Purchasing and using portable hard disks


Portable hard disks function as USB/Flash/Thumb drives with much higher capacities. They come in two configurations. Most commonly they contain a 3.5" hard drive. These come in all capacities and can have very high capacities (currently up to around 500GB). The less common portable disks contain 2.5" laptop hard drives. These come in capacities from 20GB up to around 120GB. The advantage with the larger drives is their possibility of high capacity, the main disadvantage to the larger drives is that they typically require you to carry around a dedicated AC adapter in order for them to turn on. The advantages to the smaller drives are that they are physically small and typically do not require you to carry an AC adapter as they can usually run off of USB power, the main disadvantages are that they max out at around 120GB and they are slighly slower than the larger drives. A must have feature for any portable hard disk is USB 2.0 capability. Search the web for more information about portable hard disks.


To backup data to a portable hard disk:


BEFORE BACKING UP GIS PROJECTS AND DATA, BE SURE THAT YOU HAVE SET YOUR MAP DOCUMENT TO STORE RELATIVE PATHS SO IT WILL OPEN CORRECTLY ON ANOTHER GIS WORKSTATION.


  1. If your drive requires it, locate a plug under the desk to plug your AC adapter into.


  2. Lift up the gray door on the front of the workstation, or go to the back of the workstation and plug in your portable hard disk with the USB cable.


  3. If you use the front of the workstation, you may get a message like this one:


    error


    You may ignore this error, or plug the drive into the back of the machine to realize the full speed capacity of USB 2.0.


  4. The system will recognize the new device, create a new drive and assign it the next available drive letter in Windows Explorer. In Windows Explorer it will be called "Removable Disk."

  5. Check the size of your project folder before starting to copy it to your disk. Right clicking the folder then choosing properties will give you the size.

  6. Simply copy your project folder to the Removable Disk.

  7. When it is finished copying, locate the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the system tray:


    safely remove


  8. Click it once, then click "Safely remove USB mass storage device - Drive(X)":


    safely remove


  9. After you see the message saying it is safe to remove the drive, pull the cable from the workstation and unplug the power if necessary:


    safely remove