How can you do image backup

Submitted by The Miller on Thu, 05/21/2009 - 11:02am

How can you do image backup on a 250GB model? It' s laughable. My grandmother's computer has a bigger HDD. I guess it makes sense that it's limited to 1 PC.  The 500 GB model is not fairing much better.  "Plug it in and forget it?"  If it's copying everything, alll the time, it sounds like it will be  drain on resources and will copy virsuses and worms when they end up on my pc which is the point of me wanting to backup.  Sounds an awful lot like Rebit.  Hopefully you will never need to copy your files to any other machine because you can't. 

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lol i hope it can play the

Submitted by smashingpumpin on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 12:26pm

lol i hope it can play the portal theme coz it looks like a portal radio!

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he's pwning with a trackpad? oh really? oh reheheheeally?

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Windows Home Server for the win!

Submitted by jtrpop on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 7:27am

Expandable storage, plus all the software mods you can do for it.  I have over 3tb of storage which backs up all my machines.

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 well one could say that

Submitted by Shalbatana on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 6:32am

 well one could say that compression could allow these drives to backup more than their equivelant, but can you compress a backup and still maintain drag and drop access?

I do like the idea. Knowing Seagate, these are the introductory models and there's bigger and better to come. It would be a nice thing to come home each night and plug my laptop into it. Or perhaps have it on a network, provided you could specifiy what you wanted automatically backed up. Would be good for a small business.

Will be best to wait for the larger models in most cases though.

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"There's no time like the future."

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Sound idea, but limitations are a concern

Submitted by Marcus_Soperus on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 7:49pm

I wanted to leave this article open-ended to spur discussion, but as I see it, there are a couple of major issues with Seagate's thinking:

• These drives are too small for full-system backup on today's systems. In a check of the laptop inventory at BestBuy.com, about 50% of the inventory had hard disks of 320GB or larger. Digital photos, music collections, and movies on demand are going to fill up those drives and put a big strain on the backup appliance, especially the 250GB version. Even the 500GB version is going to have a hard time coping with two or more systems in the hands of media fans.
• The only PC interface on these drives is a single USB port, which precludes any type of daisy-chaining.

In its press release, Seagate is pitching the Replica appliances squarely at digital consumers, mentioning the need to protect their collections of digital pix, videos, and music. Given the steadily climbing capacities of consumer-level PC hard disks and the higher capacities needed for digital media, Replica is going to be too small for many users - maybe not six months down the road, but in a year or so.

I like the idea of non-brainer backup, but the size limitations are going to have a lot of media fans who aren't computer geeks getting unhappy down the road.

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It's amazing how illogical a business built on binary logic can be.

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Seagate Replica - On Target for Retail Buyers

Submitted by demohr777 on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 5:58pm

As the product is aimed at a niche market, it needs to be highly reliable, cheap, easy to use, appropriate for the target market, and, if possible, sexy.

Mr. Soper's article seems to indicate there is no means of daisy-chaining the system.  While to do so would interfere with the company's desire to be simple, it could be considered a serious flaw as it is now possible to get internal 1TB drives for around $100 (on sale - Newegg, last week). However, this may not be the case.  Read on.

The article itself asks a question it should have answered. That is
what size would be appropriate and should their be more offerings?  It
would seem the writer's organization would have access to most of the
market data Seagate would have, i.e. what size harddrives ship the most
in pre-assembled systems from the like of HP, Dell, and/or Best Buy.

This gets us into the price and target audience arena. The idea that the Replica is designed for people who want a simple back-up solution also inherently implies the user has a degree of sophistication and is comfortable with peripherals at the level of, say, adding a printer.  It is true that it is not a far step from there to the acquisition of a stand alone external harddrive and free back-up software from a trusted source, MajorGeeks or Cnet come to mind.  But it is still a step small business owners and their ilk neither have the time nor the inclination to make.

Thus from what I read in the article, I can only assume Seagate is targeting the retail buyer who has a small business or a generalist that has enough awareness of such a need. Someone who would use a distribution channel such as Best Buy.  Additionally, with the limited size it is my guess that the software that comes with the unit does incremental back-ups.  If that is the case, then Seagate has probably hit the mark on the value proposition. 

However, It is not sexy and that may be a mistake.  The cool factor is often reason enough for someone to shell out a few extra dollars on an item they don't really need or can get cheaper elsewhere in a slightly different configuration; especially in a market that may be perceived to be in a wider downward trend.  Remember black mesh-wire wastebaskets and desktop accessories?  You could get a plastic, putty-colored wastebasket for $9 or $10, but at the height of their popularity the black mesh look was fetching $42 for a similarly sized receptacle. In a down market people are still apt to buy "extra" items that might be prudent, especially if they have the "it" factor. 

Therefore, with the exception of boring looks, the Replica is aimed at the right market with the right features at the right price.  It is not what most readers of  Maximum PC would buy.  How well it does in the current market we shall have to wait and see.

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Needs More Disk Space

Submitted by Granpuff on Tue, 04/28/2009 - 5:17pm

My main system has nearly 5 TB of storage spread over 5 Internal and 2 external drives.  Although I'm no where near filling all those drive up for now I know that 500 GB would not come close to backing up what I DO have.

Best Wishes, Granpuff

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