External HardDrive Question

[User22]

Okay so I am new to HDDs and so I am a bit hesitant with this. I got an external hard drive for christmas.

So I have backed up my Alizee folder onto my external harddrive. I found it on my harddrive and it has everything in it and looks fine.

But now, in order to make my computer faster I want to delete the original Alizee folder on my internal harddrive...so can I just simply delete it since it is now on my external harddrive?

Thanks!

[AceTone]

What you did was copy the files from your internal to your external. Deleting "Alizée folder" from the internal will not cause deletion in the external. So yes, yes you can delete. But please, check to make sure you got everything on the external. And before you delete, you could maybe unplug the external just to make sure you don't accidentally delete from there.

Something to consider: once you delete the original files from the internal, you lose their creation date. The copied files in your external do not retain the creation date of the originals. I don't know if that's a big deal to you, but it is something that I consider before deleting an original file that I have a copy of somewhere. I usually like to know when a file was created.


*AceTone is not responsible for any loss of material resulting from the use of this comment.

[User22]

Originally Posted by AceTone

What you did was copy the files from your internal to your external. Deleting "Alizée folder" from the internal will not cause deletion in the external. So yes, yes you can delete. But please, check to make sure you got everything on the external. And before you delete, you could maybe unplug the external just to make sure you don't accidentally delete from there.

Something to consider: once you delete the original files from the internal, you lose their creation date. The copied files in your external do not retain the creation date of the originals. I don't know if that's a big deal to you, but it is something that I consider before deleting an original file that I have a copy of somewhere. I usually like to know when a file was created.


*AceTone is not responsible for any loss of material resulting from the use of this comment.

Ahhh, I feel much better now Thanks for explaining to me everything I need to know. Greatly appreciated!

[Rev]

One more thought. HHD's are NOT 100% reliable. Over time they will often fail. A backup is usually a good idea.

[user472884]

If I had more money than faith, I'd have like 12 external hard drives, cd's, and microfilm in a safe deposit box in Geneva.

[Scruffydog777]

Probably the easiest way to tell if they copied okay is if you copied a folder lets say titled Alizee onto your HDD, you should be able to right click on the Alizee folder on your desktop,then click on properties. It should show you how many files were in that folder and the total size of the files in that folder. Then you do the same thing with the Alizee folder on your HDD and the two should match. Then I would just check a couple of random files on the HDD to make sure they play okay.

Before you reinstall any Alizee files back on to your desk top, you probably should run disk clean up and disk defragmenter before hand.

[lefty12357]

As Rev said, HDDs are not 100% reliable. If the data is important to you, I would suggest maintaining 2 copies of it. I have an external hard drive and I have a complete backup of my computer on it. I also have it scheduled to automatically backup all changed files on a regular basis.

[User22]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

Probably the easiest way to tell if they copied okay is if you copied a folder lets say titled Alizee onto your HDD, you should be able to right click on the Alizee folder on your desktop,then click on properties. It should show you how many files were in that folder and the total size of the files in that folder. Then you do the same thing with the Alizee folder on your HDD and the two should match. Then I would just check a couple of random files on the HDD to make sure they play okay.

Before you reinstall any Alizee files back on to your desk top, you probably should run disk clean up and disk defragmenter before hand.

Okay I'll definitely do this, because yeah I want to make sure they are the exact same and that all my Alizee Videos play. And also, should I defragment and disk clean up my internal or external? I don't even think I can do it on an external haha.

Originally Posted by lefty12357

As Rev said, HDDs are not 100% reliable. If the data is important to you, I would suggest maintaining 2 copies of it. I have an external hard drive and I have a complete backup of my computer on it. I also have it scheduled to automatically backup all changed files on a regular basis.

Yeah mine does automatic backup too. But here's the thing:

(Background info: I have a C drive and a D drive. My system runs on the C drive and I backed it up and don't need to worry about it in the question following below. My D drive contains only one thing, my Alizee folder. Currently I the Alizee folder on my D and F(my external).)

So if I put something on my D drive, will it automatically backup to my F(my external)? Because I already told my F to backup my C and D, so I don't know if it will copy files put onto my C and D...

Thanks everyone for the help! It's greatly appreciated!!!

[user472884]

Can anybody recommend a reliable external hard drive? Apple says I have to back up my entire computer before I send it in for repairs because there's a good chance they'll be retarded and wipe out the computer?

[DrSmith]

Western Digital - My Passport seems to be quite popular.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136751