best way to backup

[tkim]

what is the best way to back up?

both money no object and the frugal way?

i ask because i hate burning like 10 cd's everytime i want to backup.

 

[tkim]

anyone?

 

[Dug]

A 40g tape backup would be the expensive way.

The cheap way is to buy another hd.

 

[tkim]

how much we talkin here?

also, if you went with the HD, would you ghost it to backup or how would you go about it?

thanks!!

 

[Dug]

A decent tape drive will range from $700 to $2500

And what are you backing up? Your entire system?
If you are you should be using ghost. You can compress and save a lot of space.

But realistically you should only be backing up specific files that change, not your entire system.
You can use Microsoft's built in backup software for this. It's not the best in the world, but it works, and it's free.

I would put in another hd and set up the backup software to do incremental backups of whatever is important to you. Set it up to run while your sleeping and you won't even have to think about it.

 

[LukFilm]

Definitely buy a huge second hard drive. I got a 60GB HD for $50, well worth it, especially because I was running out of space and was wondering how the heck I would back up my music and videos. Second hard drive provides least hassle, most bang for the buck and convenience.

 

[CStroman]

When I do a fresh install, I just send the files I wanna keep over to the other computer.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Another hard drive and Norton Ghost (or just the 'dd' utility).

-SUO

 

[Windogg]

No object - Co location with everthing mirrored on a system across the country and connected via OC3.

Frugal - Norton Ghost and a 2nd HDD in a removable drive sled.

Windogg

 

[glenn1]

related question:

between Ghost and PQ's Drive Image 5.0, which offers the superior compression (both in pure numbers and quality)? What compression ratio are you using for your backups, and why?

 

[tkim]

windog,

the second option sounds good.

one more question for you guys:

if i do a ghost, i know i get EVERYTHING....however, what programs do incremental backups and do they recognize deleted files as well as renamed?

 

[BreakApart]

<< No object - Co location with everthing mirrored on a system across the country and connected via OC3.

Frugal - Norton Ghost and a 2nd HDD in a removable drive sled.

Windogg >>




If your using a 2nd drive anyway, just use RAID-1 mirror onto the removable 2nd drive.

Frugal: Software RAID-1 mirror (use hardware raid-1 if OS doesn't support software)
removable 2nd mirror drive, possibly even use 2 rotating mirror drives, if you really care about your data.

 

[Sundog]

You could also either get a DVD-RAM drive or a DVD-R drive.

 

[MoFunk]

Here is the cheap route that I went. As long as you are not needing GIGs at a time and are only concerned with data. I formatted a CDRW to work like a floppy, I then made a BAT file to erase the CDRW, PKzip a certain directory and also recurse sub directories, then the bat file moves my zipped file to the CDRW. Works great for me. After compression the files I need backed up are only 500megs or so. So I have 2 weeks worth of CDRW's and everyday I put in the correct CDRW and go to work. I use WinXP scheduler to run the bat file at 11am and I am all backup up and ready to roll when I get home. If you are needing GIG's of space, you can use a second hard drive and use a bat file just the same.