Clickfree Backup external hard drive Anything that can make backing up your files a simpler task has got to be good. Spending time recreating important information after accidents is no fun, but like belting up before driving, not everybody does the sensible thing. Clickfree is like an airbag to back-up tools' seat belts. Now, a spot check. Are your important …
Airbags are actually a dangerous idea without seatbelts. In a frontal collision, you're already moving before the airbag fires and, given that it fires at head/shoulder level, guess what gets snapped backwards when it does fire as the rest of you is still trying to travel at the same rate as the car was a moment before? The whole point of an airbag is to stop your head moving too far forward and then whipping back into the headrest. The seatbelt's job is to immobilise the rest of you, which is why cars with airbags (SRS or *supplementary* restraint system) also usually have seatbelt pretensioners.
If you really must drive around without a seatbelt on, you're better off disabling the airbags. Car manufacturers have known this for a long time, which is why you can disable the passenger airbag (Toyota owners, open the passenger door and check the end of the crash padding, you'll find a keyhole for just this purpose. This is not for use in pre-divorce situations, though) for those who, for medical reasons, cannot wear a seatbelt. Without a seatbelt, you're slightly more likely to survive if the airbag stays the hell out of it, assuming you don't go through the windscreen instead. Another little tip: Always make sure the whining git who can't wear a seatbelt is in the FRONT passenger seat where their flying corpse isn't going to decapitate any other poor sod.
Off topic? Yep, surely, but tapes are still the ultimate in backup reliability [1] so I didn't really bother with yet-another-mechanical-hard-drive-point-of-failure false sense of security product. Just like airbags, really. The best way to stay alive is practice defensive driving, assume every Volvo is on auto-pilot with a very primitive AI, let every BMW pass safely and stay the hell away from the noobs and flat-cap-and-glasses mob. The best way to back up your data is still "do not trust hard drives or optical disks that have a shelf-life of a cheap loaf." Those of you using the DVD backup and archive method, use Taiyo Yuden based disks, preferably DVD+R, and nothing else. Trust me on this one.
[1] A bulk eraser has yet to be made that can erase a DDS tape successfully. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html
I know 2.5" HDDs are more expensive and can be powered by USB, but you can get 1TB 3.5" portable drives for £80. I have no idea about the quality of the backup software, since I use time machine, but the only problems with my Fujitsu Siemens StorageBird is that I can feel 50Hz through the metal casing (power supply is supposed to be double insulated) and the light on the front is WAAAAY too bright.
I was a bit disappointed by this. When it said "Click Free" I was imagining a system that basically mirrored your disk activity. My mind quickly raced through the possibly ways of doing this and decided that software on the drive was probably going to take a copy of any file you opened, downloaded, or copied onto the machine and then update that file whenever the PC did.
I.E. that it would be entirely click-free and work like an air-bag - you don't know it's there until you have an accident.
Other than the software being on the device, I don't see the advantage of this over and above something like Acronis. I have Acronis shceduled to take incremental backups once a week. After setup, I have no interaction with it. So how is that different to this that, from your description, still requires me to set it up and still only runs once a week.
Automated external file mirroring for documents and photos would be really click-free. This is just an expensive package deal for very little storage space.
I know this is off topic, but perhaps the most important reason for disabling your front passenger seat airbag is the carrying of a baby in a rear facing child seat. The seat already restrains them well, but the airbag deploying will strike the back of the seat violently...
The site http://www.childcarseats.org.uk/faqs/index.htm gives more information. According to them it is actually illegal to fit a rear facing child seat to a front seat which has an (active) frontal airbag.
Neil
I've opted to use Casper Drive image cloning software with an external HDD via caddy connection. Having recently gone through a system rebuild and reconfiguration (the far longer part) I decided it would be best to have a bootable clone of the entire drive. That still allows a form of differential backup synchronisation, so doesn't take too long for each refresh. Admittedly one of the HDDs may fail, but it is unlikely that both will in the time it takes to restore. My new backup HDD only cost £50. I had previously performed manual backups of selective files to a smaller caddy using xcopy and exclusions.
I suppose I'd better clear up that comment above.
Her: I want a divorce.
Him: Yes, dear.
Her: I want the kids, the car and the house and £300 a week.
Him: Yes, dear.
Her: That's it?
Him: Yep.
Her: Nothing you want?
Him: Nope, I already have all I need.
Her: What would that be?
Him: I've got the airbag.
Airbags are not supposed to be a nice soft place to land in a crash.
They go off like a bomb, and are more like hitting "drywall". Yes, you might brake your arm. But it's a lot less fun hitting the steering wheel with your face.
As for the injuries resulting from no seatbelt+airbag, you deserve everything you get for being that stupid.
And I also sell them in my shop because let's face it, most people don't want to actually *know* how to do a backup, they just want it done. Any for the most part, once you've ok'd the program in Vista's UAC and set it to run automatically, it doesn't need additional clicking in the future... so Click free in everything but Vista for the first time.... not a very marketable title ;) I love mine, and I'll look at their 500 GB when it comes out....
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