storage solutions such as external hard drive, etc?

[JillinOH]

I have dabbled in digital here and there but never really committed because my computer is kind of out of date and doesn't have tons of memory left. I am now in a situation where I would like to go digital (to save some $) but can't buy a new computer. Do any of you store kits on external hard drives (I know nothing about these) or on flash drives? How does it work for you? I have PSE so my only problem is memory/storage of kits. I know I could store pages on a flashdrive but what about kits?

[katrinak]

I store my kits and my pages on an external hard drive to save storage space on my computer. It works beautifully

[Tove]

I also store all my kits, pictures and pages on an external harddrive. Before I got this, I had everything stored on my desktop computer and had to do all my scrapping there. Now I can also use my laptop.

[ScrappinSass]

An external drive is a good idea if short on space on your computer's hard drive but you need to check a few things and make sure you get something that is compatible with your system. If your system is out of date - you need to check to see if you've got USB 1 or 2. USB 2 is faster and some boxes may not support USB 1. (USB is how you call up the information from your hard drive) Ask a technician - or geek - not a sales person who is likley only to want to sell you anything. Then you need to make sure you get the right connection from the box to your machine (so the computer recognizes it as a hard drive). It's either IDE or SATA - older machines will likely be IDE.. but the newer external drive boxes could likely be SATA. As the box and hard drive are typically sold separatly, you need to make sure the cases and the hard drive are also compatible as some cases cannot handle larger hard drives. Do your homework and you should be ok .. Good Luck

ps - your existing computer should be able to take 2 hard drives internally. If you only have one presently, then purchasing another larger drive may be a cheaper solution than an external and faster to access your data. 500G drives are relativley inexpensive today, so that may be another way to go, again, make sure your know whether or not your machince supports IDE or SATA.

Cheers
Sass

[Chris]

I went for a long time on an older machine (8gb), and used an external drive for all of my storage. Sass is right about the USB problem - my one port was pre-USB 1. A hub solved that for me.

[JillinOH]

Thanks so much. I had no idea about all of that.

[RatherBScrappin]

I have a 250G Passport that I started with. I use it for my back up now. I got a 1TB EHD for Christmas that I put everything on, and then once a month I back up my digiscrapbooking and pictures to the 250G and put that one in my safe. Seems to be working well so far.

[angie wags]

I just bought a 1 TB Western Digital EHD. I had a smaller WD Passport, but I just decided to upgrade to the big guy. I store everything on it and keep my laptop cleared off as much as possible so it runs smoothly and quickly.