Back To School Technology Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on August 4, 2011 8:55 PM ESTExternal hard drives, flash drives, optical media, and cloud storage
“My hard drive crashed” is the 21st century equivalent of “The dog ate my homework.” That excuse might buy you a few days’ extension on a due date, but you do not want to spend hours—or days or weeks—on a paper or project only to have your hard work disappear because a hard drive crashed or you spilled water on your laptop. You need a backup plan. There are a variety of useful devices that are affordable and can potentially save you a lot of grief.
The least expensive backup solution is blank optical media. CD-Rs and DVD-Rs are sometimes on sale for less than a dime apiece. A blank CD can store up to about 700MB while a blank DVD maxes out around 4.5GB. Even 700MB is more than enough to store hundreds of smaller office documents or a handful of larger, image-heavy presentations. They tend to be durable (CD-Rs I burned as a first year undergraduate still read just fine while my first laptop's hard drive stopped working years ago). If you happen to lose one, you’re out less than a buck and the few minutes it takes to write a replacement. Accumulating many optical discs can be aggravating, though, and if you don’t keep them organized, you’ll end up wasting discs and time making duplicates. I like blank optical media for long-term archival storage, but for shorter-term storage, I prefer flash drives, external hard drives, and cloud storage.
Flash drives are portable, can be written and re-written extensively, and don’t take up much space. Even the smallest commercially available flash drives (usually 2GB or 4GB models) are capacious enough to store lots of work, and typically cost less than $10. AnandTech recently reviewed a number of newer USB 3.0 flash drives, if you’re interested in larger capacities and higher performance rather than the budget offerings that even grocery stores sometimes stock in checkout lanes with gum and magazines. I prefer capless designs, simply because you won’t lose the USB plug’s cover. Flash drives are more durable than external hard drives—for example, you can (usually) get them wet without worrying about data loss. But for backing up more than papers and presentations, like your music, video, and picture collections, you’ll want more space.
External hard drives typically take three forms, 3.5” desktop hard drives, 2.5” laptop hard drives, and hard drive docks. 3.5” hard drives require the use of an A/C adapter, which can be an inconvenience when you’re packing a dorm room that has maybe six or eight electrical outlets with all of today’s myriad electronics. They’re also larger, and not particularly portable. However, you usually get more capacity for your money with the 3.5” drives than 2.5” drives. 2.5” external hard drives do not require an extra A/C adapter, and are easier to carry around.
| Seagate ST310005EXA101-RK | $80 |
| Western Digital Elements WDBAAU0010BK-NESN | $70 |
Most hard drive docks accommodate both 3.5” and 2.5” hard drives and use an external power adapter. Hard drive docks with multiple interfaces (e.g. USB 2.0, USB 3.0, eSATA, and/or Firewire) are usually much less expensive than their retail counterparts. They’re particularly useful if you have multiple external hard drives, as swapping hard drives in the dock is quicker than unhooking the entire enclosure device from your computer. Further, they’re not as common, and fewer people recognize a bare hard drive than an external hard drive—meaning they’re less likely to be targeted by thieves. Hard drive docks are about as easy as DIY devices get!
You can also buy your own bare drives and empty enclosures for a cost-effective and customizable DIY solution. Bare drives are usually less expensive than retail-packaged external hard drives, have longer warranties, and are less expensive to upgrade when the need arises. Though many enclosures are very inexpensive, consider spending a few more dollars on an enclosure that’s better-made.
| Samsung EcoGreen F2 HD103SI | $55 |
| Rosewill RX35-AT-SU SLV | $20 |
| Total: | $75 |
In this case, spending $5 more on the DIY solution gets you 3 years of warranty on the hard drive instead of 1 year of warranty compared to the least expensive retail product.
Cloud storage is increasingly accessible. Most colleges give their students space on school servers, though often that space is very modest (for example, UW-Madison provides a tiny but functional 1GB by default). Dropbox is one of the more popular cloud storage companies, and the base 2GB capacity is totally free. Its interface is especially easy to use. Amazon recently unveiled its own cloud storage service, and the base plan that provides 5GB of remote storage is free. It also features an easy-to-use interface. (Speaking of Amazon—don't forget to sign up for Amazon Student—it includes a free year of Prime Shipping!)
Now that your papers are safe from hard drive crashes, you might want to print them out—nothing earns a lower grade than an assignment that isn't turned in at all! We cover printers on the next page.
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Gigantopithecus - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
After thinking about this and on the advice of Ryan, our GPU guru, I edited the article to recommend nothing more power-hungry than a 6870. That's a more comfortably conservative recommendation, and I think it's better to err on the side of caution.mariush - Saturday, August 6, 2011 - link
That's indeed better.A lot of the pre-built computers still come with very cheap power supplies based on old designs with lots of amps on 3.3v and 5v and not so much on 12v, so those 220 watts could be a bit too much for these power supplies.
Someone might get mixed up and think that any kind of 400w power supply would be capable of this, which is of course not true.
Hrel - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
I would like to add a set I've had some personal experience with that are excellent. Sound is crystal clear, I'm not kidding. NO distortion even at max volume! Satisfying Bass.http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-HTX-22HDX-Ultra-Compac...
It's got a 1% THD rating, so you can believe me when I say there really is no distortion. The bass isn't quite as good as those klipsch, which I've also used. But it is full and satisfying for 90-99% of uses. Not quite as penetrating as the Klipsch so your neighbors will thank you. Also doesn't get quite as loud as those Klipsch, but more than loud enough for realistic uses. Especially in a dorm/apartment. Has a night time mode that's actually usefull and many settings. And unlike all the other systems you linked it has a full receiver built into it. Full HDMI support and all the hookups you could ever want. That way you can get your game system and pc and laptop all running through it. With a remote so you don't have to get up every time you want to change devices. On top of that it supports 3 more speakers than the ones included so you could have a full 5.1 surround sound set up down the road if you chose to. Maybe after college, or once you get a bigger apartment or house or something. I often find them on newegg for 250 or less. Right now they're 230 on amazon. Really amazing deal for everything you get. Chintzy controller, but at this price all that matters is it works, and it does. If that matters to you get a Logitech universal remote.
Personally I use this when I want music streaming from my computer but I'm playing a game online over xbox. I don't really care about the explosion sounds of the game, but I need to visuals going to the tv. But I can have the sound coming from the computer without ever getting up or moving any cables. Pretty convenient and very fairly priced for everything you're getting.
If you're building a dedicated home theatre room you need to spend more; period. But if you don't want to spend more than 250 or so. Or you have limited space or don't want to fuss with cables or just want quality sound and bass without too much hassle or money; that's what these are for. The only other option I think is the Klipsch, which have slightly superior sound but have no receiver, and don't even have optical audio. That last one was a bid deal to me; too much distortion over RCA. I think the Onkyo offering a full receiver with every connection you could ever want, remote, 2 quality speakers with a good sub-woofer and the option to go 5.1 surround sound later more than makes up for the "just slightly" inferior sound. I mean, honestly unless you're completely OCD about sound like I am, you probably won't even notice a difference. Anyway, I think they're a great set of speakers and wanted to spread the word where the word just might be listened to, and appreciated.
Chinoman - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I agree with getting a system which has a low-powered sub for decreased penetration. As a current college student, it seems to me that a lot of kids who move on campus don't realize that their 10" subwoofers can be heard just as well on the other side of the wall.Leave the "loud music" to the clubs, don't bring it to the dorms where people next door might be trying to sleep or study.
Zoomer - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I would recommend picking up a cheap but decent receiver from craigslist for $50++ and using that. It just needs to do at least 2 channels (or 5), and there are many receivers out there that are good quality, but doesn't support hdmi switching or what not. It's not really necessary anyway. Save the money for the speakers; you'll find that HDMI switching, crazy fancy features and what not doesn't matter as much as the speakers.Roland00Address - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
They were planning to but they removed it before it was released (May of 09 they removed the 3 app limit, windows 7 starter like the rest of windows 7 was released to oems in July of 09 and to the general public in Oct of 09.)Gigantopithecus - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Thanks Roland! Edited the article accordingly after confirming with a friend who just got the 1001P. The first thing I do when I buy a new machine (or as happens more often, a friend brings me their new machine) is install one of those heavily discounted W7 Ultimate licenses. Admittedly I have little experience with W7 Starter. ;)Roland00Address - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
If you are a student and you can get W7 Ultimate or W7 Pro for cheap through your campus book store, then you will want to hop onto it.W7 Premium, Pro, and Ultimate add back the Windows 7 Media Center functionality.
W7 Pro and Ultimate add the remote desktop so you can log back on in your Desktop at the Dorm and grab the file you forgot to save, and have it sent back to your netbook.
Zoomer - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Or Pro for free through MSDNAA.johnnywa - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I find it wrong to assume that you can't get a desktop-like experience out of a laptop, but the article does seem to reinforce this notion. With a laptop, you can still purchase a monitor (or small TV), keyboard, and mouse, and you can end up with essentially a desktop that you can unhook and take around with you when you need to. I tried this solution for the last 2 years (minus monitor, although sometimes I hooked my lappy up to our apartment's 37" TV), and it was a very comfortable setup. Of course this isn't an end-all-be-all solution, but I'd say it's another alternative to desktop + netbook.