The Importance of Archiving?

johnk123

I was just thinking about this recently while listening to a segment on a past episode of the MacCast (A mac related podcast)

Some guy asked about archiving his media and i was just wondering how many of you guys have archived your media? At the moment, i have an Western Digital 500GB that i use with time machine and i use it every couple of days and i love it. But then i thought of the importance of backing up my photos and itunes stuff seperate to my time machine back up, just incase stuff went wrong, or something got stolen maybe.

So how many of you have archived your media? Is it something we should all look into? Or is it safe just to have one back up? Your thoughts?

ethernet

Yes, but rsyncing to a Samba share

Off-site backups are important. The usual 'what happens if your house goes on fire' argument and all that. Wouldn't be miss to lose that much content.

Talisman

I used to keep all my media files on external hard drives, but after a friend borrowed a couple of drives and somehow accidently corrupted them I decided to invest in a ReadyNAS. It was an expensive solution but I now have the entire media archive installed on a 2TB RAID array. I also have a 500MB Time Capsule which keeps archives of the Mac mini and MBP.

In terms of off-site backups I have several friends who have helped themselves to chunks of the archive.

johnk123

So i think im going to archive all my photos onto DVDs as its a cheap enough solution for the time being. Although i think my brother and i have agreed to buy a ReadyNAS option like Talisman said above and leave it at the parents house etc.

I'd still be interested in anyone else's opinions on archiving in general though?

nialler

John in Custom Computers has some very very good deals on external pocket drives, think he's doing them for under 50 quid, usb/firewire powered and very handy for archiving seperately to your TM backup. You can't build them for that price.

Generally what I'd do is take a snapshot (full clone) of the mac once a month and that goes offsite and TM does the rest.

Always have a bootable clone handy. And ALWAYS back up, if you're in doubt put a price on all the data you have on your mac, music, photographs, software etc. then look at the cost of a backup drive, it makes sense.

J-blk

No, What's the point when i have time machine?

I keep a Time Machine backup on a dedicated drive connected to my Airport Extreme and have a Windows Home Server (yep, I know that's kinda strange for a Mac user, especially as it is my only Windows system!) for media and everything else. The WHS has smart folder duplication for the really important stuff and it is really easy to recover stuff if a drive physically fails, since it does not use RAID. That at least keeps all the stuff I want backed up safe at home, but for the really important things that just can't be replaced (especially photos), an offsite backup is essential, either on DVDs or another external HDD (or better yet, both). My thoughts are that if some data is pretty much invaluable to you, you can never be too paranoid about the amounts of backups, onsite and off, that you have.

johnk123

Yep, thanks for the responses. I agree totally and i am currently sticking all my photos on DVDs for the time being as i want to start my archive right away!

I will definitely be investing in a HDD soon that im going to keep offsite and like Nialler and J-Blk said, make a bootable clone on it for safety.

On another note, i have added up what i have spent on software, iTunes etc.... i was mad not to have an archive before now! :-)

Kid Nothing

Anyone wanna suggest a good external drive to do my backing up?

I was thinking Western Digital Passport...

J-blk

No, What's the point when i have time machine?

I have 3 WD MyBooks and 3 different Passport ones - never had a problem with any of them and I'd recommend them. I think a 3.5" drive with its' own power supply might be a better fit for a Time Machine backup though, than a 2.5" like the Passport. I've been using a WD MyBook 1st gen. 320GB for months now on my Airport Extreme. The important thing to remember is that you could end up with a dud from any manufacturer, so anything really vital should be backed up somewhere else too, besides the Time Machine backup!

nialler

I have a 2tb WD mybook pro (I think), then a 350gb seagate jobby, switch between the two.