Which Backup System should I use?

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Gawd
Joined
Nov 14, 2003
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At the moment I have 70 gigs of pictures and videos. I had them backed up on 3 separate hard drives, but I just passed the limit on the third drive. Now they are only backed up on 2 hard drives, this makes me nervous. A few years ago I would burn a copy on dvds, then hide it at my parents house, but 70 gigs is a lot to burn on dvds. Our Pictures/Videos are currently growing at about 25gigs a year, so I need more options...

1) Buy an external Hard drive, make a yearly backup hide it at my parents house.
Pros: At parents house, information will be safe from natural disasters.
Cons: It will only be backed up every 6 months to a year. I could potentially lose a year of Pictures

2) Buy another internal drive, put it in my computer
Pros: Backed up weekly via Microsoft SyncToy, cheaper
Cons: Not protected from natural disaster

3) Setup a raid 1 system
Pros: Data backed up on the fly
Cons: Not protected from natural disaster, More expensive, I have little experience with raid

With Raid 1 , if the Raid controller dies, can you take the HD hook it up to another computer and still have the data, or is it locked to that specific controller?
With Software raid 1, if the computer dies and you reload the os, is your data gone? Or can you just put a single drive in another computer and get to your data?

What would you do?
 
Why not buy two external hard drives? One at your parents house which will be backed up once every 6 months and the other at your place where you can back it up whenever you want?

I don't know how good another internal HD or RAID setup would be. If you're PSU fails or get a power surge, both HDs could be dead and you'd be left without any back ups. With external drives, you can back stuff up and then unplug it. That way you can at least protect yourself against power surges and PSU failures.

There are also internet back up services (for a yearly/monthly fee). Of course, personally, I wouldn't trust having my personal stuff on some company's server.
 
I currently am using a RAID-1 setup in my desktop and an external HD I backup to about once a week. My most important pix are also on my dad's desktop (2k miles away) and on my laptop. I would be a fan of web backup, but haven't found anything with enough space that's affordable.
 
2 external backup drives in different locations... Haven't thought of that, but I like it...
Web backup service is not an option, my uploads are 128kb.
 
External hard drive and store it at a safety deposit box at your local bank? :D Or get yourself a fireproof, waterproof safe to have in the house that you can put another external drive in every night, or week, or however often you want to back it all up-
 
Right now I'm leaning twords external. I never thought of a lightning strike frying everything. I Could have 2. One at my parents house backed up every year, and one at my house backed up every month.

I think raid would just be to complicated and expensive to get into right now.
 
Any Raid is NEVER a good replacement for a real backup plan. Any data that is currently hooked up and online is subject to power surges, virus infection, or even accidental deletion.

I use 2 external backup drives for my pictures, movies, and music. I currently keep my data on a NAS box that has 2 500 gig drives in RAID1. I am in the process of moving my data over to a Thecus N5200 with 3 1TB drives in RAID 5. I am running in RAID mode simply to make it more likely that the data will stay online while I am not home. Not in place of a backup.

Don
 
DonDon said:
Any Raid is NEVER a good replacement for a real backup plan. Any data that is currently hooked up and online is subject to power surges, virus infection, or even accidental deletion.

I use 2 external backup drives for my pictures, movies, and music. I currently keep my data on a NAS box that has 2 500 gig drives in RAID1. I am in the process of moving my data over to a Thecus N5200 with 3 1TB drives in RAID 5. I am running in RAID mode simply to make it more likely that the data will stay online while I am not home. Not in place of a backup.

Don
Click to expand...

Speaking of data that is currently hooked up. Is there any way to tell if data has been corrupted before you back it up.

For instance: If I backup all my photos to an external drive, then a year from now write over those files and add new ones. How do I know that all my current pictures are not corrupt without looking at every single one of them?
 
in reality. 70gb? is not a lot...

buy two extrnal 100tb drives. and backup by date

meaning. backup to a new folder each month

Pics+ vids march 2009
pics+vids april 2009

etc create new folder on the drive. untill you are in need of more room then delete the oldest.

I have 80gb of files. and I have a dreamhost account. everything is uploaded via ftp.

it took a LONG time at first. but once it was there daily uploads only take a bit of time to match the drives :) and then i have it here, on an external and where ever dreamhosts servers are.

if u wanna be anal. get a server elsewhere and fxp another online backup :)
 
My Upload speed is around 30KB If I were to upload it all it would take 27 days :eek: . When my upload speed is maxed out it completely cripples everything else. I can't even browse the web. My internet sucks, and there is only one provider here.
 
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