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I'd say that a really big factor, for an external drive, for backup purposes, will be USB3. That will almost always be the bottleneck, when you're transferring large amounts of data. (And, even if your existing system doesn't have USB3, your next one will).

Granted, I'm not sure how many external drives don't have USB3. Might be that all of them do, now days.

You might want to look at a drive that uses Ethernet. That might be even faster. But I assume more expensive.

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You can unlock and root that Nook tablet to get it to do what you want. That will allow you to uninstall those apps that Barnes & Noble have locked, and if you really want to, I'm sure there are plenty of custom ROMs out there for that specific device which would perform better than the stock ROM it came with. 


 Personally I've never been able to do it besides in small amounts. I'm way too absent minded and I have a hard time concentrating on that level of minutiae for long periods of time.

 

This is me. I know a little coding, but no way would I do it as my career and spend the whole day doing it. I'm a network engineer too. I much rather configure Cisco equipment all day. 

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noticed that a lot of my programmer/coder friends, now that they're in their 30s are wearing wrist braces at or when they work. I assume for carpal tunnel. Is that normal industry-wide?

 

Any sense for a younger person to wear them as a preventative measure?

 

I haven't had a problem.  Been on a computer since Apple II plus.  First PC was a dual floppy IBM with no windows.  :)  Prehistoric pre internet.  Have done it every day as a career for 28 years.

 

I think with proper seating and desk it shouldn't be a problem.

2 unrelated questions:

 

1)   what "matters" in an external drive?   is there something to look for other than just number of terabytes?

 

I just want a big drive to back-up all the **** on my dying computer, as i look to buy a new one  (and eventually follow the generally accepted guidance of regularly backing up the NEW computer, moving forward... something i have never done in the past)

 

I have bad luck with external drives.  My first drive was so old when I bought a new computer there was no driver on Windows to support the drive, my 2nd external drive died and lost all my date, my 3rd drive (which is my first Apple drive, wireless 1TB drive) won't boot to green light.  It's stuck on yellow.

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I have old hard drives that I need to get stuff off of. IDE drives. What is the easiest way?

 

We've used this for old IDE drives where I work for a while. Always has worked for us, but I've seen some bad reviews too.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102&cm_re=bytecc_ide_to_usb-_-12-156-102-_-Product

 

Here's another. Never used it

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

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We've used this for old IDE drives where I work for a while. Always has worked for us, but I've seen some bad reviews too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102&cm_re=bytecc_ide_to_usb-_-12-156-102-_-Product

Here's another. Never used it

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

I got one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00DQJME7Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1438734950&sr=8-1π=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=usb-dsc9&dpPl=1&dpID=51gU1Ypaf-L&ref=plSrch

I tried messing with it about 6 months ago and couldn't get it to work. I don't know if it was my error or the adapter but I plugged everything in and got nothing. Didn't even say anything was plugged in.

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I got one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00DQJME7Y/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1438734950&sr=8-1π=AC_SY200_QL40&keywords=usb-dsc9&dpPl=1&dpID=51gU1Ypaf-L&ref=plSrch

I tried messing with it about 6 months ago and couldn't get it to work. I don't know if it was my error or the adapter but I plugged everything in and got nothing. Didn't even say anything was plugged in.

 

Maybe you just got a bad one? I know on that Bytecc one I posted, there's an actual 4 prong molex connector that you have to plug straight into the IDE hard drive to get power to it. The IDE drives do not power up and spin like the SATAs, with just the SATA connection on the adapter. This is all independent of the USB connection to the computer you are copying to. The hard drives power up, outside of a USB connection.

 

Edit: I'm really not positive that is the exact Bytecc one we have at work. It only shows the base of what looks like we use, but there are several cables/attachments not shown in the picture. I will double check the model tomorrow.

 

Not it, but kind of what it looks like here:

IC661A_PCS.jpg

Edited by SoulSkin
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For what it's worth, a backup that is kept in more or less the same place as the original isn't much of a backup.  If it's something that you feel absolutely must be kept safe you should be looking at something like cloud storage, otherwise the fire/theft/flood/horde of angry Cowboys fans that wipes out your computer will likely take your backup with it.

 

A plain external hard drive will help in the event of a computer that randomly and catastrophically fails or gets a horrid virus that makes cleanup not worth the effort, but that's about it.

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For what it's worth, a backup that is kept in more or less the same place as the original isn't much of a backup.  If it's something that you feel absolutely must be kept safe you should be looking at something like cloud storage, otherwise the fire/theft/flood/horde of angry Cowboys fans that wipes out your computer will likely take your backup with it.

 

A plain external hard drive will help in the event of a computer that randomly and catastrophically fails or gets a horrid virus that makes cleanup not worth the effort, but that's about it.

 

I agree, the only way to keep a real backup is to use an online service.

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Thanks.

 

Thought about it again for a second Did you try that thing out on a SATA drive? If SATA works, you might just need A SATA to Molex adapter to make the IDE drives power up and work with the adapter.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816038

 

...I checked. The model we use in our office is that same BT-300 model.

Edited by SoulSkin
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You can unlock and root that Nook tablet to get it to do what you want. That will allow you to uninstall those apps that Barnes & Noble have locked, and if you really want to, I'm sure there are plenty of custom ROMs out there for that specific device which would perform better than the stock ROM it came with. 

 

This is me. I know a little coding, but no way would I do it as my career and spend the whole day doing it. I'm a network engineer too. I much rather configure Cisco equipment all day. 

Sweet. Good to see a fellow router jockey in here. :D

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I'm dropping DirecTv. Is there any chance that I can get my DVR library off the box?

 

They change boxes/settings/etc so often, that things may have changed since the last time I looked into it...

 

Some receives (DirecTv and DisH) will allow you export DVR'd shows to a USB drive, but I believe you can only import them into a like device (Dish to Dish, or DirecTV to DirecTV). I think they're in some proprietary encoding. So even if you have those boxes, I don't think you'll be able to move it to a new system (or play it on your computer.)

 

DirecTV tech's say they can't even transfer your playlist (the shows you want to record) to a new box, so I doubt you can do it yourself to a new service. Those tech's are lazy, so maybe you can and they just didn't want to.

 

I'm sure you can find people that have hacky ways of getting it, but I have no experience with any of them.

Edited by tshile
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You can unlock and root that Nook tablet to get it to do what you want. That will allow you to uninstall those apps that Barnes & Noble have locked, and if you really want to, I'm sure there are plenty of custom ROMs out there for that specific device which would perform better than the stock ROM it came with. 

 

This is me. I know a little coding, but no way would I do it as my career and spend the whole day doing it. I'm a network engineer too. I much rather configure Cisco equipment all day. 

 

Sweet. Good to see a fellow router jockey in here. :D

 

 

I've seen lots of references to rooting a HD, and have seen step by step "how -to" guides... but have never understood the 30,000 foot considerations.  are there any?  is the tablet less secure at that point?  more likely to get effed up by user error? or by external threats???

 

 

remember that this is a tablet for a 10 year old  (i have the admin profile, but the tablet is hers) --- actually 2 tablets, another for a 12 year old----- they saved up birthday and other money and bought them themselves..

 

i can tell them not to click on shiny purple links that promise cute pictures of kittens....  and sometimes they won't.... but sometimes they will 

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I have old hard drives that I need to get stuff off of. IDE drives. What is the easiest way?

BAM.

 

(Big *** Magnet)

 

We use an NSA certified degausser here. SSD get thrown in the chipper.

Edited by Zguy28
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That's what I have (modem-wise) and it works well.  Buying your own modem pays for itself in a year or less with the $5-10 ISPs charge to rent.  Plus you can take it with you if you move or change providers.

 

which router do you use?  I need one that will connect my phone into it

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Windows 10 is doing it's first forced update tonight. I think you can defer it if you have Pro, but Home users' PCs are getting that update installed and getting rebooted tonight. Make sure you have anything you're working on saved. I just manually did it to get it out of the way.

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