[Sussex] Additional "storage" ?

[Dave Chapman]

On Sun August 27 2006 09:27, John D. wrote:
> Wotcha list,
>
> This last couple of weeks of "meddling" have thrown up some additional
> questions.
>
> The main one currently, is how to make sure that I can preserve my /home
> stuff so that if I get bored/impatient/whatever with kanotix, I don't end
> up loosing all the music and other bits/bobs (like what happened when I
> moved to kanotix from kubuntu).
>
> This means some additional storage (I think).
You can have a completly seperate hard drive or partion mounted as /home

Mine is a hard drive. Actualy /home/dave is a seperate HD and the rest of the 
family have a seperate HD as /home
>
> Now I do have an additional plug available inside the PC so I could just
> open it up and do minor surgery to add an additional hard drive - It's my
> understanding that this is probably the fastest way to get at the data 
Yes indeedy
> etc, 
> but speed isn't necessarily the main requirement (as any lengthy
> copying/file transfers can be done overnight).
>
> I suspect that the best way is going to be the use of an external hard
> drive. Now my system is still using USB 1.1 so I won't benefit from any
> bonus that USB 2.0 might provide.
You could gat a pci usb2 card.
I bought a pci card to add USB2 and got USB2 Firewire and SATA all on one 
card.
>
> A quick shufty at PC Worlds site tells me that there is a plethora of such
> devices that might suit. I can sort of wade my way through some of the
> spurious selling points e.g. "special" software that makes backups etc
> "easy" it's the more general stuff that I'm not completely familiar with.
You can get an external case for a HD for about £15 and an 80Gb HD for £30 at 
the BCF
> Ethernet connectivity would be best (I suspect that I could just plug it
> into my hub and then tell the data where I want it to go - might be wrong
> though). http://www.scan.co.uk/products/productinfo.asp?WebProductID=461511
This would be the more expensive option but you can add more storage and put 
it just about anywhere you like.
> So whether the device blurb say linux or not, does it mean that I 
> should be able to connect an external HDD via USB and should be able to
> mount/use it or is there any special abilities that I need to look out for?
> Or is a USB HDD "the answer to my dreams" so that I can just do complete
> backups of /home (which is the object of the exercise as it takes a hell of
> a long time to re-rip 15 to 20 gigs of music, not too mention any
> photos/images etc).
Probably the best option as HD's are pretty cheap now.
Plug it in back it up and remove to a safe place.

A quick look at scan.co.uk
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/productinfo.asp?WebProductID=461511

>
> Any guidance you may have about this, is very much appreciated.
>
> regards
>
> John D.
>
> p.s. erm, as it's "moot day" this week (31st), does that mean that we have
> BCF on Sunday (next) as well ??
yes sir
See you there ?