Is an external HDD the only good method of personal backup?

[Steve]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: BobDaMenkey
Tapes are expensive initially, but a decent value after that. Just back it up at the end of the day.

Although the ease of use of an external HDD to back stuff up is really nice. I have my dad using one to back up his work computer at like 2am after the virus scan at midnight.

Yea but tapes are notoriously unreliable and you don't know if the data on there is ok or not. Plus they're EXTREMELY SLOW!

Notoriously unreliable? What are you using, DAT?

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: archcommus
Well I am talking about personal use so talk of servers and such is rather pointless. But yes, let's assume it's data that is definitely important to you, that you want backed up once per day. No method involving discs would be easier than using an HDD. And how is an external safer than an internal? Well that's rather obvious, it's not hooked up to power so it's not susceptible to damage due to surges, etc., unless it happens WHILE you're backing up.

If your data is not as important as work data, it does not need backup. Just burn a CD or DVD a day. You can use RW if you think R is too expensive. I sure hope you got good surge protection for your equipment all the time.

Read the thread....please.

DVD is stupid. That would require burning 5 discs daily. What a complete waste of discs and time.

and you completely ignore all references to the iomega rev because of?

Technically, Rev drives are just external HDs too...the heads are just separated from the platters. I like em though, best thing Iomega's made in a long time. Anyone know if they work with newer versions of Backup Exec?

but you can have multiple media and hence have multiple copies of the backup in different places.

a single hd is just that.

that's like saying Zip drives are just external hd's. not accurate. the fact that it has removable media is significant.

as for me, instead of any backup software, i use xcopy command, batch it, then schedule it in windows scheduler. it's been working for me.

I meant in terms of technology. Anyways, you can purchase multiple external HDs to the same effect. Don't get me wrong, I love Rev drives, but there's nothing particularly special about them. The "disks" are a bit more rugged than an external HD though.

but it's not a hd. yes technology is similar but so is that of a floppy but you dont' hear anyone posting, oh ya, that 400gb hd is just a floppy with the heads on the inside etc.

the iomega rev presents the user with a lot of flexibility that a single external hd doesn't.

the thing is, you just need to get to critical mass with the rev drive so that the media gets cheaper. once media gets to a certain price, rev drives will be the best available option.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
but it's not a hd.

YES IT IS

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: archcommus
Well I am talking about personal use so talk of servers and such is rather pointless. But yes, let's assume it's data that is definitely important to you, that you want backed up once per day. No method involving discs would be easier than using an HDD. And how is an external safer than an internal? Well that's rather obvious, it's not hooked up to power so it's not susceptible to damage due to surges, etc., unless it happens WHILE you're backing up.

If your data is not as important as work data, it does not need backup. Just burn a CD or DVD a day. You can use RW if you think R is too expensive. I sure hope you got good surge protection for your equipment all the time.

Read the thread....please.

DVD is stupid. That would require burning 5 discs daily. What a complete waste of discs and time.

and you completely ignore all references to the iomega rev because of?

Not ignoring, just haven't responded to it yet. 😛

But they sure are expensive.

But what's really the downside to the external drive in comparison? I do see a good purpose of making DVDs every so often, to have archives in case something ever gets corrupted, but what's wrong with the HD being the only daily backup? If the drive ever fails, I simply copy my remaining copy over to my laptop so I have two copies for the time being, then replace the drive. Seems easy enough.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: archcommus
Well I am talking about personal use so talk of servers and such is rather pointless. But yes, let's assume it's data that is definitely important to you, that you want backed up once per day. No method involving discs would be easier than using an HDD. And how is an external safer than an internal? Well that's rather obvious, it's not hooked up to power so it's not susceptible to damage due to surges, etc., unless it happens WHILE you're backing up.

If your data is not as important as work data, it does not need backup. Just burn a CD or DVD a day. You can use RW if you think R is too expensive. I sure hope you got good surge protection for your equipment all the time.

Read the thread....please.

DVD is stupid. That would require burning 5 discs daily. What a complete waste of discs and time.

and you completely ignore all references to the iomega rev because of?

Not ignoring, just haven't responded to it yet. 😛

But they sure are expensive.

But what's really the downside to the external drive in comparison? I do see a good purpose of making DVDs every so often, to have archives in case something ever gets corrupted, but what's wrong with the HD being the only daily backup? If the drive ever fails, I simply copy my remaining copy over to my laptop so I have two copies for the time being, then replace the drive. Seems easy enough.

rev drives are about $500.00, you can probably get a used one on ebay for less. the media are like $45.00 / piece.

with 7 rev drive disks, you could do a complete backup each day on different disks. this allows you to go back a day or 2 up to 7 days if you get some kind of data corruption.

 

[Rock Hydra]

Hard drives seem the most practical at the consumer level since they're relativlely cheap.

 

[Crucial]

The key question here is how much data do you need backed up. I don't recall you saying how much data you have. If it's under 750mb then a 750mb zip drive with multiple disks for daily backups is ideal. If it's under 30GB or 90 compressed then the REV drive is an ideal product as well. An internal REV drive is $285 and comes with one disk. A 4 pack of REV disks is $169. That gives you 5 days worth of rotating backups for $454. Thats not a bad price for a complete solution including backup software that comes with it.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Crucial
The key question here is how much data do you need backed up. I don't recall you saying how much data you have. If it's under 750mb then a 750mb zip drive with multiple disks for daily backups is ideal. If it's under 30GB or 90 compressed then the REV drive is an ideal product as well. An internal REV drive is $285 and comes with one disk. A 4 pack of REV disks is $169. That gives you 5 days worth of rotating backups for $454. Thats not a bad price for a complete solution including backup software that comes with it.

~20 gigs.

That price might not be bad to you, but for me, a college student, and seeing how the only advantage that really offers me is the archives, not really practical. Still a good suggestion for many, though.

 

[Steve]

Search eBay for Onstream ADR.

 

[jjessico]

Originally posted by: sm8000
Search eBay for Onstream ADR.

I've had 3 OnsTream drives and all have failed. All were IDE. The first 10/20GB drive was bought brand new and it died within a year. The second and third 15/30GB drives were bought used and both failed within a year. I really liked them, but the reliability was atrocious. I would avoid them at all costs.

I am very happy with DLT right now.

 

[jjessico]

Can anyone comment on the Rev drive being fairly similar to the old SyQuest SparQ drives? I seem to recall when I had the 1GB version that it was really just a hard drive platter in a disk.

I also have nothing good to say about those drives, as it overheated the disks almost instantly. SyQuest went under shortly afterwards.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: jjessico
Can anyone comment on the Rev drive being fairly similar to the old SyQuest SparQ drives? I seem to recall when I had the 1GB version that it was really just a hard drive platter in a disk.

I also have nothing good to say about those drives, as it overheated the disks almost instantly. SyQuest went under shortly afterwards.

i have several clients using them for backup and i haven't seen a disk fail yet.

i have one myself.

i haven't noticed the disks heating up.

 

[jjessico]

Good to know. Thanks for the first hand info.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: Crucial
The key question here is how much data do you need backed up. I don't recall you saying how much data you have. If it's under 750mb then a 750mb zip drive with multiple disks for daily backups is ideal. If it's under 30GB or 90 compressed then the REV drive is an ideal product as well. An internal REV drive is $285 and comes with one disk. A 4 pack of REV disks is $169. That gives you 5 days worth of rotating backups for $454. Thats not a bad price for a complete solution including backup software that comes with it.

~20 gigs.

That price might not be bad to you, but for me, a college student, and seeing how the only advantage that really offers me is the archives, not really practical. Still a good suggestion for many, though.

dude you need to backup 20gb? thats nothing! seriously, just put it on an external drive and be done with this.

 

[SilentZero]

pick up an extra HD and set up a raid array.

 

[daniel1113]

This is the problem I have been contemplating lately as well.

I have over 600GB of data altogether, which includes approximately 25GB of documents and photos, 150GB of music, and another 400GB or so of movies. Right now, I run a nightly backup of all my critical data, plus the music, since that is about as much as I can fit on my 200GB external hard drive. This backup is merely a straight incremental copy of all my data, so any corrupted files that are not caught within a day will surely get copied to the backup drive. However, a few corrupt files is not nerely as important to me as an all out drive failure.

I've always figured that an external hard drive was the best backup solution since it allows me to have one good copy of my data at any given time. If my internal hard drives fail, I can use the external drive. Conversely, if the external drive fails, the internal drives should last enough time for me to acquire another external drive and resume all backups. It's not a fail safe solution like a business would use, but it works for my needs... or so I thought.

Recently, I've been considering the loopholes of this backup procedure. For example, if there was ever a sever power surge or disruption in my building with the ability to impair electronic devices, it's probable that both my internal and external hard drives would be toast. So, what's the best solution?

I've been thinking about using both an external hard drive for nightly backups along with weekly DVD backups, and creating permanent archives of my music and movies. However, this is a somewhat daunting solution, since I will have to burn all the discs and track their contents.

So, what's the best solution, taking into consideration the amount of effor that would be needed to complete backups? Multiple external drives that are rotated on a weekly basis to avoid simultaneous failure? Using both an external hard drive and DVDs?

It's confusing 🙂

 

[abc]

Originally posted by: Special K
I have a script that calls rsync and backs up all of my important stuff to my school's fileserver. I use task scheduler to have the script run every day at about 5 am or so. For redundancy I have 2x250 GB HDs in a RAID 1 array.

I don't know what I will do once I graduate and lose access to my school's filesever though.

since i have several pcs i'm looking to do a 2x300GB external raid.