Desktop Boot Drive Options

[John-Win7]

I bought an external hard drive, and I wondering if it can serve as an emergency boot drive. How do I find out what my computer looks for, and how can that be set if it id setable? If I make it a recovery disk, can I use also for file back-up? The external drive is a Seagate Expansion 2TB.

Thank you.

[mdklassen]

> I bought an external hard drive -- Seagate Expansion 2TB ...

Does it have the same capacity as your internal disk-drive, or is it much larger?

Does it have the much-faster USB 3.0, compared to USB 2.0, interface?

Does your computer have a USB 3.0 port?

You really want to have USB 3.0 speeds on both devices, especially if you want it to be your "emergency-boot" device, and of course, for speed when copying "onto" the external device.

Depending on what method of "file-copying" that you use, it's possible that you will have to "dedicate" the external disk-drive (and all its disk-space) to the sole purpose of being a "clone" of the internal disk-drive.

> and I wondering if it can serve as an emergency boot drive.

Yes, it should be possible.

> How do I find out what my computer looks for, and how can that be set if it is setable?

This must be done within the BIOS SETUP.

> If I make it a recovery disk, can I use also for file back-up?

A "recovery" set is different from a "backup" set, which is different from a "cloned-image", but it seems possible.

TWO OTHER ALTERNATIVES:

1.

It's possible that the motherboard in your desktop computer supports 'RAID 1' mode for disk-drives.

If you add a second disk-drive, the same speed (5400 RPM? 7200 RPM?) as the original, and at least the same capacity, and configure the two disk-drives as a "RAID 1 (Mirrored)" set, then the motherboard will write each block of data to BOTH disk-drives at the same time.  Thus, each disk-drive is a "mirror" of the other.  When one disk-drive fails, your personal files on the other disk-drive are unaffected, and you can buy a replacement disk-drive, and "rebuild" the mirroring.  You probably will have to reinstall Windows onto this RAID array -- it's not as simple as adding the disk-drive, and waving a 'make-it-RAID' magic-wand.

2.

Add another disk-drive into your desktop, without building a 'RAID 1' array.

Then, once a week, run a "disk-cloning" program, to copy everything from your 'C:' disk-drive to this "spare" disk-drive.

Thus, you have a "week-old" copy of your 'C:' disk-drive, that will provide an "emergency" capability.

[John-Win7]

I have a recovery disk on CD. The external drive is suposed to be compatable with 2.0. I suppose my best option would be to use it as an ordinary drive that will have the advantage of being able to fail separately. The machine will be 6 years old this year, so if it fails, it will be about time for replacement. Thanks.