A passport to data asylum

If anything can go wrong, it will. That is what the age-long Murphy’s law says. And, no matter how durable today’s hard disks are, there is always a time when they will give up and stop spinning.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the hard disk dies a rather quick death, with only a few subtle telltale signs that we usually recognize after the fact. Beside, no matter how powerful our anti-virus software is, there might be a time when the data file update cannot keep up with the creativity of the virus makers. And, with our computers connected to the Internet 24 x 7, the threat is even more real.

By the way, if you receive an email message from someone you know but it contains only an http address, never click on the link. This is the result of the latest malware that checks our address books in webmail services.

What is the worst that can happen when an extremely malicious virus strikes? We will lose important data.

Wouldn’t it be good if you have a backup copy of your important files? You know the answer.

The next question will be how should we back up our files? Shall we upload them to the Clouds? It is an increasingly popular option as our confidence in the Clouds grows.

Some notebook vendors, notably, provide us with a small amount of backup space on their dedicated websites. ASUS, for example, offers Asus Webstorage to the users of its computers.

The same services are offered by Dell, HP, Lenovo and others.The great thing is that, because the backup data can be accessed from anywhere with the right user ID and password, we can use the services to share with other people several large files that we cannot send with email.

Usually the online backup space is very limited, though. We may be able to store only 5 gigabytes of data. What about backing up dozens of gigabytes of data? Yes, you are right. A low cost and simple alternative is to use one or more external hard drives.

Western Digital let me play around with one of its long list of external hard drives. Called My Passport Essential SE, it is reportedly one of the most popular models in the world. Keep in mind that there are similar products from Seagate, Maxtor, LaCie, Toshiba, HP, Samsung and many others on the market.

The size of the unit does remind us of a passport. The casing is made of black and glossy plastic, and it does not really inspire sturdiness.

The name “Essential” may actually be misleading, as the capacity of the 2.5-inch hard drive inside the casing is a truly whopping 1 terabyte. Most other external hard drives still come with 320 or 500 gigabytes capacity. The hard disk spins at 5,400 rotations per minute (RPM).

It has only one very tiny indicator LED that lights up each time you plug the USB cable into our desktop or portable PC. There is only one USB 2.0 port on it. No eSATA or FireWire. And in a year or two we will already be talking about the USB 3.0. The lack of FireWire option may make it difficult to quickly feed video files from our camcorders, too.

At Bhinneka.com, the listed price for the 1 terabyte version is US$ 192. The smaller sister, the 750-gigabyte version, will set you back US$ 142.

Unlike other external hard drives, this device does not have any button to power it up or down, or to start the backup and restore function. The latter functions are controlled with the SmartWare utility, which will automatically be installed on the PC the moment we connect the USB cable. We can also set up an automatic backup, encryption and password.


Most other external hard drives still come with 320 or 500 gigabytes capacity.