Right now I have 1 PC with 1 250GB hard drive. The hard drive is formatted into a 70GB partition for apps/games/OS, and the other one for music, movies, etc. I also store financial and work documents on the C: partition.
I got this computer last May but was dumb and neglected to backup anything up until now, except for my music and movies, which were copied to DVDR. I had a close call last Saturday when my hard drive crashed. I was unable to boot into windows, and did not have any other PC to connect the drive to to try and salvage anything. I wanted to try reinstalling windows, but because I had data on there that I needed, I didn't try that. Dell sent me a replacement drive (yes I got a dell this time, I found a hot deal in their outlet that I could not beat the price of by building my own) next day air, but since it was saturday, I could not get it until tuesday.
In the end I just reinstalled windows anway and used a data recovery program to get everything back. I got lucky this time, but wasted hours redoing work that needed to be done by Monday that I finished the night before the drive crashed. I had to drive to the school's lab to finish it, which was also a waste of time.
My question is, what would be the best way to ensure this never happens again? The way I see it, there are 2 problems here:
1. When the drive crashes, I may not be able to use the computer for anything else. I got lucky this time in that reinstalling windows worked, but I can't always count on that. I don't have a second computer here with me to use.
2. Backing up the data - Obviously I need a backup copy of the data.
For problem 1, would getting a RAID 1 configuration be a good idea? If 1 drive died, odds are the other one could keep me going until the replacement arrived.
For problem 2, what are my options here? Mainly what I need to back up consists of MS Office files, pics, and other assorted small stuff. Burning it all to a CD or DVD every day would be one possibility, but that would get annoying quickly. Is there an easier/automated way to do it?
Finally I would like to have 1 image of my system that includes all drivers installed, all windows updates, and all apps installed that I know I will always need. I figure I can just manually use Norton Ghost for this every couple months or so. I could schedule image backups, but I don't see the point if I am already backing up my documents daily and burning all my music/videos/etc. to CD/DVD.
I have access to my school's network storage, but since I am not connecting through their network, I have to manually connect via SSH and copy everything over each time I want to backup, which gets annoying.
What do you guys think I should do? RAID 1 + external HD + Norton Ghost? Automated script to connect to my school's network and upload files (Is that even possible)?
I got this computer last May but was dumb and neglected to backup anything up until now, except for my music and movies, which were copied to DVDR. I had a close call last Saturday when my hard drive crashed. I was unable to boot into windows, and did not have any other PC to connect the drive to to try and salvage anything. I wanted to try reinstalling windows, but because I had data on there that I needed, I didn't try that. Dell sent me a replacement drive (yes I got a dell this time, I found a hot deal in their outlet that I could not beat the price of by building my own) next day air, but since it was saturday, I could not get it until tuesday.
In the end I just reinstalled windows anway and used a data recovery program to get everything back. I got lucky this time, but wasted hours redoing work that needed to be done by Monday that I finished the night before the drive crashed. I had to drive to the school's lab to finish it, which was also a waste of time.
My question is, what would be the best way to ensure this never happens again? The way I see it, there are 2 problems here:
1. When the drive crashes, I may not be able to use the computer for anything else. I got lucky this time in that reinstalling windows worked, but I can't always count on that. I don't have a second computer here with me to use.
2. Backing up the data - Obviously I need a backup copy of the data.
For problem 1, would getting a RAID 1 configuration be a good idea? If 1 drive died, odds are the other one could keep me going until the replacement arrived.
For problem 2, what are my options here? Mainly what I need to back up consists of MS Office files, pics, and other assorted small stuff. Burning it all to a CD or DVD every day would be one possibility, but that would get annoying quickly. Is there an easier/automated way to do it?
Finally I would like to have 1 image of my system that includes all drivers installed, all windows updates, and all apps installed that I know I will always need. I figure I can just manually use Norton Ghost for this every couple months or so. I could schedule image backups, but I don't see the point if I am already backing up my documents daily and burning all my music/videos/etc. to CD/DVD.
I have access to my school's network storage, but since I am not connecting through their network, I have to manually connect via SSH and copy everything over each time I want to backup, which gets annoying.
What do you guys think I should do? RAID 1 + external HD + Norton Ghost? Automated script to connect to my school's network and upload files (Is that even possible)?
