Tom Bamford wrote in gmane.linux.ubuntu.user.british about: Re: External hard disks and backup strategies
> I've always found support for USB mass storage devices to be excellent > in Ubuntu. I haven't come across a drive that isn't automatically > recognised and mounted, no matter what filesystem you choose to use on > it. Even my SE mobile works as a card reader on Ubuntu out of the box. > If you label the partition on the drive it will get mounted in > /media/LABEL, otherwise Ubuntu will use /media/disk, followed by disk1, > disk2 etc if you disconnect and reconnect it between reboots. You can > safely identify a drive by referring to /dev/disk/by-uuid or > /dev/disk/by-id and mounting the appropriate symlink manually. Thanks, that's very useful to know.. ..although I'm going to have to find out what the current method of hacking /etc/fstab is these days since newfangled stuff introduced with edgy turned it to gibberish.. (Bah: it worked fine as a format for 30 years previously, why change it..?) :-( > We have a 500GB NAS hard drive in a cheap enclosure. You're right, they > use a stripped down Linux kernel with Samba, ftpd etc, with a web > interface for configuring it as you would a home router. I wouldn't > recommend one though, they give poor performance compared to USB2 and > you're at the mercy of the frankenstein daemons running on the box. The > ftp server on ours dies a horrible death when you try to push lots of > small files without giving it time to breathe. Ah. Not good. :-( I suppose for networkable storage, possibly the best (and maybe cheapest) way to do it is just to use an old computer [1] and stick Linux on it - at least that way you can be fairly sure the server software isn't too cronky! ;-) [1] not that I exactly have the space for another tower case to sit around, if only boxen with a Mac-Mini-like form factor were cheaper! > Ours will only use FAT32 > filesystem on the drive as well, which is annoying to say the least. Freecom, by any chance? I was vaguely considering the "Freecom Network Drive" as it was just about within my budget, but unfortunately the drive FAQ states that it can only be used as FAT32 in NAS mode and reformatting it restricts it to USB connectivity. Useless, indeed. All other NAS drives are outwith my budget, so I guess I shall be following everybody's advice (thank you, all) and going the USB route after all. I'm now trying to narrow down to a particular drive. I only actually have around 50 GB of data to backup, but it would probably be wise to buy something a bit larger for some future-proofing. I really rather liked the look of the Western Digital My Book drives, but unfortunately it seems that there have been many problems with them: http://www.tomrafteryit.net/western-digital-my-book-pro-edition-ii-sucks/ Maplin has a rather vanilla-looking Maxtor 320 GB drive for 59.99 [2], but it doesn't have an on-off switch, which seems a little disconcerting: I'd have to physically unplug it (very inconvenient) when I want to power it down. This begs the question as to whether it is better to leave these drives running constantly or not. There's also the issue of unmounting the disk safely: can Ubuntu be configured to unmount the disk automatically when you shut down? [2] http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=115248&doy=22m9 Then there's the slightly too-funky-looking Seagate FreeAgent drives which seemingly power themselves down after a period of non-use. While nifty, the thing that worries me here is whether it does so in such a way that doesn't cause mount problems, and whether Ubuntu is able to kick it back into life again the next time it is needed? And perhaps finally, iomega's Desktop Drive series comes in a sleek metal case that looks nice. Any thoughts on how I decide? Thanks again, David. -- David M. Edinburgh, Scotland. ---- [en,fr,(de) <-- corrections welcome] * Please only quote minimum required for context; interleave reply text. * On-list replies preferred. Please don't 'cc:' list messages to me! * HTML/slug-trails/excess-quoting/no-context/zero-content => filtered! >> Read lists as news: nntp://news.gmane.org info: http://gmane.org/ << -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
