Beyond Micro/ Mobile/ 250GB External Hard Drive review.
I got the Beyond Micro 250GB Ext HD. It works great & stores all my audio & video files, on the same drive.
Recently, I needed to re-make 2 desktops, & so the BM 250GB HD proved to be the great asset. They work smoothly.
You’ll soon discover that nothing’s beyond the ability of Beyond Micro to create high performance data storage solutions at an affordable price. Proof positive is this Beyond Micro USB 2.0 Mobile Disk. This intensely compact, durable disk supports PIO modes 0, 3, 4 and UDMA modes 2. It works with both PC and Mac. Features an innovative stackable, space-saving design. And works with plug and play simplicity.
The Beyond Micro Mobile Disk complies with T13’s ATA/ATAPI-6 Draft Specification, supports Wakeup ability……..and boasts an external 30-watt power supply adapter. For performance beyond the extraordinary…….in a compact size that’s so perfectly adapted to your digital lifestyle…..that its Beyond Micro…… choose the Beyond Micro Mobile Disk. Save big dollars by selecting the beyond micro data storage solution.
Photo Credit: TigerDirect.com
External hardrives have come down in price to the point that they are considered a viable source for backup media! For about the past 2 years I have been converting many of my SMB customers from various backup medias such as tape, remote storage, LSI drives and such over to external harddrives.
The best part about using this media is it’s diversity of being able to use any software you want to backup with. My personal favorite is NTBACKUP.EXE built into all professional and server versions of windows. My second fav. is a $20 utility called DIRSYNCH. (you can find it by searching on the web for it.) here’s how I setup both of these to backup for me.
NTBACKUP:
This little used overlooked FREE utility is fantastic for backing up data either to tape or to file. With an external harddrive you use the file selection.
Simply hit start then run and type NTBACKUP into the box. then follow the wizards to set it up, you can even click the schedual tab and have it backup your selctions automatically on what ever schedual you want. It’s great fast and actually works.
for DIRSYNCH:
I setup two types of backups, first I do a 15 minute backup, using the setup wizard I set my source to the my documents folder on each workstation and the destinaions to directories that would corresponde to the users name or machine name. and tell it to backup every 15 minutes. In addtiiton I tell it to keep 10 copies of any files that have been modified or even deleted from the source. This is great for the users that have a habit of overwritting originals with modified data, or have a habit of accidently deleting something they really should not have had to. It also helps protect the company from someone who might delete relevant information.
The benefits of an external harddrivee used in conjunction with this type of software is restore time! it’s virtually instantaneous since the original file is stored as an exact copy on a readily accessible medium.
Now the second backup I setup with DIRSYNCH is a weekly full backup. Which once a week will backup the directories as they appear right at that second.
So instead of a company spending 900$ for a 40 gig tape drive and up to $60 for tapes every few months they can get thier external harddrives here at tiger usually for less then $150.00 each, keep them for up to 5 years and have INSTANT access to thier backups. Everyone benefits all around.
`Mitch
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Lasted for two (2) weeks. Then crashed. I lost all the data I transfered to this disk. For me, this data was/is more valuable to me than the price of the hard-disk itself.
**** IMPORTANT *** >>>
After the crash, I did open the chasis and made following DISCOVERY:
(1) It is a Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 ATA disk inside BeyondMicro’s casing. The hard-disk carries a label by Seagate ”Certified Repaired HDD”.
(2) The above Seagate’s lettering is covered under another sticker put by Beyond Micro ”WARRANTY VOID IF BROKEN”. The 2nd label (BeyondMicro’s label) is in effect HIDING the above Seagate’s label.
Bottomline: The hard-disk BeyondMicro is using under the chasis is NOT a new hard-disk. I found no documentation of BeyondMicro which describes the fact that they are using refurbished hard-disk (presumably much cheaper than a new hard-disk).
Note that the BeyondMicro 1 year warranty includes the hard drives as well. This problem was identified during late this fall and after speaking with the manufacturer, we have been advised they are no longer using ‘refurb’ drives.