On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable with
some USB stuff


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a few
times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely a back up
should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.
This `new` one either goes to the skip or I try and use it as a back-up
for the back-up. If I cant get it going then I can do without as most
stuff is duplicated on the current external.
I lost a lot of stuff a few years back when my PC failed, prevention
better than a cure as they say.