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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Rick83 - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I would encourage a decent desktop, because a amount of working area and a full-size keyboard and mouse are not replaceable, and portability really is overvalued. I had exactly one laptop during my university days, it sucked and I never needed nor used it.Now, my 5 inch Tablet, that I use a lot, and my desktop, I wouldn't give that away for anything.
Really, in the end it's a matter of analyzing needs and wants.
A laptop usually just serves to distract you during lectures, a desktop is a trusty machine you can return to, and get serious work done, without being limited to those ridiculous 15" screens.
Currently have a work laptop - and guess what: I'm hating every minute of it, because the screen is crap, I have to put it on a cardboard box to get the screen to the proper ergonomic height, I can only plug in one external screen without a docking station, it's slow, soooo slow, because there's no SSD in it (and we're forced to run XP, which has horrible caching settings), it's loud when used hard, gets hot, and I have to kensington-lock it to the table. A proper silent tower and a set of screens is something that I return home to, full of anticipation.
So, don't get a laptop, because you think it's what's best. For the same money, you can get so much more usability out of a desktop, it's insane. And the screens, for gods sake, the screens.
Taft12 - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Someone needs to show you and your luddite buddy Chinoman the VGA port on you laptop that lets you use the big display that stays parked in your room (a USB port for the full-sized keyboard and mouse too!)AssBall - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
That's funny, I remember having 2 CRTs, 2 full and one micro atx cases, and a 32 inch CRT TV with a stereo, playstation, n64 hooked up to it all fit fine in our 8x12 room (no we didn't throw out the beds lol).kepler - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Get a Windows laptop, half the price and it will work with anything you need it. 80% of Mac users end up having to install Windows to use SAS and other software anyway, let alone gaming consoles.Lots of Universities have 802.1x and have port security enabled for ethernet, which Apple doesn't allow connection sharing with, and consoles (which are undeniably popular) don't support.
Not to mention Apple has crap 802.1x profile managment in 10.6, and actually made it worse in 10.7.
Don't get things based on what you think other students will have, that is the absolutely retarded idea.
Just for some insight:
http://woody.typepad.com/files/windows_pc_vs_apple...
prdola0 - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
It's obviously an Apple troll or a paid PR person. I live in Europe and have recently finished Bsc. and desktops are quite common. Also, I don't recall ever seeing a Mac of any kind - at least not where I lived (there were mostly electronics and computer sciences people).Zoomer - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Macs are rather popular in the computer science dept, but in engineering not so much. Many engineering apps don't run well on macs, and virtual machines may not work either as hardware interfacing is sometimes required.I had a friend go thinkpad + linux after his macbook pro's battery failed the second time.
steven75 - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Funny that you submit a troll picture as "insight."Ratman6161 - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Points:1. If your usage is primarily web based research, email, and typing term papers, the entire Mac Vs. PC Vs Linux flame ware is completely irrelevant. It does not matter what computer you buy, they will all do those tasks just fine.
2. It is about finding something that fits your needs and not what "75% of your classmates are using" The majority of your classmates will fit into point #1. But if you are an engineering or science type that needs to do modeling and simulation, mathematical analysis, etc you are going to want to find out what software your professors expect you to be using for those tasks and get a computer that will run that software. Likewise for any other more specialized area. What 75% of your classmates are using makes no difference if you are not performing the same work they do.
3. 75% of your classmates talked their parents into buying whatever tech they have. If you have to get a job and buy it yourself, the cost will suddenly become a much more important factor for you.
4. The people spending mom and dad's money rather than their own general got what they got because it was cool and the cost/benefit relationship was irrelevant to them.
SoCalBoomer - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I agree with you, techhhhhy, however I would not recommend anything less than 14 or 15" - just because working on a long paper on a tiny screen is maddening.Portability is good, but usability is still more important and a good size keyboard and monitor are extremely important since a student's life will be spent writing on this thing.
I also don't necessarily recommend a Macbook. If you're a Mac person, then definitely; but if you're a Windows person, then get a Windows machine. If you're on a budget, then think twice about a Macbook - not saying DON'T, just saying think twice. If you're going into certain fields, think about what you should get: some mandatory programs do not work on Macs (and yes, you can run Windows on Macs, but again, for MOST users I don't recommend it and it is more expensive than "just" a Windows laptop).
Again, I'm not recommending against a Mac. I'm recommending against the blanket recommendation FOR a Mac - I'm saying. . . "THINK" :D
I don't GO to college, but I run the student support arm of IT at a top ten liberal arts college so I do know something. . . well, maybe! LOL
Uritziel - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Anandtech needs an Amazon-like comment system, such that worthless posts like yours can be 'minus-ed' until they just show a subject line plus a "most people don't find this post contributes helpful information" -esque line.