Peter Johnson Posted August 14, 2003 Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 My wife and I use a 1996 Dell Inspiron laptop as our primary (only!!!) home computer. With DSL, it's great online; and suffices for the rest of our stuff. But as it's aged, and programs have gotten more complicated, the 2G hard drive is filling up. In addition, since we've gone digitial (photography), all of our pictures are stored on the hard drive with, I'm ashamed to say, no backup! Can't burn the files to a CD (see the blindfold test thread ) because I don't have a burner, and I don't have a tape drive or anything. Many files are now bigger than one floppy (!), and that's slow and cumbersome anyway. I know there has to be some kind of web-based storage service. I'm looking for a situation where I can have an allotment of, say, 10 gigs, where I can store pictures, documents and other things as a backup. Not necessarily a mirror of my current configuration (although that'd be nice), but files. Does anyone know of or have any recommendations for such a service? Thanks in advance for your thoughts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted August 14, 2003 Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 My number one thought, Peter, is why not invest in a burner? After the initial cost, which I believe nowadays can be in the $100 range, you won't have ongoing expenses as you presently envision. I'm sure that a year out, a burner would be paid for but you'd still be paying to rent space. And the cost of blanks is so low, they hardly qualify as an expense, IMO. And of course, you could then be a moderator in the blindfold tests! Its the perfect solution! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claude Posted August 14, 2003 Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 (edited) You can't use a web-based storage service as a replacement for a local hard drive. What if the company that runs the server goes bankrupt (such things happen on the internet)? Your files will be lost. Get a CD burner AND a bigger hard drive. A CD burner alone won't do it because you will need 700MB free hard drive space to prepare the files you want to write on the CD. 2GB is definitely too small nowerdays. You can install a second drive in addition to the existing one. A 30GB drive (the smallest new drives now available) costs less that $100, and you will be able to use it in your next PC or install it into a USB enclosure ($70) and use it as an external drive. A hard drive alone won't be enough either, because it is too risky to keep all your files on a hard disk, which is the PC part that is the most likely to fail. Edited August 14, 2003 by Claude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Johnson Posted August 14, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 (edited) Thanks guys--I knew folks here would have thoughts on this! Okay--a couple of follow-up questions. My USB action is dodgy--I have a port, but it's unreliable. I've NEVER been able to troubleshoot it. Sooooooo.... Can I connect a CD burner and/or external hard drive via a) ethernet pc card; B) serial port; or c) parallel port? And... Is 80mb of RAM enough capacity to convince my OS (Windows 98 first edition) to run a CD burner? After these questions, I'm laying odds that the next response is going to be, "Buy a new fecking computer!!!!!!!!!!" Thanks again, Peter EDITED to say that a quick search on ecost.com showed me a 2-port USB PCMCIA card for 40 bucks, spyder slim external burner for 100 bucks, and a small 40GB hard drive for 120 bucks. Under $300 to make my computer do everything I want? I can dig it--if you guys concur with this solution! Edited August 14, 2003 by Peter Johnson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claude Posted August 14, 2003 Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 (edited) Sorry Peter, I oversaw the fact that you have a laptop. You can also upgrade your laptop hard drive, but those are a bit more expensive and you need to reinstall all your software and files, unless you have somebody who can "clone" your existing drive with the new drive outside the laptop. A drive with more than 32GB could create problems, as the Bios of 1996 computers have trouble recognizing them. There could even be a problem with >8GB drives. Check the Dell website for a bios update. USB is usually rather unreliable on pre-1998 computers, and with Windows 98. And USB 1.1 burners can only burn with 2x speed maximum. Edited August 14, 2003 by Claude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Alfredson Posted August 14, 2003 Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 Perhaps a ZIP drive is the answer in order to back up the photos until a new computer can be bought? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Johnson Posted August 14, 2003 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 Jim, I think that's the way I'm going to go, despite all the other great suggestions. Adding a burner, usb shit, etc. to this Inspiron is going to be like putting cologne on a pig . And we need to upgrade anyway. Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts--and Dan, the minute I get a burner, I'll let you know so I can moderate a blindfold test!!! PJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claude Posted August 14, 2003 Report Share Posted August 14, 2003 ZIP drives work well with computers of all age, but the disks are very expensive (price per MB) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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