The fun of backing up!

Cabaal

So over the years I've had a number of hard drive failures...back in the days of the IBM Deathstars (sorry deskstars) I had three of the 60GB models fail which was fun.

Anyway I've learned since then and I try to run monthly backups of my photo, music and general documents...basically things that are not replacable.

So my setup is:
- 500GB external misc drive (not full)
- 500GB photo drive (not full)
- 500GB music, docs etc (not full)

So recently I've had a drive fail which had docs, music and some photos still on it as I hadn't finished copying them to the seperate external drives, I can likely restore the contents from the drive once I run it through restore software though it may take a few days.

If it doesn't work I'm not overly worried but it got me thinking, running backups to external drives which are then not used once they are backed up to is fine and all but it doesn't give me daily up-to date backups.

For added protection I could make two backups,
1 to a external drive kept onsite and 1 to another drive which is stored off-site while this gives me added protection it again does not give me up-to-date data backup.

So I'm thinking of sticking with one external drive backup kept onsite and then backing up approx 500GB of photos/music to mozy.com which costs approx 2.65e a month for an unlimited account.

I could go the route of an Apple Timemachine or something similar but it would be pretty costly and I need to keep costs down at present.

Anyone have any further suggestsions?

JDxtra

I use Acronis 2010 software to backup changes daily to a hidden internal drive. Then I have an external drive that I bring home from work every two weeks or so. Backup all recent changes to this using Acronis then straight back to work with it. Total size of backups is about 300Gb. Dont bother backing up any large downloads.

JDxtra

You should only consider using Mozy for files you cannot replace, such as your photos and personal docs.

Cabaal

JDxtra wrote: »

You should only consider using Mozy for files you cannot replace, such as your photos and personal docs.

Yeah thats what I was thinking, should work out at approx 300GB+ as the majority of the photos are in RAW format so they are about 10MB each....this of course gets bigger anytime I take photos

Initial backup to mozy would likely take many weeks and it would be a pain to keep the uploads going but between that an external I think it would give me more peace of mind.

Its not practical to backup all my data as I have several other TB drives with other data but I'm not too worried about that

conolan

Seems to me like you you want to backup large chunks of data in case of drive failure, rather than individual files in case of file corruption. Should you group files into zip archives to make the process easier to manage? Easier to restore if drive fails, easier to search for backups? You could tweak the online backup to only hold files created within a certain timeframe (delete after 30 days?) and have your backups on drives for more permanent backup.

Cabaal

conolan wrote: »

Seems to me like you you want to backup large chunks of data in case of drive failure, rather than individual files in case of file corruption. Should you group files into zip archives to make the process easier to manage? Easier to restore if drive fails, easier to search for backups? You could tweak the online backup to only hold files created within a certain timeframe (delete after 30 days?) and have your backups on drives for more permanent backup.

While zipping make save some space it would be alot of work to archieve stuff, as it is I find doing a monthly external drive backup annoying

Anti

I have CA ARCserv running on my home server backing up all data onto my 4tb NAS. Granted this software is completely overkill for home use, but since ive setup and used it in a coroprate enviroment it was the natural solution to me.

What i like about it is the smart ability to only backup a file if it has since been modified since the last time it was backed up. Not sure how much it costs to buy now, or if they have a home lisence. But if you want a good backup solution you can put a price on it really !

JohnK

Would you consider something like a Drobo? I got one recently and its working fine. If an individual harddrive in it fails then it can recover the data once a new drive is added in so might be worth a look. http://www.drobo.com/

Cabaal

JohnK wrote: »

Would you consider something like a Drobo? I got one recently and its working fine. If an individual harddrive in it fails then it can recover the data once a new drive is added in so might be worth a look. http://www.drobo.com/

Outlay would be pretty expensive tbh, 289e for the Drobo - http://www.drobostore.com/store/droboeu/en_GB/pd/CategoryID.28196700/productID.152411400

Then I'd have to purchase the drives which would say be another 350e (and thats only if I got 4 1TB drives). I like the functions available but its an expensive outlay

JohnK

Yeah it is expensive alright but it does make life easier having everything in one place and secured against drive failure.

Cabaal

JohnK wrote: »

Yeah it is expensive alright but it does make life easier having everything in one place and secured against drive failure.

It may be something I'll look at in future as the current storage expention setup cannot continue

I started with 1 500GB drive now have 3 500GB drives and 2 1TB drives with a 3rd 1TB needed.

So in the end I may put off the new 1TB drive and start aiming for the Drobo as it would give me space, power and plug saving benefits as well as data backup in the long term

JohnK

Its a life saver coming from that angle; I had to shuffle between 10 external drives before I got this

Random

(posting to subscribe)