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Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
DG, here's my two cents worth (for what it matters).
How do the Big Boys do it?
Multilevel and off-site Back ups. The bank I first programmed for shipped a copy all their files off-site every night. And weekly backups. And quarterly backups. and Yearly backups...
So you need at least two external drives. One at the house, one somewhere else (safety deposit box?) Before you laugh at that, think how much you've spent on data. And that's not even including the priceless stuff (priceless because you can't recreate it at any cost.)
Rotate the off-site and on-site every three months. Sync 'em up with your current data and put one back off-site.
And let's face it, we individuals who are not programmers will load 99% of our data as static files, never changing. Pictures, music files, e-books, they don't change. So every three months is good enough. Keep a USB drive handy for anything you get that you can't risk losing and keep it handy with the computer. Clean it out after every three month swap.
If you do that, hard drive crashes will become just a nuisance....
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Excellent advice! I do place a copy of my pics on a flash drive which we store in a fireproof safety box, but it's still on site. Off storage like our bank safety deposit box is a great idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
If you have a laptop, I'd suggest getting a "bus-powered" external USB drive (ie one which is powered by the USB port, so you don't need a separate power supply for it). The best price point now for these (at least in the UK - I imagine it's the same in the US) are the 500GB models.
For actually making your backups, take a look at Microsoft's "SyncToy" tool, which you can download free here. It lets you set up "pairs" of folders - one on your PC, the other on the external drive - and keep them in sync at the click of a button. Works beautifully, and it's completely free.
Everybody has a "bad" disk crash at some point; it's just one of these things where, unfortunately, you only realise how much you have to lose once it's happened. The important thing is to plan ahead and make sure that it only happens once. |
I'll have to check with the hubby to see if that's what he uses to back up our systems, but if not, I think that sounds like a great idea. Thanks.
We have the 2TB external hard drive that we use to back-up everyone on our wireless network (we have 8 computers). When I was buying it, the salesman told me a 1TB EHD was the size needed for a small business and that it was probably overkill of a home network. I don't know how much data we are actually backing up, but my husband was thrilled with the gift. He also has a pocket drive that I think is 500GB. It's pretty nice because it slides right into the front of his tower and he can grab it if he ever wants to take it somewhere.
I'm still a big fan of my flash drives. So far, I still have a ton of unused space for my ebooks and even on the flash drive for my pictures (I have separate ones for each). I like the price, portability, and simplicity.
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Originally Posted by omk3
Well, the big boys obviously have more to lose. I find the off-site storage a little overkill. I mean, if my house was destroyed, lost data would be the least of my problems. But giving (ir)regular copies of my most important files to my parents to keep could be compared to off-site storage too. It's not even a burden, they are interested in most of my books and all of my pictures anyway.
Interesting thread this, and lots of good ideas. Thanks, people!
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Although it would seem losing data would be the least of your problems if something happened to your house, it would actually cause a great deal of trouble that could be easily avoided. It's best to cover all contingencies.
@DGma ~ I'm so thrilled that you were able to recover your data!!