Back-up hardware

[whitenemesis]

I'm begning to get nervous about data security. Not a huge volume (~250gb and growing) but it's taken me a lot of research time to gather.

What is best for backing up? Should I copy to DVD (many DVD!) or get something like this?

 

[ringway]

I'm begning to get nervous about data security. Not a huge volume (~250gb and growing) but it's taken me a lot of research time to gather.

What is best for backing up? Should I copy to DVD (many DVD!) or get something like this?

Easier to the external hard drive (I use one).

However, should you ever be burgled, the external hard drive is sellable and easily taken.

Who would be interested in a few DVD'S (if they could find them) labelled "Mary and Alberts wedding"?

 

[whitenemesis]

But at only 8gb per disc that's a lot of DVDs....

Burgulary aside what's the more secure system?

 

[Sp!ke]

You can get very cheap online backups now. £5 or so per month will now get you secure (encrypted), automated unlimited online backups to an external source. Even Virgin now offer it.

PC pro review from last year HERE

This way you're not worried about burglars, fire, floods... your data is safe.

 

[The G.F.P]

i have 9 internal drives and 5 external drives!

currently i use 2 internals and recently bought a western digital 1TB external so ill put it all on that and have it on another too so double backup

but

in a year or less you will be able to use blu-ray technology and they record 25gb or 50gb double sided on 1 disk!

 

[Spinal]

I was in a similar situation... but with sevral TB to store....

I ended up going with Carbonite - and online backup solution. When I joined, the exchange rate was good and they had a 2 years for 1 offer, so I ended up paying £25 for two years.

As it also backs up any networked drives, I've got it backing up pretty much everything I own now... The restore is a bit of a pain (as you need to re-download everything, would be nice if they offered a "send me a hard-drive" sort of thing) but otherwise they're quit good!

M.

Oh yeah, and you get previous versions of your files too; so if you accidentally overwrite some document, you can go back in time

M.

 

[timskemp]

Online backup may be inappropriate if you have a bandwidth limit on your ADSL and a lot of changing files to back up.

You need at least two pieces of removable media, be they hard drives, tape or RDX. Cheapest would be a couple of matching external drives. Keep them somewhere else and swap them over as often as you feel you can deal with losing data.

Acronis is the easiest software to backup and restore your entire system and is quite cheap too.

 

[whitenemesis]

So no votes for the 2TB Raid array (set-up to mirror)? Seems cheap, convient and quick?

 

[timskemp]

So no votes for the 2TB Raid array (set-up to mirror)? Seems cheap, convient and quick?

Theft, power surge, PSU / motherboard failure or just accidentally hitting delete / format may make you regret that option. Should help protect you from drive fail though...

 

[Spinal]

So no votes for the 2TB Raid array (set-up to mirror)? Seems cheap, convient and quick?

Assuming you have unlimited broadband, online backups are cheaper, more space, and more reliable

Also, it's a single backup, which I assume you'll keep in your house alongside the original data... a flood, fire or other disaster would make both your primary data and the backup worthless (mind you, depending on the data it might not be your first concern )

M.

 

[whitenemesis]

Points taken, I'll investigate the online options suggested

Thanks guys