Personal file backup can be a pain – so much so that some people can’t be bothered - “It’ll be alright – that disk is brand spanking new,” is an oft heard phrase. It’s precisely in these situations that the disk somehow 'knows' that it’s the only storage that lays between you and a big argument with the rest of the family.

Having bought a ‘Western Digital (WD) Anywhere Access’ hard disk with the proceeds of a pub quiz win, I set it up attached to a switch next to my works PC. The Anywhere Access disk allows users to access the disk remotely as if it were a local device using a remote access package from Mionet, who WD has partnered with. I backed up a fair amount of important work data, but then decided that it would be better attached to my home PC. After many attempts to do this – and failing – I decided to attach it to the Labs network. At this point, the network interface card (NIC) failed.

What to do – take it back? It did have a lot of important data on it - so - better to try and recycle the disk inside - a Western Digital Caviar 500GB model. Eventually I decided to mount it in one of Netgear’s Storage Central Devices. It was easy to slot in - fire up the Netgear software, carve the disk up into chunks and then start backing up all those important work and personal files.

It was easy to mirror data to the device, and then password-protect it the whole shebang. Transferring files to it, using either LogMeIn Pro or RealVNC’s remote access software was also easy.