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

[archcommus]

Good as in, can be used to back up data daily and safely.

DVD-Rs cannot be used to back up daily, unless you have an unlimited supply of discs.
DVD-RWs can be changed daily but are not nearly as convenient to alter as the contents of an HDD are.
Tape is not practical for personal use.
Any internal backup (RAID, or just a second drive without an array, etc.) is susceptible to damage due to power failures or surges.

So what else besides an external drive allows for convenient daily backups that are completely safe?

 

[Lonyo]

A giant half chicken, half squirrel.

 

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: archcommus
Good as in, can be used to back up data daily and safely.

DVD-Rs cannot be used to back up daily, unless you have an unlimited supply of discs.
DVD-RWs can be changed daily but are not nearly as convenient to alter as the contents of an HDD are.
Tape is not practical for personal use.
Any internal backup (RAID, or just a second drive without an array, etc.) is susceptible to damage due to power failures or surges.

So what else besides an external drive allows for convenient daily backups that are completely safe?

Nothing is completely safe, it just reduces your risk. Besides, you are contradicting yourself. How is your external hard drive less subceptible than the internal one? Why is tape not practical? If it is daily, it means once a day. Not re-writing the disk all the time.

It really comes down to this: How much is the data worth to you? How much are you backing up? How much time do you have and how much work are you willing to do?

Usually, companies have layered backup measure. no one relies on 1 method of backup.
This is what I do at work.

Layer 1. Two backups a day, 1 at noon, 1 at end of day. Backup is on primary server
Layer 2. Server is backed up nightly.
Layer 3. End of day backup is copied to another server, plus I take a copy home.
Layer 4. Weekly burn to CDR
Layer 5. Monthly backup to DVD-R.

Since it's a OLTP db, backups really don't mean much, I don't see myself restoring anything past the same day.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: archcommus
Good as in, can be used to back up data daily and safely.

DVD-Rs cannot be used to back up daily, unless you have an unlimited supply of discs.
DVD-RWs can be changed daily but are not nearly as convenient to alter as the contents of an HDD are.
Tape is not practical for personal use.
Any internal backup (RAID, or just a second drive without an array, etc.) is susceptible to damage due to power failures or surges.

So what else besides an external drive allows for convenient daily backups that are completely safe?

Nothing is completely safe, it just reduces your risk. Besides, you are contradicting yourself. How is your external hard drive less subceptible than the internal one? Why is tape not practical? If it is daily, it means once a day. Not re-writing the disk all the time.

It really comes down to this: How much is the data worth to you? How much are you backing up? How much time do you have and how much work are you willing to do?

Usually, companies have layered backup measure. no one relies on 1 method of backup.
This is what I do at work.

Layer 1. Two backups a day, 1 at noon, 1 at end of day. Backup is on primary server
Layer 2. Server is backed up nightly.
Layer 3. End of day backup is copied to another server, plus I take a copy home.
Layer 4. Weekly burn to CDR
Layer 5. Monthly backup to DVD-R.

Since it's a OLTP db, backups really don't mean much, I don't see myself restoring anything past the same day.

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.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: archcommus
Good as in, can be used to back up data daily and safely.

DVD-Rs cannot be used to back up daily, unless you have an unlimited supply of discs.
DVD-RWs can be changed daily but are not nearly as convenient to alter as the contents of an HDD are.
Tape is not practical for personal use.
Any internal backup (RAID, or just a second drive without an array, etc.) is susceptible to damage due to power failures or surges.

So what else besides an external drive allows for convenient daily backups that are completely safe?

Nothing is completely safe, it just reduces your risk. Besides, you are contradicting yourself. How is your external hard drive less subceptible than the internal one? Why is tape not practical? If it is daily, it means once a day. Not re-writing the disk all the time.

It really comes down to this: How much is the data worth to you? How much are you backing up? How much time do you have and how much work are you willing to do?

Usually, companies have layered backup measure. no one relies on 1 method of backup.
This is what I do at work.

Layer 1. Two backups a day, 1 at noon, 1 at end of day. Backup is on primary server
Layer 2. Server is backed up nightly.
Layer 3. End of day backup is copied to another server, plus I take a copy home.
Layer 4. Weekly burn to CDR
Layer 5. Monthly backup to DVD-R.

Since it's a OLTP db, backups really don't mean much, I don't see myself restoring anything past the same day.

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.

show me a external hard drive that does not use a power cord...
edit: nvm, i misread the last part...

 

[archcommus]

Other input?

 

[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.

 

[phisrow]

Hard drives are pretty much it. Tape is nice; but terrifically expensive for what you get. You could afford, with typical prices, redundant external drives for what tape would set you back. Optical media are worth considering, for small quantities of data(a CD-R or DVD-R a day isn't going to break the bank, if purchased in bulk; but it is something of a hassle).

The only real alternative to HDDs, and this involves a fair bit more commitment, is offsite networked storage. For small amounts of data this isn't at all difficult. A private folder on a cheap webhosting account + any FTP client will give you a slice of disk inside the sort of data center that costs more than your house. This isn't at all a bad deal, for the money. If you feel like playing it even cheaper, and taking the risks of violating the TOS, GmailFS is a cute hack. You probably don't want to rely soley on it, since Google would be justified in cutting you off if they caught you; but it's easy to do, free, and just might save your skin if your onsite backup happens to die.

If you want to store a lot of data offsite, and don't feel like paying the sorts of fees that you'll run into for large chunks of professionally hosted space, you could try the "with a little help from my geek friends" solution. Find one or more likeminded individuals who desire backup. Install a cheap PC at each location with enough disk space. Give each user a suitably protected folder to store things on. Rsync all machines in the setup every X hours. If one machine ever dies, just rebuild it and let it restore from the other system(s) in the network. This will be slow as hell, assuming you have a standard ADSL or Cable line and are frequently backing up large files; but if your backups are mostly incremental changes, Rsync will keep the bandwidth use low.

 

[jtvang125]

You basically named all the commonly used methods of backups. Like said, there's nothing completely safe but using more methods just decreases the risk by using redundancy.

The simpliest is the external HDD route. Many have a 1 touch backup system where you load their backup software and simply press 1 button on the HDD and it'll perform a backup. For a second backup measure you can do a monthly backup on DVDR.

It seems you're very concern about power surges and outages. Well in that cases just buy a uniterruptible power supply. This should give you some time to finish what you're doing before the juice finally runs out.

 

[Bryophyte]

I just keep an empty spindle around and toss my burned cds/dvds on there so that I have a chronological record of my backups. But I don't backup daily. Don't need to. Discs are cheap or free. If I did daily backups, I'd probably use an external HDD I guess.

 

[George P Burdell]

use rsync and backup to http://www.bqbackup.com/ or http://www.strongspace.com/

 

[MrDudeMan]

use RAID1, get a UPS, and make a backup of the raid array on an external drive. problem solved.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th
use RAID1, get a UPS, and make a backup of the raid array on an external drive. problem solved.

What's the point of the RAID array when you need to have an external backup anyway? One backup is enough, because if one of the two drives fail (main one or backup), you can just make a temporary copy elsewhere (say to my laptop) to continue to have two good copies until you can replace the drive.

 

[Crucial]

Iomega Rev drive FTW!

 

[archcommus]

So far my OP seems undisputed. DVDs are an option but are not more convenient or practical, and paying $20+/month for a solution certainly isn't more practical, either.

 

[George P Burdell]

How much is your data worth to you? OR How much will data loss cost you?

 

[snoturtle]

How much data are you wanting to backup?
and how much of it do you actually need to backup?

on another note a hd can fail before good optical media or a tape
external drives are not the best to use for a backup

If power is a concern get a ups and thats taken care of
could also just mirror drives and have a constant backup

 

[DaveSimmons]

For my 300 GB of CDs in lossless FLAC format I used a second set of hard drives (2x250, room to grow).

For my main work machine I'm now going to be using RAID-1 plus an external HD, since my work disk crashed over the weekend and Friday was one of the rare days I didn't do a backup (d'oh!). For this PC I also periodically burn DVDs for long-term storage.

 

[snoturtle]

You only need to do a large backup once a month say if that often
than daily ones only backup the files that have been changed
and unless you work with large video/pictures the daily ones will be small

 

[Trey22]

External HD is my preferred method of backup. For me, this means I have 2 copies of everything that is important to me... 1 on my PC, 1 on the external HD. For really important stuff, I then backup to CD/DVD.

Btw, I backup the first of every month, always keeping the last backup in case I need an archived file.

 

[randomlinh]

i hate using cd/dvd... optical media has proved to be a pain in the ass for me. stuff burned w/ my pioneer has a lot of trouble being read w/ my NEC drive. hell, I had some issues between the 2x pioneer and 4x one! But right now, i do nightly backups to a file server, and then do a full backup to dvd ~monthly

 

[archcommus]

My data is important, some of it moreso than other parts, but I want all of it backed up regardless. For my personal files there is literally no practicality to using DVDs. Once I burn it, the contents are set in stone, and months from now, I may very well have a very different array of documents than I do now. Thus that DVD will be useless to me. IMO, a backup needs to be an exact reflection of my current documents and not archives of stuff I no longer even have or use. The only way I see to make a 100% up-to-date backup daily is to use an external drive.

EDIT: And IF, and only if, a UPS will 100% prevent damage due to surge, then an internal backup drive would be sufficient and I wouldn't see an external really being necessary at all.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: Crucial
Iomega Rev drive FTW!

QFT.
Iomega has a lot of data storage options. If your needs are less than 750MB then the 750 meg ZIP drive may be a solution.
But they have a LOT of stuff, check 'em out.

http://www.iomega.com/direct/main/home....%3East_id=26890319&bmUID=1134084652534

EDIT: For my own use, a DVD-RW is just fine. I only do backups once a month. 4.7GB is plenty. Just make sure you leave the session open. You can quickly go back and RW the updated files.

 

[snoturtle]

I see

well here is what I have

DVD backups- stuff that doesn't change at all (raw DV footage,photos,large archives,etc)

everything else thats important gets mirrored
600 gigs storage in my main computer with another 400 gigs in the linux box with samba next to it

Really important stuff goes to multiple places
dv footage (tape,raw footage on 2 hds and dvd)
same with photos

And yes a good UPS will kill itself before anything touches the computer
it will prevent all surges brownouts and blackouts

Would recomend something from APC in whatever size you need.

I use 2 1500va ones for the computers and monitor and a 500va for the router, cable modem and VOIP adapter.

Originally posted by: archcommus
My data is important, some of it moreso than other parts, but I want all of it backed up regardless. For my personal files there is literally no practicality to using DVDs. Once I burn it, the contents are set in stone, and months from now, I may very well have a very different array of documents than I do now. Thus that DVD will be useless to me. IMO, a backup needs to be an exact reflection of my current documents and not archives of stuff I no longer even have or use. The only way I see to make a 100% up-to-date backup daily is to use an external drive.

EDIT: And IF, and only if, a UPS will 100% prevent damage due to surge, then an internal backup drive would be sufficient and I wouldn't see an external really being necessary at all.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th
use RAID1, get a UPS, and make a backup of the raid array on an external drive. problem solved.

What's the point of the RAID array when you need to have an external backup anyway? One backup is enough, because if one of the two drives fail (main one or backup), you can just make a temporary copy elsewhere (say to my laptop) to continue to have two good copies until you can replace the drive.

you asked for redundancy...i gave you an option.