A small project I need help with.

[Smith]

I have this old P2 233 sitting around..with a perfectly fine 40GB HD in it. Its not doing anything but taking up room. What I want to do is use it as a backup computer. Something I can put my music/apps on so if something does happen to my current computer I wont have to redownload everything.

I wont be backing up EVERYTHIN, just stuff I need and that I dont want to spend days downloading again. Stuff thats like under 50mb that I dont want to waste a CD on.

Ive heard Linux is good for this. Ive never used linux before. Can someone give me some feedback on this idea?

[Virtualbody1234]

You could remove the drive and connect it to your current computer as a SLAVE drive and copy whatever you want as a backup. You could then remove the drive and store it on a shelf.

[clocker]

You could remove the drive and connect it to your current computer as a SLAVE drive and copy whatever you want as a backup. You could then remove the drive and store it on a shelf.

Which would be loads easier than trying to master linux.

[Smith]

Wouldnt it be easier to just network the computers, instead of plugging it in everytime I want to put something new in it.

/E

What if I just kept windows on it.

[clocker]

IMO, the easiest option would be one of these.
I just picked on up for a spare 120GB drive I had laying around and it's totally sweet.
Using the eSATA connection, file transfer is very fast and she looks nice as well.
The part about the aluminum housing keeping the drive cool is pure BS but it runs cool enough not to worry about.

[Virtualbody1234]

I was going to suggest the external enclosure next but clocker beat me to it.

In fact I just did something similar except I got a more compact version: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817145124

I had a spare laptop HDD laying around.

Totally portable!

[Smith]

I might have to look into that. Its an older HD though..not sure what type it is.

[Virtualbody1234]

I might have to look into that. Its an older HD though..not sure what type it is.

I would suspect IDE.

[spirex]

Linux would be the perfered network solution but Windows with ftp software will work just as well.

Do you already have a home network, if not the easiest option would be transferring the harddrive an external enclosure as mentioned before.

By perfectly fine, do you mean that the drive is a couple years old but still works or that is fairly new? Eventually the harddrive will die and you dont want to know about it when you go to retrive data off of it.

[ooo]

play around w/ linux =] get ubuntu =] I'm using vmware to virtual ubuntu on my notebook, however I don't even use linux much.