If I buy this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176613

Can I sway the 80gb one in my 5 year old pc for it, & use that as a back up and the 1TB one in my pc?

On XP, aiming to transfer to ubuntu on disk-swap

Are they both SATA disks, for a start?

Dunno if the Buffalo part is a sealed unit or not. Many aren’t and are glorified caddy. Might be safest just to buy a disk and a caddy.

Do you need an external caddy, even? If it’s solely for local backups (as opposed to an offsite backup that would merit an external drive), you could just buy a second bare drive and stick it in your PC, use it as the boot drive and relegate the current one to be a secondary disk.

I knew this would get complicated 😀

No idea, is it easy to tell by looking at the one in my pc?

Old one is probably an IDE and the one in that external one will be SATA me thinks.?

Google the connection and look at the one in the PC.

Yup looks like IDE in there, big ribbon cabley thing.

Am I screwed?

See my edited post ^^ what are you trying to do backup wise?

If a second local drive would do, then you need to check for the existence of SATA ports on your motherboard and SATA power connectors on your PSU first of all. The absence of either isn’t a showstopper, just need to know what we’re working with.

If you have to have an external solution, well, elaborate a bit more on what you want / need.

Thanks guys. I want to archive personal stuff like pics and hide the disk.

Thanks guys. I want to archive personal stuff like pics and hide the disk.

Do you mean ‘physically’, or ‘pron stash’ hiding? 🙂

Hmmm no SATA connectors on motherboard 🙁

Nuh just pics etc in case pc ever gets nicked.

Need a new HD so may as well use the old one too.

Hmm looks like I can get an adaptor for a sata drive, and just open the case up to back-up on the old HDD.

Thanks for making me do the googling 😀

It’ll be fine. Just stick the cable on with some Gaffer tape. If the data transfer is a bit shonky, give it a good spraying with WD-40. If that still doesn’t work, try using flowers.

Bit like how you write your jokes and flames? 🙄

If it’s just data backup then and IDE drive would suffice. I’ve several of them – some in a desktop and some in external caddies. The caddies can be had quite cheaply and you have the option of putting other drives in them in the future.

Caddy for your existing drive.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/newlink-35-cdlsb-805-aluminium-pata-hdd-to-usb-20-enclousure

Replacement internal hard disk.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/320gb-western-digital-wd3200avjb-av-ide-%28pata%29-7200-rpm-8mb-cache-89-ms

This is the cheapest and simplest option; you can get a 320Gb IDE HDD for ~50 quid. Question is, coming from an 80Gb disk, do you suddenly need 1Tb of storage?

Your alternative would be to migrate to SATA. A SATA controller card that will fit your board (which I’m guessing is PCI only – if you’re PCI-E equipped then it’s cheaper) comes in at around 35 quid. You’ll also need a power adapter for the disk. You’re then looking at around 40 quid for a decent drive in a 1Tb flavour.

PCI SATA controller:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lycom-st-125-raid5-sata-ii-4ports-%281external-esata-plus-3-internal%29-inc-dual-pci-brackets

Power converter:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/20cm-serial-ata-power-converter-rb-414-4pin-molex-to-15pin-sata-%28normal-psu-to-sata-sataii%29

1Tb HGST drive:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-hitachi-deskstar-0f10383-7k2000c-sata-3gb-s-7200rpm-32mb-cache-89-ms-ncq-oem

One advantage of moving to SATA is that you’re future-proofing; if you move to a SATA-only motherboard at some point then your IDE disks are going to be useless (though I suppose you could move it to that caddy). It does work out at double what you were initially going to spend, though.

Two caveats:

1) You really only want to ever be connecting one SATA drive in this manner. The Molex > SATA adapters are a frig at best, and you’re going to start flooding the PCI bus if you go beyond a single drive.

2) These products are off the top of my head based on assumptions in order to give you a starting point, rather than the results of extensive research. There may be more suitable / cost-effective options.

Cheers…so the £1 SATA -> IDE adaptors on ebay aren’t sufficient? Looks like I could just get a usb HD and not bother with back-ups.

The point about ~1TB is I want to go lossless on my music and 1TB isn’t much more than say 320bG for SATA.

EDIT: Owt wrang with this?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/255447

so the £1 SATA -> IDE adaptors on ebay aren’t sufficient?

Link?

Owt wrang with this?

If you want to use it as a second disk, nothing jumps out at me (though it’s not a brand I’ve heard of). You’re not thinking of running your OS off it, right?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2-5-3-5-Drive-SATA-ATA-IDE-Converter-Adapter-/330366397164?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item4ceb5f2aec

I’d just use an external one for music etc, not the OS. I think I have an older HD I could use for back-ups.

Oh, ick.

I’ve never used one like that but I’ll be surprised if it gives particularly outstanding results.

It’s not overly clear from the Engrish description as to whether it will actually work that way round; it looks like it should from the pictures, but the ‘features’ list seems to say the same thing five times in slightly different ways.

For two quid I suppose it’s worth a punt. SATA and IDE aren’t all that radically different in the grand scheme of things.

There are loads of them on there, there must be some that work, though I take your point re. crapness if the real deal is £40 odd.

USB ext HDD may be best in the end.

If it’s just pics you’re looking to back up, buy a flickr pro account and upload them there. About £25 a year if I remember correctly

if the real deal is £40 odd.

Theoretically, it might be more complex (ergo, more expensive) to go PCI > SATA than it is to go IDE > SATA, so it might not be that cut and dried. I’d be more concerned about the sensibilities of shoving a SATA signal down an IDE interface; it strikes me as akin to trying to get a pint of water into a half-pint glass. I have an inherent distrust of kludgy workarounds (that I haven’t built 😀 ). That said, the bottom line is that I simply don’t know, it could be perfectly fine.

That said, the bottom line is that I simply don’t know, it could be perfectly fine.

If only all forum members were so modest.