Data Backup for a Home PC

Georgey Burgess

What is the best way to backup data for a home PC?

I have a fairly old home PC with only about 10GB hard drive, I also have a new work laptop. I don't keep alot of large music files but would have a reasonable amount of digital photos that I don't want to lose and also some work stuff I don't want to lose.

I have a CD writer but thats it. I imagine at some stage over the next year or 2 I will be upgrading to a new home PC.

Whats my best bet? Should I buy a DVD writer and backup onto this? I find the Cd writer a bit of a chore and don't really have the patience for backing up 600Mb at a time. What about these external hard drives ? Ive seen some neat ones with about 20-40GB for 200 - 250 quid. Would these be my best bet.

I've also seen a tiny external hard drive for connecting to a laptop via USB. I think it was about 150-200 quid for 20GB in Dixons. Are these any use?

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks
Georgey

Gilgamesh

depends what you are looking for, if it is a pure backup system , then my bets would be on the DVD Writer, as when they are burned, you don't have to worry that much about damage or defect of it.
a HDD can break, can't really give you more advice, but imo, go with the DVD writer

aaf

I remember looking into external hard drives/dvd-rw's for a mate a few months ago and it worked out cheaper to buy a hard drive/dvd-rw and the 3.5" external drive enclosure separately. Check out Komplett.ie

Georgey Burgess wrote:

What is the best way to backup data for a home PC?

I have a fairly old home PC with only about 10GB hard drive, I also have a new work laptop. I don't keep alot of large music files but would have a reasonable amount of digital photos that I don't want to lose and also some work stuff I don't want to lose.

I have a CD writer but thats it. I imagine at some stage over the next year or 2 I will be upgrading to a new home PC.

Whats my best bet? Should I buy a DVD writer and backup onto this? I find the Cd writer a bit of a chore and don't really have the patience for backing up 600Mb at a time. What about these external hard drives ? Ive seen some neat ones with about 20-40GB for 200 - 250 quid. Would these be my best bet.

I've also seen a tiny external hard drive for connecting to a laptop via USB. I think it was about 150-200 quid for 20GB in Dixons. Are these any use?

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

Thanks
Georgey

Khannie

I'd recommend the dvd burner too. You can get rewriteable discs if you're going to be doing regular backups. They're also useful for other stuff and the disc prices keep dropping.

A1 Sharon

RicardoSmith

I just use an external HD and a DVDRW.

liamo

It depends on what you mean by "backup".

If you mean that you'd like to take the occasional snapshot of your data then you could write that to one or more DVDs.

I wouldn't re-write on the DVD as you may run into problems in the future reading that DVD in other devices - at least, that's been my experience with CDs.

If, on the other hand, you intend to implement a proper backup system - that is, each evening - then you'll want re-writeable media (other than DVD) that you can rotate. Tape backups may not be the sexiest technology but it's tried and tested and would be my choice.

Regards,

Liam