Ask Our Experts, Tech Trend, Gotcha

Advice on drive backups; mix and match your graphics; the trouble with Microsoft's PlaysForSure software.

Ask Our Experts: Are Drive Backups Safe?

If I'm worried about my PC's hard drive crashing, why would I want to buy an external hard drive to back it up?

Brian Zadikow, Astoria, New York

Senior Writer Alan Stafford responds: An external backup hard drive is at least as susceptible as an internal drive to failure, but the two drives are unlikely to fail at the same time. If you use the external device solely as a backup drive, you won't stress it nearly as often as you will the drive that your system constantly accesses. Therefore, it shouldn't fail as quickly. But to protect your PC against a non-computer-related catastrophe--such as fire or theft--you should supplement the drive with some other form of backup media that can be stored off-site, such as rewritable DVD or an online backup service.

Need information or advice about a buying decision? Drop us a line at askourexperts@pcworld.com.

Tech Trend: Mix and Match Graphics

When you put together a PC that uses two graphics boards in tandem, your first buying decision involves choosing between ATI's CrossFire and nVidia's SLI, since existing motherboards don't support both technologies. Intel is about to change all that.

Intel's as-yet-unannounced 975X chip set (expected in early 2006) reportedly will be the first to support both CrossFire and SLI, so you won't have to use one brand of graphics for the life of your PC. Both ATI and nVidia should benefit, but the less-established CrossFire has more to gain, says Jim McGregor, editor of Microprocessor Report.

"Intel is the largest chip set vendor out there, and they can really level the playing field," says McGregor. Still, he expects dual graphics to remain largely an enthusiast-level feature. "I really don't see it coming down into the mainstream."

Tom Mainelli

Gotcha: Music That Plays for Sure, Mostly

Your portable music player may bear Microsoft's PlaysForSure Audio logo, but don't assume that it will always work with each and every Windows-compatible music service.

Microsoft's PlaysForSure is designed to ensure compatibility between products and services that support not only Windows Media digital rights management but also Windows Media Player 10. Right now some services (such as Rhapsody To Go) support Windows Media DRM, but not the player. If you pay for any subscription service, make sure that the Download and Subscription portions of your portable player's PlaysForSure logo are checked. Finally, note that some products, such as Dell's DJ 20, aren't PlaysForSure-compatible without a firmware upgrade.

Consult individual vendors' Web sites to confirm that their products work together.

Danny Allen