$100 well spent for doctoral students

Not long ago I had a serious scare – my laptop wouldn’t boot up WIndows XP. I was mortified! But, it did eventually work and I knew that was a clarion call for me to invest in an external hard drive. There are many choices. Dozens and dozens of choices. If you just want some place to ‘store data’, then just about anything will be safe. But, if you need more, I have a recommendation. I decided to invest in Seagate FreeAgent Go (160 Gigs) for $95 at Best Buy. Why?

Not only does it store information, it simulates your PC environment so that if you plug the device into another computer, it will replicate your whole windows environment with your own programs, files, and folders in the same places where they are on your personal PC. Anything you do on the PC connected to your external hard drive will be saved only onto the external drive and when you sync it with your personal PC it will update your new work.  That means that when you travel, you don’t need to take your laptop if there is going to be a computer where you are going.  You just plug in the external HD and it was run your personal computer’s whole environment.  It is a virtual PC.

Not convinced?  PCWorld lists a similar Seagate external drive (FreeAgent PRO; a high-capacity version) as 4th of their top 10 on External Hard Drive; see HERE.  I also recommend using GSpace for online storage as additional backup because it is free and easy to use.

In terms of external HDs, others have recommended Maxtor.  Whatever you do, do it now!