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Well I can't afford an external drive to put my stuff in. And I would really like to start fresh and format my Windows 7 laptop.

I was thinking of storing everything in a torrent and upload it somewhere, but how efficient would that be?

I have almost 20 GB in files I need transfered. I really don't know a way where I can back everything up :/

I can't afford a $60+ USB Drive to put my stuff in, I wonder if theres anything cheaper?

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A torrent? Seriously? – paradroid Dec 7 '10 at 15:08
I don't know.... – Omnix Dec 7 '10 at 15:09
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A torrent? What that effectively means is you're giving parts of your data to the random people all over the internet, and then when you're done installing your OS, you're gonna go around saying 'Hey there, can i have my data back. Thank you very much.' – xbonez Dec 7 '10 at 19:17
Don't be so harsh -- regular users don't really know or care how torrents work. They just know that it's a very efficient way to download several-gigabyte files, which is true and I don't blame the mistake. – Corey Dec 12 '10 at 22:46
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8 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

Don't underestimate the worth of an external drive. Having it for occasions like this, and for general purpose backups can save you MUCH valuable time, money, and effort.

here's a 250gb external drive for $39: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=18657&CatId=136

Alternatively, if you have an old internal drive, as you mentioned, just get an external enclosure for it, for < $20. Here's one for $10: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1086960&CatId=2782

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up vote 3 down vote

20GB? Just buy a couple of small USB thumb drives. You can get 16GB drives for US$20-30.

Alternatively, you might consider buying another INTERNAL drive if you have connections free in the case for it. You can get a 320GB SATAII internal hard drive for around US$40-50 or maybe even less if you shop around.

(As far as a torrent goes...who do you know that you're comfortable giving all your data to? And you're going to run your own tracker?!)

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Wait! I do have a INTERNAL Drive from my old compaq laptop. What can I do with that? – Omnix Dec 7 '10 at 15:26
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Get an IDE or SATA cable, whichever your drive requires, and connect it to your hard disk and Motherboard. Connect the power cable for the hard disk. Boot up. Use disk management in windows to format the drive and create partition(s). Copy files to the new partition(s) – user57813 Dec 7 '10 at 15:28
How would I know which kind of cable I need?And what do you think is the best place to get one? – Omnix Dec 7 '10 at 15:31
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This drive comes from a laptop, so if it is an IDE drive, the connector includes both power and signal, and it completely different from a desktop IDE cable and molex power connector (they are the same with SATA). You will need to get a special 2.5" drive enclosure in this case, but these are very cheap on eBay. – paradroid Dec 7 '10 at 15:54
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You should think of getting a USB enclosure instead, as you will not be using this temporarily. Remember to get the right type - 2.5" IDE(PATA) or SATA. – paradroid Dec 7 '10 at 16:23
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up vote 3 down vote

You can back files up on SkyDrive quite easily using SDExplorer. You get 25GB of filespace from Microsoft for free, but t is not really suitable for large amounts of files. SDExplorer can break large files into chunks, to get around the 50MB maximum file size.

There is also the related Windows Live Mesh, which is very good, but the file space is limited to 5GB.

If you do not mind paying a bit for storage, JungleDisk is a better option, where you can easily have everything backed up on Amazon S3 or Rackspace cloud storage.

And then, there is Dropbox as well, which you may consider paying for, to get extra storage space.

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jungledisk.com is awesome. Have been using it for about 4 years, and back up 25GB of photo's. I pay a few bucks a month. And the tool just runs the backup job at the scheduled time, and is done very quickly. – Brian Dec 7 '10 at 20:03
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up vote 3 down vote

5 DVD-5s would cover 20 GB. if you have a burner go pick up a small pack of DVDs (or a large pack for future use).

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up vote 1 down vote

You can use an online storage service. SkyDrive seems appropriate in your case. It has a storage limit of 25GB and a file size limit of 50MB. You can split your files that are larger than 50MB into 50MB parts (e.g. using 7-Zip or WinRAR) and upload your files. It's free.

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I would but I have videos that I think is over 50MB – Omnix Dec 7 '10 at 15:28
@Omnix - both 7zip and winrar can split a larger file into 5MB chunks – Nifle Dec 7 '10 at 16:25
As I stated in my answer, you can easily split your files into 50MB chunks to bypass this limitation. You can use 7-Zip or WinRAR for this purpose. – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Dec 7 '10 at 17:00
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up vote 1 down vote

You can use online backup services if you don't have an external hard drive.This is time saving and saves money as well.There are very many online backup solutions that are available to day and they all offer almost the same services but it is up to you to see which one works better for you.And you choice the best online backups basing on certain features like prices,reliablity,trial versions and very many more.There is an online backup service called www.safecopybackup.com which offers a free unlimited 3GB trial version and the cost is so effecitive.Safecopy backup is so reliable and if one deletes his or her files by mistake,the recovery process is just by a few clicks because they keep deleted files forever.

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up vote 1 down vote

I would use online storage like Adrive (free, 50GB)

jw

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up vote -3 down vote
  1. Buy a couple of pen drives, and after you're done sell them on ebay.
  2. Buy an external HDD from Amazon, and after you're done return it. You get back all your money minus return shipping.
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