
I'd advise against using the flash drive option. Those little things have annoying habits like corrupting or getting lost. They're intended for data transfer, not long term storage.
I'd say either an external hard disk or a number of DVDs, nudging toward the hard disk.
 
#4 ·
I agree. DON'T rely on USB thumb drives. Use an external hard drive or DVD-R's or both.

She's lucky that laptop hasn't crashed or died and that it still has her personal data to retrieve and back up.

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#5 ·
I agree. DON'T rely on USB thumb drives. Use an external hard drive or DVD-R's or both.
Good Ol' Flavallee; belt, bracers, and a personal anti-gravity field just in case. :D
Which is by no means saying that I'd disagree. You could put all 50GB on 11 DVDs, or just put the most important 4.7GB on one. That's a much cheaper way to get a backup copy than a second hard disk.
 
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