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A Call for Ideas: How Do You Backup Your Files?

D

DigDug

Guest
Having had a near disastrous hard drive crash, I realize that I need to get my ass in gear and set up a backup solution. To that end, I purchased two 1TB hardrives and a Vantec NexStar external enclosure from NewEgg for a RAID 0 setup.

All is running fine, however, I was thinking that there must be some one-click solution to be able to work with files in a folder on my computer and - when I liked - have it sync to the external enclosure. This way, I don't need to run the external enclosure all the time and work with files directly on the enclosure.

Does anyone currently make use of a setup like the one I envision? Something different, but equally useful/convenient? If so, I'd love to hear how you've got it running? There may be some storage arrangements that I haven't even considered that could be amazingly useful for me.

Does anyone make use of an external setup and cloud storage? That seems to be the ideal arrangement, but I can't yet see an arrangement where syncing is truly convenient. Dropbox has it down when it comes to computer<->cloud syncing, but that third arm, namely computer<->enclosure or even cloud<->enclosure isn't there. I hope that makes sense.

Thanks!
 
I use "syncback" to mirror my file server to an external HDD. it's a very powerful program and can probably do whatever you want in terms of file synchronization. I tried synctoy from MS but it choked with my particular setup for whatever reason ,but you can give it a try and see if it works for you. my file server makes nightly backups of small documents to amazon's S3 (encrypted). it's *very* cheap for small files but if you are talking a 1 TB it's expensive.
 
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my thought process is that anything I'd really want to sync to a cloud is too big/illegal to bother with, and anything else is small enough to fit onto a couple DVD's and left in an alternate location (which in my case, is just a single DVD containing everything I've ever written that I keep in my parents' safe deposit box and replace once/year or so)

locally, my computer is 2 x RAID1 arrays (2 x 320gb drives = OS, apps, games; 2 x 2TB drives = ripped movies, MP3's, and the like).
 
If you have RAID 0 then you have no redundancy. You need RAID 1. I use cloud storage through Dropbox for everything.
 
I've got Acronis True Image running a few different backup jobs on a schedule. For example, the C: \ Users\ folders go to my 2TB internal drive once a week, and the MP3 folder containing some of the more hard to find stuff gets backed up.

I also run a backup of My Documents to an external 500GB drive..

Finally I've got a 50GB Dropbox that I use for some things. It's good for the most important files, but ideally they should offer about 1TB of storage. Of course that would also require much faster upload speeds than what's available.

It's not totally safe but good enough for me. Can't really say I have any data that I absolutely can't afford to loose except for some work and school related stuff. But since it's in the cloud, on an external hard drive and on two internal ones, I think it's pretty safe.
 
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I store all my important documents and pics to Google. I don't backup my desktop at all even though I really should.

I back up my cell phone nightly though 🙂
 
I don't back up 99.9&#37; of what I have on my computer I could get back over internet anyway.

If I wanted some sort of protection would probably raid5 all of my storage. Maybe have some externals on the side to do full datatranfers to incase you can't recover
 
I backup to an external hd every few weeks....when I remember. If it's real important, irs shit, pics, quality pr0n, etc it goes to a thumbdrive asap.
 
All important files are stored on 2 external drives and backed up to DVD.

Every 6 months or so, all data is backed up to DVD, and sent to my moms house. This time I will probably give her a 500 gig passport drive instead of an case full of dvds.

Once the external drive is full, its retired, put on a shelf and a new drive is bought.

In other words, important information is stored on 2 different drives and in 2 physical locations.
 
You guys backing up GBs worth of important files is that work or something? Hard to see anyone having that much important personal information to backup unless you are backing up a ton of pictures or something
 
jackace said:
You guys backing up GBs worth of important files is that work or something? Hard to see anyone having that much important personal information to backup unless you are backing up a ton of pictures or something
Click to expand...

Family photos and HD home videos. All of my other documents and spreadsheets don't amount to much.
 
Depends on the criticality of the data and how quick I might need it back/want access to it.

-Critical, irreplacable stuff -> Dropbox, remote web/file host, etc, then mirrored between providers

-Non critical but frequently changing -> USB 1TB DAS hard drive using Windows 7 or Server 2008 built-in backup, along with some NovaStore

-System Images -> USB 1TB DAS hard drive using Windows 7 or Server 2008 built-in backups

-Archival Stuff (movies, media, etc) -> LTO-3 tape drive and about 40-ish tapes

-Games -> Mirror currently installed games to a 1TB USB hard drive, just in case my RAID0 crashes or I need to yank a config file or something that isn't caught by snapshots. Saves are synced with dropbox between computers
 
#1) I post in the right forum
#2) I use WHS backing up iamges of the PCs on the network.
#3) user directories on WHS are duplicated
#4) some super important things are backed up to remote site via automated FTP
 
I use the free version of Mozy on my wife's computer. I think if you get referrals you get more space than the couple gigs they get you. But even for unlimited it's pretty cheap. Basically the same as carbonite and all the other online backup solutions.

I think if you sign up to pay for Mozy, they also have a version that will backup to their site and also to an external drive. Info here: http://mozy.com/backup/2xProtect
 
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Acronis is excellent for image backups, but it doesn't do file/folder backups without making it an image.

Have yet to see a windows explorer replacement app that verifies the data is copied is good. Have to use xcopy for this.

I do monthly images to a 2nd hd of the boot drive, for pics/docs/etc, i have gigs of this stuff.. prob close to 200gig, i backup in triplicate to 3 external hard drives, one is off-site, two are local.

I backup in triplicate cause this stuff i can never get back, such as videos of people whom are no longer alive. I figure one, maybe two drives will die, the odds of all 3, remotely.

Don't trust online backup services like carbonite, to upload 200gig to them would take forever and they don't guarntee security/privacy. Besides a 1 TB hard drive and external enclosure is around $130, cheaper than any online service.
 
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The other thing I do for pictures and things is use Microsoft's Synctoy.

I have all our family pictures on 3 computers. Mine, my file server, and my wife's. Either of us can download form the camera, then run sync toy to upload to the server. Then the other person runs sync toy to download the new files. That way we always have 3 copies in case something bad would happen. Just have to grab one of the laptops if the house ever burns down.
 
i use the microsoft sync toy to set up folder pairs and give a one-click sync

documents, homework, some misc stuff synced to a thumb drive i keep in my pocket
pics, documents, homework, misc, music, video to a 1tb drive upstairs

i need to get another 1tb drive to sync and keep at another place, but it just hasnt been a priority.

i use acronis trueimage to make images of my desktop and laptop once every 2 or 3 months, just to save the hassle of reinstalling programs if i have a real problem
 
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