Today I bought a USB external hard drive. I wanted a backup device and this seemed like the fastest and simplest way to do it.

SimpleTech SimpleDrive External Hard Drive 140GB
$99.95 AT Sam’s Club

I hooked it up to my laptop for a test. The drive showed up right away and was already formatted. Since my laptop sucks rocks, I don’t have a USB 2.0 port. I had to use it in “compatible mode”, also known as “slow mode”. While it was super easy to set up and start using, the speed makes it unusable as anything but a backup device. I will hook it up to my desktop and see if it can be used as network storage as soon as it finishes with my laptop backup.

Even if it is nothing more than a fancy backup system, it will be well worth the $100 because if the ease of use. I plan to hook it up to the server and share it for backup storage.