Big Files
Big Files
Has anyone else noticed that every new release of software takes their hard disk shrink a bit more? Or, how about an easy way of moving a 40mb file from one machine to another?
As many desktop publishers are having facing the same storage troubles, I'll share what we're doing.
Despite having a reliable way of backing up work files, we are always running out of hard disk space. The applications are getting hungrier with every new release.
Up to now we have just kept adding extra hard drives into spare slots in the machines. But we got to the point where most of the systems were out of spare slots too. Bigger cases?
Moving big files? Well there's always DOS Backup, which works very well at splitting a file across several disks - but Murphy guarantees that disk number 30, in a series of 32 will be corrupt!
We brainstormed a list of possibilities such as Floptical, removable hard drives, optical drives, writable CD-ROM, tape units etc and set about gathering as much information as possible on all the options we could think of.
With that at hand, we made a list of all the features we needed. It came down to portability, cost and speed.
Working through the data on the different types of storage we chose two options, and have ended up installing one of each in different systems.
Our Mac counterparts have been using these drives for a long time, but they haven't really taken off in the PC world. No one here had even seen one.
When we looked into it, it seemed our timing was right because they have increased the sizes (105mb and 270mb) and the prices have dropped dramatically too!
We went for the 270mb. We chose to pull one of the hard disks out of the machine this was going into, so we could use the same controller. This meant we just needed the Syquest drive (about $540) which included a cartridge. Each cartridge is 270mb and looks a bit like a CD-ROM in a hard plastic case. Extra cartridges are about $115 each.
Although the drive itself was an investment that needed a bit of thinking about, we like it because it's an ongoing, inexpensive way to keep getting more space. They are fast drives too clocking in at 14.5msec and feel just like a hard disk to use. (Thats faster than my hard drive. Sigh!)
With this option, we installed a special "empty box" in a hard disk slot and then put our existing hard disk into a draw that unlocks and slides out to change.
We needed an extra draw for each hard disk, but the kit (box and draw) costs less than $100, and because we get to use all the old IDE hard drives we have it's an inexpensive way of getting changeability and portability.
The bottom line: the removable draws are the inexpensive up-front, whereas the Syquest is very cost effective way ongoing...
