trading out external hdd's

[deadone]

a friend of mine suggested to me to trade out my external hdd with shows already on it.
has any1 done this before and is it worth all the hassles with posting etc.
i thought the idea was pretty good as i like to keep certain shows on my externals for my watching pleasure anyway.

i have 2 1tb drives and 1-500gig and was suggested at trading out the 500gig drive.

any ideas or comments

Mick

[norbinho]

i have done that a few times with my buddy jörg and within austria it has worked great...but i think i wouldn't do it with a foreign country...don't want to see my external hd get lost in the mail.

[no leaf clover]

I would have the same worries as Bernd.

The idea sounds cool, but getting a hdd lost in the mail with shows on it would be terrible in my opinion.

It's better to loose a package with a couple of discs that can be reburned than a hdd with shows.

[Pete-Rock]

In my opinion the only way to do this is by NOT using your own and original HDDs, but to buy one cheap and copy all shows to it. Should not be much more expensive than other big trades. For example I traded 20 shows on like 40 DVD-Rs to the US once (I live in Germany) and with the costs for blanks & postage this was about 40 or 50 Euros easily. And for this money you can get a decent HDD to copy your shows to.

For example:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buffalo-Juststo ... omputers_1

This one has 500GB which is as much as 110 DVD-Rs. And much less work.

[aeiseleusa]

I agree !! You can get HD so cheap these days. What is the diffrence to loose a package that you spent hours and hours to burn DVD's, or if a hd gets lost ? Soon this will probably be the way to do larger trades.

[no leaf clover]

The very important difference is that I have never send a package of 110 DVD-R's.

It's all about spreading the risk. Never send a large amount of discs all at once.

My postal costs are always only a couple of euros. Because I always do small trades. That's a much smaller loss than loosing a HDD of 52 euros.

52 euro is very cheap for an external hdd but I don't like the knowledge that a package of 52 euros can be lost at once in the postal system.

[cotis]

My worries is that it would get banged around and not work when it arrives...

[FotherMucker99]

just make sure you encrypt all the data and you're ready to go. hdds don't cost shit anymore anyway...

of course I'd look into some kind of insured service that would cover the cost of the hdd in case something happens...

[sjmike]

I've sent hard drives (internal hard drives) with a USB Enclosure to friend's both out of state and to Canada before on more than one occasion. Never had a problem.

Like others have said, portable USB drives are dirt cheap nowadays. Great option to use and its nice and compact.

[MasterSandman II]

That's a great idea for trades with lots of data!