So i am trying to figure out what is the best solution fro a backup process for the average home users. I am not sure on this as i am used to enterprise solutions. Here is what i have been thinking about mostly. 1. Burn stuff to DVD and store in a safe. i have heard over time dvd discs can be come corrupted due to separation, etc. 2. burn stuff to blu-ray (any thing on the longevity of bd-r disks) 3. get an io safe solo and backup everything to that using acronis or paragon I already own the software and a blu-ray burner.
With the current prices of hard drives, I wouldn't bother with optical anymore. I would just get a hard drive (external or internal, doesn't really matter) and only connect it when needed. Personally I'm using a Western Digital My Book World Edition II 2 TB, which nicely solved the back up problems for now.
It all depends how paranoid you are, but the simplest, fastest, and easiest solution would be a big HDD in a eSATA equipped case, and a copy of Acronis set to do scheduled back ups. Does your motherboard have a eSATA socket? If so, use it. Back ups over USB sucks for speed. Also: Are you wanting to back up your boot drive so you can restore the entire system state, or just back up important files such as docs, music, vids etc? If the former.. you'll need Acronis, Norton Ghost etc. If the latter, then a sync program such as AllWay Sync will be all you need. Yes it does. You can hide a external drive somewhere, or disconnect it when you go out. If your house gets broken into and they take your rig, they will also take your back up if it's on an internal drive. Back ups aren't just to protect from data loss.
You cut the quote from a pretty weird spot.. "and only connect it when needed." I was also talking about the internal drives.
well i am pretty paranoid right now as i have lost a significant amount of data twice and i don't want it to happen again. The reason why i am leary about using a hard drive is that i don't have much faith in their reliability after say 5 years. I don't really need or care about backing up the whole drive and system state mostly my important files. (music, documents, home movies, pictures)
Guess that's the difference, I rely more on hard drives (that are rarely used) than self-burnt optical disks. Can't really prove either one to be safer than the one, but that's just my feelings on it.
Go with HD. I've had so many old DVD-Rs not read any more I've lost count. It's very unlikely that BOTH hard drives will fail... your external backup AND your internal. If you're paranoid.. get a NAS box and go RAID1.
With NAS-box you run the risk of the PSU blowing up But yeah it's so unlikely for both internal and external drives to fail at the same time that alone would be enough for me. I also take back ups of most important stuff to an external 2,5" e-sata drive just in case, so the files are on internal, external and RAID-NAS. ...Maybe I'm a bit paranoid after all.
Acronis onto a HDD is the obvious choice - perhaps two external HDDs or one external HDD and a NAS if you're paranoid. Opticals are a pain and do slowly degrade over time. ... but if this still doesn't float your boat, then you might need to try storing things in the cloud. If any of you listen to the PC perspective podcast, then you'll know of carbonite. It's a bit hard these days with the speed of DSL upload, but it IS unlimited and can just push the update delta i.e. new files and changes once you have the files across in the first instance. I think they said something about using 'PC' as a promo code to get a couple of months free?? I personally use an external HDD for backup of my data drive, but additionally put some very important files onto the 2GB free version of Dropbox.
Pah! You're not paranoid. I have my files mirrored to another internal drive, then that, and my system backed up to a raid5 server, and then that is mirrored to a RAID5 NAS, which is hard wired into the garage just in case the house burns down. THAT'S paranoid
How long do you want to store it for? If you want it stored for a long time, a good way is to do: Hard Drive Tape Backup DVDs (from different batches). Having said that, if you just want some storage that you don't want to go down the drain, think about uploading your stuff to Dropbox or a similar service. They keep everything backed up properly. The suggestions of others are great if you want to keep it in your own home. Remember that all storage mediums degrade over time and use.
lol Pookeyhead, nice. Anyway, in my opinion there are two things, well, at least for me, that dictate how I backup. 1) Catastrophic data loss caused by the house blowing up, burning down, being hit by an aeroplane, mini-nuke, etc, etc. 2) Some chav-tastic scrote breaking in and stealing all my shizzle. Best, cheapest way I've found to secure against both requires three hard drives, some cheap/free backup software, and a weekly bit of attention and effort. I store everything on my primary 1TB hard drive, documents, music, pictures, the lot; made secure by encrypting with Truecrypt whole disk encryption. This is backed up weekly to a second internal drive, again encrypted with Truecrypt. I currently use ViceVersa for backups, although I'm sure free apps like Allways Sync, Cobian or the like are pretty much the same. Perks: If the primary dies or corrupts, I have all the data to hand on the second drive. Cons: House fire, burglary, PSU overload still a risk. Secondly, I then backup everything on the second drive on a weekly basis to a third, big (encrypted) external USB drive which I take to work with me every Monday. Perks: Data safe from house burning down, flood, theft, etc. Cons: HDD is stored at home (albeit safely hidden) over the weekend so if the house gets hit by a meteor on Sunday afternoon I'm currently a bit screwed. Anything really, vitally important - mainly legal documents - are stored in an encrypted file container I upload to my free 2GB Dropbox account.
Oh while we're at it, could someone recommend a free backup software? The NAS-box came with WD Anywhere, which I don't get along with (can't set the backup time/interval).
lots of good ideas here. In terms of time frame up to 2 years of backups so they have to last that long. the online/cloud is a good idea and that's what i use picasa with google storage for since it's stupidly cheap ($5 a year for 20GB). But i would still like to have an offline copy. Also the country i live in (canada) unlimited bandwidth is basically non exsistent anywhere in the country with a few exceptions (which aren't available in my area) in terms of speed even with unlimited the best i will ever see is a 1mbps upload. If i want faster it's capped to something stupid like 60-90GB a month. But that is a discussion for a whole another thread. I managed to find a pretty good source price wise on blu-ray media so i am thinking if i combine bd-r and a fireproof safe to put them in i should be fine for atleast 2 years. the next question is acronis or paragon drive backup professional 9.5 (i own both but got paragon for free) the better solution with the most robust backup file container. speed isn't a big issue for me as i would be making these offline backups once a month. the online copies done daily would be sent to either the internal secondary 1TB or i may consider investing in an 1TB iosafe.
AllWay Sync isn't free. What you download is a bandwidth limited demo. Once you've shifted more than a TB of data, or something like that, it forces you to buy it. It's only cheap though, and works brilliantly. Once a week wouldn't cut it for me. There are important changes to my drives on a daily basis. Which is why back speed may be important to some. If you schedule back ups every night like I do, but don't want to leave your power hungry desktop on all night while a large back up trickles over a USB connection, there are only 2 alternatives: eSATA, or over a gigabit connection I've never used any free back up software, sorry. Acronis gets my vote, but make sure you update it (needs a legal, registered copy), as early versions had some problems with incremental and consolidated back ups. Paragon's interface is just baffling.
If it was me, I'd use 2 external backup drives only plugged in to do backups. I'd keep one on site in a fire proof safe on the lowest floor of the building, preferably in the basement (incase the floor would collapse, so the safe wouldn't bust open) and one off site also in a fireproof safe I would NOT use a cloud
Hi there... Doing backups in optical is a non sense...it will cost you a lot more money per GB and you wont be able to update the data. I much preffer the external HD option. It has the added advantage that you will find a new use for all those old HD's you might have around the house, or you could get some cheap 1TB HD's and put them into an external case purchased separedly (the external disk have outrageous prices). A good security measure is to drop one HD in a friend's home so even if your house burns down you will still not loose all those cool family photos. I dont really like using backup tools, I prefer doing copy's to external HD manually, at most using a program like total commander that allows you to copy only those files that are not alredy there. From less security to most I would say that it goes like: 1-Have a copy in an external Hd leave it at home. 2-do 1 and then do another copy to another HD and place it in a friend's home(encrypt those porn files if you dont like your friends to find out about it and go tell your wife about all that transex porn...weird at parties latter and stuff...). 3-Do 2 and use an online service that allows you backup space for free. 4-Finally do all the above and then do hard copies in optical if you are a maniac of security (in that case the law of murphy clearly states that no mather what you do you will end up lossing all your data). Hope it helps! bEst!
i think what i will be doing is as follows. Daily backup to External HDD (will probably get an iosafe as they are Fireproff (1550 F for 30 minutes). Water proof (10 meters at 30 minutes in either salt or fresh water) Crush proof (a test i saw included driving a 25 ton excavator over it) plus it includes data recovery services. Every month do a backup to Blu-ray ( i can get the Bd-R for around $3.20 CAD a disk) and put those in a offsite fireproof safe.
