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Originally Posted by
c.wakeman
I have another question, that's really more of an option, but I'm interested in your opinion.
One of the reasons I am doing (as you suggested) a bare-metal backup is that, in the event the server hard drive fails, I can crack the hard drive open and replace it.
Exactly. Even if it ended up being the wrong kind of drive, you could get a more appropriate drive and copy the bare-metal backup onto it.
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If that is the case and I need to purchase something different anyway, would it be a good option to get an appropriate internal hard drive, with an enclosure that supports USB? Since it will only be used as a bare-metal backup to do at most weekly updates, is this acceptable?
That should work quite fine.
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From what I understand, the external hard drives provide portability and cooling fans to help with prolonged and constant use. However, if I don't really need either of those and full replacement functionality is desired, is that a better option or am I simply making things more difficult for myself?
You can get USB SATA cradles which you pop SATA drives into like bread into a toaster(hence the name "hard drive toaster"), but if you're just going to have the same drive sitting in it all the time, a case would make more sense and look better(no exposed electronics when working, no carrying drives around in static baggies).
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I realize that most of the larger external enclosures include fans anyway so that really isn't a differentiating factor. I understand buying a prepackaged external HD is easier; I just worry that, in the event of failure, it will be difficult to extract the HD and/or the HD won't be compatible with the system. (I've never cracked open a prepackaged external HD before.)
You can't be 100% certain without opening your server's case, but given the size and age of the disk I think it's probably SATA. It's getting harder and harder to find old-fashioned wide cable ATA drives these days.
Look for a USB enclosure with a removable plate in the front for accommodating a CDROM drive, those are intended to be opened and will definitely have a standard disk in it. Little handheld USB hard drives will only have laptop-sized drives in them at best -- sometimes you get a weird disk that's not even laptop form-factor.
Don't get a drive that's only big "enough", get a drive that's plainly bigger than what the server has. You don't want to take a chance on an "identical" drive actually being smaller because of the different ways of measuring capacity(mebibytes vs megabytes).