Hello all. I’m brand new here and I apologize in advance if I’m posting in the wrong area or something - please feel free to move the thread if this is the case.
OK, after a recent Playstation 3(PS3) purchase I recognized its potential as a media hub. I went looking for an external hard disk drive(HDD) that I could transfer all of my TV, movies, music, and photos to and then access directly from my PS3 console. My notebook has an eSATA port and I found that for the price as a production external hard drive, I could purchase a better hard drive and better enclosure with more features(namely an eSATA connection that allows substantially faster data transfer speeds) . I decided on a [2TB Western Digital Caviar Green 3.5" INTERNAL HDD](http://http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344 “WD 2TB INTERNAL 3.5” Caviar Green HDD") to be enclosed in a Vantec NST-300SU-BK 3.5′ USB & eSATA External Enclosure. The manufacturer states that the enclosure is only compatible with drives 1.5TB and below, but a good friend with experience building computers suggested this combo and told me he has used it twice without ever havin an issue. It works great for me, and a few people in the reviews on it’s newegg page(hyperlinked above) have said the same - it works great with the 2TB HDD"s they’ve tried.
I intended the hard drive to hold media to play on the gaming console, but I found a media server that allows me to stream all media types directly from my computer to my PS3…it is controlled remotely from the PS3, so all the computer has to do is be on. As external HDD’s attached to PS3’s have to be FAT32 formatted(which doesn’t support files larger than 4GB), I decided to keep the hard drive attached to my notebook and just use the media server to watch movies on the PS3(up to 1080p). I compacted all of my media on the WD 2TB and it is now NTFS formatted & conncted to my notebook.
Unfortunately, I have been experiencing unrelated computer issues and can’t find the cause. It is malware free, all drivers are up to date, all programs as well. I’ve had the computer for nearly two years and haven’t formatted yet, so I figure it’s about time o go ahead and do that. There’s no substitute for a fresh OS install. This may ive me enough of an excuse to switch from Vista 64 to Windows 7 as well.
My problem lies in the backup. As th Caviar Green 2TB was manufactured as an internal drive, I don’t believe there was backup software included. I also own two EXTERNAL Seagate 500 GB “Expansion” drives, and they each came with software that automatically backed up everything on my computer, programs included. These drives’ only connection option is USB, however. As I currently have 190 GB of data stored on my internal - C:/ - drive, it would bee much faster to back via eSATA than via USB. As this is also my “primary” exterrnal hard drive and will remain so for th foreseeable future, backing up on this drive will be much easier.
Can anyone point me in the right direction. Does WD offer backup software for their internal drives(or Caviar Green 2TB in particular?). If not, will backup software for their external drives work on an internal drive? If these are not options, are there any third party software manufacturers that offer reasonably priced software that will meet my needs?
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to read about MY problem. Any help you can provide will not go unappreciated. I appreciate it more than you know.
