How do you backup? (formerly 'Who here backs things up')

How do you backup?

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NulloModo

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 16, 2002
Messages
4,602
Hey,

I was just curious, who here makes regular backups of their system? I've honestly, never, ever done it. Part of me sort of worries about what would happen if I lost all of my data though, since I have spent many years acquiring everything on there (heh, I am a digital packrat, I never delete any random cool little thing I find, and every time I get a new system, I just drag and drop the contents of the old hard drives from that system into a folder in the new one, thus I think I have three layers worth of windows installs on my current computer).

But, now, I am up to 350 gigs worth of space, and I think I want to add about 600 more before the end of the year. How does somebody back that up? I mean, on CDs it would take like, 1200 CDs. Even with DVDs thats over 200 per backup once all that space is filled.

So what do you all do? Are there other solutions? Cheap tape drives? RAID 1 arrays? (eh, don't know if I could do that last one, just knowing all that space was around just duplicating old stuff would drive me nuts, I'd want to fill it with new stuff).
 
DVDs for really important stuff (financial records, etc) Such truly important stuff typically isn't very big, and you should only need one DVD with multiple copies in multiple locations.

For larger storage, an external hard drive is a popular choice. A 400GB Barracuda in a USB/FireWire enclosure gives you quite a bit of portable storage. Not a long term solution like tape or DVD, but it takes up less space than 100 DVDs, copies to/from faster, and is easier to keep track of/orgnaize than 100 DVDs.

If you are really serious, tape is the only practical way to backup 100s of gigs, until one of the big DVD formats (Blu-Ray or HD DVD) become cost effective. RAID can protect uptime, but it doesn't actually protect the data on the array. Backups are cheap compared to $1000+ Pro data recovery in a clean room, as Peublo knows :(
 
I backup to the point of overkill at work. But at home, all I would lose that I care about is my save games.. I don't have anything all that critical on my home PC. All my banking etc. is online on the bank's responsibility, I don't keep stuff like that on my PC.

==>Lazn
 
I have windows xp pro set to do a backup of my machine (important stuff anyway) whenever the machine has been idle for more than 10 minutes, and it's set to save on a local NAS with RAID 5.

So yes, I backup. Quite often.
 
i just have my music folder backed up to a portable hard drive. nothing really critical on my system.
 
i have all my multimedia files (music, video and junk) backed up to an external HD...

but as i attain more files i start to ponder about a more permannet solutions (an external HD is still a harddrive, its prone to fail). maybe ill go to some tape drive later in the days
 
I back up everything I don't want to lose, period. I used to not give a crap, but I had an HD head crash once, lost all my family photos, all my MP3's, everything, I can't have that happen again.
 
So the general consensus is, videos, pictures, music, etc. should go on a separate hard drive, while very sensitive information should go on separate disks in separate locations (or maybe an online storage location).

I need to figure out what I'm going to do with ~100GB (and growing) of home videos, music, pictures stored on a 300B barracuda in my HTPC. I'm thinking the best option is another big drive in my file server, but what software should I use to send the *new* information to the server?
 
FlatLine84 said:
I would just go RAID-1 and not worry about it.
Click to expand...
I see. If your suggestion is in response to my question, my HTPC is a SFF, and another hard drive isn't an option without significant modding, which I don't want to do.

What is some good backup software that will do nightly backups over the network?
 
Have you explored the backup utility built into Windows and a mapped netowrk drive?
 
FlatLine84 said:
I would just go RAID-1 and not worry about it.
Click to expand...
RAID is not Backup. A virus or power surge will still kill your data.

RAID is for uptime, Backup is for data integrety/retention, two totally different things. (RAID-0 is not RAID, it is AID)

==>Lazn
 
Lazn_Work said:
RAID is not Backup. A virus or power surge will still kill your data.

RAID is for uptime, Backup is for data integrety/retention, two totally different things. (RAID-0 is not RAID, it is AID)

==>Lazn
Click to expand...

Really? Wow I didn't know that......
 
Lazn_Work said:
RAID is not Backup. A virus or power surge will still kill your data.

RAID is for uptime, Backup is for data integrety/retention, two totally different things. (RAID-0 is not RAID, it is AID)

==>Lazn
Click to expand...


I have to agree that having a RAID array is not sufficient for backup purposes. One power supply failure later and all 6 of my drives in my RAID 5 array would be gone.

Having the data in as many locations as possible is the best way to ensure that you don't lose any data.

I second one of the earlier posts about using windows integrated backup feature and backing up over the network.
 
If you get a RAID for security, you should try to get hard disks from different batches. I've had 2 exact same drives purchased at the same time fail within small windows of time.
 
thevelourfog said:
If you get a RAID for security, you should try to get hard disks from different batches. I've had 2 exact same drives purchased at the same time fail within small windows of time.
Click to expand...

Not really a good idea, I have seen RAID array break synch because of differing firmwares on SCSI drives.. (on a Mylex DAC960) Not common, but it happens.

==>Lazn
 
A RAID 1 or 5 is still better than a single drive for fault tolerance and redundancy. If you're not running a quality supressor you should be. That along with an offsite backup (or however many youre comfortable with) is the best.

As far as backups cdr/dvd for smaller backups then something like the Iomega REV drive for 35-90gb per cartrige or a tape solution.

Although I think an offsite HD would be fine, anything can still happen to tapes, cdrs, hds used as backup the goal is to have as many copies in seperate locations as feasible and within limits of sanity.
 
For backups, nothing I've seen beats an external HDD which is unplugged and stored in a closet :)
 
TeeJayHoward said:
For backups, nothing I've seen beats an external HDD which is unplugged and stored in a closet :)
Click to expand...

Ooh, nice twist on the: "For bandwidth nothing beats a Station Wagon full of backup tapes going 75mph."

==>Lazn
 
I think I would be comfortable with a Raid1 array as a 'backup' solution. The only thing I am really worried about is an HD dying. I've never gotten a virus on my system, and I haven't even been running Virus protection for several years (I am very careful with what I DL and execute).
 
I don't back up anything. I have all my CDs and my Games on disc and steam has the list of games i have access to. I have no important files to back up.
 
I back my stuff up. I wouldn't say on a regular basis...

Been meaning to set up a task on one of my computers that will grab data from this computer and back it up every sunday morning or something. Someday... when I have more time than I do now. :eek:
 
NulloModo said:
I think I would be comfortable with a Raid1 array as a 'backup' solution. The only thing I am really worried about is an HD dying. I've never gotten a virus on my system, and I haven't even been running Virus protection for several years (I am very careful with what I DL and execute).
Click to expand...

You can get a virus from a .jpg on a website now... AVG is free, and good too, so I don't know why anyone would not have some kind of antivirus

==>Lazn
 
I back up three different ways...to DVD, to my 1GB Flash Drive, and to my ftp server.

Lyquist
 
I backup my documents only: It's copied to two other internal hard drives every day automatically, and I also keep it manually synchronized via linux "rsync" with my account at school (which is itself backed up every day, plus it runs on a RAID configuration of some kind).

I also backup to DVD every 6 months or so, and whenever my computer is at my parents' I copy it all over to their computer. All told, I have about 5 current copies of my documents (3 of my disks, plus 2 at school), and 3 more ~2 month old copies archived safely 2000 miles away :)
 
I run a RAID 0 for my system drive, so I use Ghost to do one full backup every Sunday, and incrementals daily.
 
Well, what do you do? Perhaps you might learn from the backup methods of others. Maybe you have a solid backup strategy to share. Post how you keep your data safe from hard disk failure, total system disasters, viruses, your own errors, natural disaster, and the other causes of data loss out there. Pick what you do, and read what others do. Backups are important people - if you don't have them, it is just a matter of time before you experience data loss
 
Lazn_Work said:
You can get a virus from a .jpg on a website now... AVG is free, and good too, so I don't know why anyone would not have some kind of antivirus

==>Lazn
Click to expand...

Are you serious? A .jpg file? I guess I am in the dark ages... I thought the only files that were virus risks were .exe, .com, and .scr
 
I only really back up my personal files and other stuff that would be a bitch for me to find online again. (I wish I did that for some of the games that I had in the past....) I had them on a couple of CD-Rs, but I just recently burned them onto a DVD.

I just recently bought a copy of Norton Ghost, and I'm still playing with it. I was thinking about getting a larger HDD for my computer, so I'll probably back everything up onto my external drive when the time comes.
 
NulloModo said:
Are you serious? A .jpg file? I guess I am in the dark ages... I thought the only files that were virus risks were .exe, .com, and .scr
Click to expand...

http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/articles/critical16sep04.html

You also forgot other common files that are infected: .bat, .pif, .zip, .arj anything that will launch a program on opening is a risk... so really anything is a risk, but not everything has been exploited yet.

==>Lazn
 
The main file server is RAID 1 & RAID 5.
It disk-to-disk's to another RAID array
That array writes to an external DLT autoloader every week.

The non-important stuff that i don't need online is burned to DVD's (tv shows, moveis, etc)

And occasionally i'll xcopy everything to an external HD.

So i've got most of the options down :)
 
Nullo, with only 350 gigs, just get a DL DVD burner and some disks. Disks have come down some, you can get 25 for around $40 now. Thats only 50 disks, time consuming yes, but it could be worse. The price is also right.

I am doing the back up planning myself. Though I wish I only had 350 GBs:). I have over a TB to backup.

For media I will use a combination of DVD and DVD-DL. For apps, I will use DVDs. For datafiles, I probably will do a HDD backup and a DVD-RW backup.

If you are really paranoid, you should store a copy of your backup at another location, just in case of fire/flood etc. Me I don't think I will worry THAT much.

NulloModo said:
Hey,
But, now, I am up to 350 gigs worth of space, and I think I want to add about 600 more before the end of the year. How does somebody back that up? I mean, on CDs it would take like, 1200 CDs. Even with DVDs thats over 200 per backup once all that space is filled.
Click to expand...
 
I just found a good deal on DVD+Rs from newegg, and am currently (as I write this even :) ) backing up about 320GB of data to them. It is a slow process, as I have to rar the files (to split large directories into 4.5GB chunks), create a checksum of those archives, burn them off, and verify the burn. But I am up to 21 discs right now, and I will be very happy once it is done.
 
All of my important files (original creations) are stored on a couple of colocated servers, one in vancouver and one in seattle. Otherwise, I don't have any. So I lose all my videos and mp3s? Oh well. I lose all my ISOs? Oh well
 
Stored on a 1.2TB RAID 5 array. Important stuff backed up nightly to a separate box.
 
no regular backups, on the rare occasion i DO backup, its to external drives such as my ipod...

i need to get a bigger drive for my computer. and use my current 200 gig in a NAS box or something....just so i can stick my MP3s and movies on it....

all the mp3s i care about are on my ipod though...so i probably wouldnt lose those, movies and ISOs however....
 
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