What's the best, safest and most cost effective way of backing up all my stuff. I currently have stuff on external drives but want something more foolproof. My cousins drive died today. Well I say died it connects to any computer, takes ages for it to spin up, connects but then there's no icon to click to access it. It's only 2 months old. Thankfully nothing important is on it. All the family photos are backed up elsewhere.

This is what's got me thinking about getting something safer. Someone on here did say of a good form of backup but i'm too tired to remember. I know it involved two hard drives.

I've got a fair bit to back up, at least 1TB but I'll need at least two for future use. Any ideas? I take it some form of network drive would be good?

Difficult with 1TB as ideally you need an offsite back up or online back up.

But you could buy a NAS or USB externals and use a program called SyncToy from Microsoft (I presume you are using Windows!) which you can set up to auto backup when the contents of a folder changes, for eg if you add a new batch of photos to your pictures folder.

A NAS that's it. Are they easy to setup? Don't suppose you could recommend one? I take it that the way it works is that if I want to be able to backup a maximum of 2TB I need 4TB of space (4x 1TB)?

No not at all - it is just basically an external drive that hooks up to your router (ie has a network connection). You don't really need a NAS unless you have multiple PC's and want to access a centralised share from all of them. For eg I have 2 desktops and 2 laptops and want to be able to access certain files and docks on all of them without all of them being switched on. You simply put these files on the NAS and you just access them like you would a network drive (\\NAS\Photos\My_Car...etc etc).

If you only have one PC and just want to back up data from that drive then just buy a USB external drive. You don't need double the storage unless you are wanting a RAID config which will give you redundancy on the drive but as you already have the data on the original Hard drive in your PC this isn't neccessary unless you have 2 hard drives fail at the same time!

2TB drive from Dixons is quite cheap - http://www.dixons.co.uk/gbuk/western-03781559-pdt.html?srcid=369&xtor=AL-63&srcid=369&xtor=AL-63

Cheap 1TB NAS from PC World - http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/western-digital-my-book-world-edition-network-hard-drive-1tb-02505172-pdt.html?srcid=369&xtor=AL-11

An over the top for your needs 1TB NAS from Amazon (I want one of these!!) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00308HQR4/ref=nosim/?tag=hotukdeals-21

For £70 if you are only wanting to do backups off one PC I would go for the 2TB USB Drive.

Edited 10 April, 201115 yr by jrw

How important is your stuff? What's it worth to you? and how much money have you got?

I'd always suggest two levels of backup for things that are very important to you.

For example, my digital photographs.

I load photographs from the camera to the computer hard drive.

I have a program to automatically copy those pictures to an external drive http://allwaysync.com/

Then every so often (not as often as I should) back files up to DVDs.

If you've got good bandwidth you could consider backing up to the Cloud using something like Google Docs or Microsoft Skydrive. I would however avoid the free options if you have work of significant worth (free storage providers will generally assume rights to anything you upload).

Either way you should have an occasional backup that is off net and not affected by your power supply or you pc getting nicked.

As already mentioned there are a few solutions available but it really depends on your requirements. You basically run through all the ways you could loose access to your disk e.g. disk power supply fails, disk drive fails, house burns down, gas leak in street so you can't get into your house. Then you go through all the ways around each of these events or if you consider them a risk.

Basic backup, all information is in 2 physical locations (usually built in hard drive and an external hard drive)

Next level up data is in 3 physical locations or 2 locations where 1 is a RAID device. RAID is a way to spread data over more than 1 drive unit but everything is usually in one box, something like a DROBO unit http://www.drobo.com/professional.php

Paranoia level (or 24/7 business) as next level up with an off site copy of everything either using the internet (cloud) or regularly taking a backup drive round to a relatives house (at least once a week on a rotation with a drive in your house).

The other thing to consider is how long it takes to back up 1TB of data over the connection you will use. NAS will use your network for wired ethernet this gives 10mb/s, 100mb/s or 1GB/s (depending on routers etc), USB 2 or Firewire will give you about 800mb/s

There are other considerations but it depends how much you really want to get into the nitty gritty.

I wouldn't mind a a box with two drives and a RAID. Don't really need a NAS since only one computer needs access to my stuff. At the moment everything is on a 1TB Western Digital Elements External drive. I am a bit paranoid over it failing as my cousin's drive is the same except it's 2TB failed within about 2 months. I guess it's luck of the draw since I have a 500GB drive which I've had for years and is fine *touches wood*.

While trying to work out how to backup my stuff more safely I've got to convince my cousin into buying another drive. He isn't tech savvy so I know he won't be keen on paying more money only for it to potentially fail again. I may just tell him to buy another internal drive and do it that way. At least it should theoretically be safer.

Just remember that an on-site backup is no use if the kit is stlen or the house.office has a fire etc.

If backing up to portable storage it would be a good idea to store the back up off site, although this does have prob;ems in remembering to bring the drive back to run the back-up!

Alternative is to use an online backup service, although this would benifit from a decent broadband speed and would incurr ongoing fees.

I have 3 copies of all my data, one on my computer, one as a backup on a WHS box and another as a backup on an external USB HDD which I keep at work and bring home periodically to update it.

External storage is the only way go backup the vast amount of data used today, I have 130GB of music, more than 100GB of photos and everything else. The only practical way is external HDDs, just keep several copies.

Online backup is slow and clunky still, for example it would take me months to upload all my data and with most UK ISPs haiving a lowish FUP your data uploading and downloading will be very restricted.

try a LacIe Max drive (a USB or FireWire Raid Drive - use as a 2TB or a 1TB Raid Drive)

I also back up onto DVD in a FireSafe off-site

Then onto a 2nd 2TB HardDrive

Then, online with a paid-for hosting site.

The Data is for my business (Self-Employed Photographer) so i cant loose it!

I was always taught (BSc Computer Science) Data does not exist, unless it is in 3 places.

Al.

I also back up onto DVD in a FireSafe off-site

Are you happy doing that, any optical recordable media has a fairly short lifespan before they can no longer be read. For example, I have several DVDs created about 5 years ago that are no longer readable and my early DIY CDR music disks no longer play. The chemicals used to manufacture these disks degrade overtime, it was first thought years ago that the chemicals would make the recording permanent but it has not proved to be the case and a quick internet search will reveal many more in the same boat as me. Thats why I no longer use optical (CDR, DVDR etc.) for a long term archive as they are just not reliable enough.

Are you happy doing that, any optical recordable media has a fairly short lifespan before they can no longer be read. For example, I have several DVDs created about 5 years ago that are no longer readable and my early DIY CDR music disks no longer play. The chemicals used to manufacture these disks degrade overtime, it was first thought years ago that the chemicals would make the recording permanent but it has not proved to be the case and a quick internet search will reveal many more in the same boat as me. Thats why I no longer use optical (CDR, DVDR etc.) for a long term archive as they are just not reliable enough.

Two hard drives, one of which is Raid, "Cloud" Storage and Optical? (4x mediums)

Yeah, i'm happy.

I back up everything to my 2Tb LG NAS Box, and the critical stuff is backed up by a web based back up tool. I'm not sure if I'd buy this service, but I get it via my employers.

It's nice to know that, no matter what happens, my photos are safe.

Phil

You do get archival CD/DVDs that are certified for 100 years.

http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/product_dvd-r-gold-archival_41.html

I back up everything to my 2Tb LG NAS Box, and the critical stuff is backed up by a web based back up tool.

I do:

PC -> 4TB NAS (Infrant ReadyNAS)

PC -> external USB (stored away from home)

Important documents (from my PC) -> SkyDrive via Live! Mesh.

external USB -> backed up to a spare server at work

If I was super paranoid then I could get my ReadyNAS to backup to my brother's one (initial sync might best on a LAN rather than over the internet though).

Two hard drives, one of which is Raid, "Cloud" Storage and Optical? (4x mediums)

Yeah, i'm happy.

1) 1HDD, fine that's your primary data.

2) Raid is not a backup and any data error is replicated. If you delete it it's gone totally.

3) Cloud, does your vendor make any guarantee of data safety. There are some that do, but it's rare and not free.

4) Optical, fair enough, but make sure you make a new copy of the disk every year, verify the copy and then put into storage to replace the old one.

Not saying what you do isn't much better than most, but your data is still far from safe, just considerably safer than many home users.

You do get archival CD/DVDs that are certified for 100 years.

http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/product_dvd-r-gold-archival_41.html

How did they test that? DVDs aren't 100 years old?

Some sort of agreed accelerated ageing I guess.

There is a committee - http://www.osta.org/odat/

Unless there is a standard to be tested against then you're really taking the word of the manufacturer.

Assuming they're honest they'll do various tests, strong UV light on them for a short period to simulate light exposure over 100 years, that sort of thing.

From the Verbatim site -

Tests on expected storage life conducted in house using climate chambers show a durability of approx. 100 years, both for CD-R and DVD-R. This applies to discs stored under certain conditions, with the original burning quality naturally also playing an important role. In that respect, there are preferred burner/media combinations. The method of storage also plays an important role (upright in a jewel case, at approx. 20 – 25°C and 55% relative atmospheric humidity, protected from light, smoke-free etc.).

Each use of a CD-R/DVD-R will normally shorten its useful life, as minor damage such as scratches, fingerprints, dust etc. is difficult to avoid. Careful handling of media is therefore advisable to prolong the discs’ working life. Given the direct influence that the user has, however, no fixed period can be given here.

We cannot comment on the working life of pressed CDs/DVDs, as we have no test data. With a similar quality of manufacture, however, they should last as long as writeable media.

http://www.verbatim-europe.co.uk/en_1/kdquestion_storage-media_4.html

Thanks for the reponses guys. Think my best solution is to buy a second external drive and make a double backup. May keep it somewhere other than the house. Then use cloud to backup family pictures, etc. Can anyone recommend a good cloud service. One I can easily redownload the photos if I need to.

Edited 13 April, 201115 yr by MartynVRS

Have you got a hotmail or gmail account? both of those have photo sharing services, which you can decide not to share with anyone.

Have you got a hotmail or gmail account? both of those have photo sharing services, which you can decide not to share with anyone.

That's true I could just do that.