Running out of space on my backup HD

[thestrangebrew1]

I'm running WHS2011 and only have about 91GB left on my 2TB external backup drive. I think I've got about 700+GBs of movies, photos music etc right now, but I'm getting alerts that I'm running out of room on the back up drive.

I can't really afford to add storage to my server for backups at the moment so I'm curious what my options are. The only things I can think of doing are:

1. Copy my most recent back up to my rig (I'm pretty sure I have room on it) and reformat my ext. hd and copy the backup back to it

2. Reformat and schedule a back up on the ext. hd.

I don't think putting anything on dvds would be efficient and like I said, adding additional storage space isn't really an option right now.

 

[corkyg]

Get rid of the movies - you have them on their original DVDs - if you don't, they're illegal. That would give you lots of free space.

 

[Smoblikat]

I'm running WHS2011 and only have about 91GB left on my 2TB external backup drive. I think I've got about 700+GBs of movies, photos music etc right now, but I'm getting alerts that I'm running out of room on the back up drive.

I can't really afford to add storage to my server for backups at the moment so I'm curious what my options are. The only things I can think of doing are:

1. Copy my most recent back up to my rig (I'm pretty sure I have room on it) and reformat my ext. hd and copy the backup back to it

2. Reformat and schedule a back up on the ext. hd.

I don't think putting anything on dvds would be efficient and like I said, adding additional storage space isn't really an option right now.

I had a similar problem to you (400gb left on my 2TB) but I just bought a new 2TB for 100$. but back in the day when I had a 20gb HDD and would run out of space I used to use a drive compressor. It worked great actually, if most of that stuff is archival just try to compress it, you could also look into online cloud solutions. Most sites give you a couple gb's free to whet your whistle so to speak.

 

[Smoblikat]

Get rid of the movies - you have them on their original DVDs - if you don't, they're illegal. That would give you lots of free space.

I have purchased digital copies of movies before, and a lot of my DVD rips are the only thing left of the original disc (lost, scratched, stolen...)

 

[thestrangebrew1]

About half my movies are home videos (I have a 2.5 yr old and the wife wants me to record everything) and the rest are ripped dvds or digital copies and recorded tv shows. I think getting rid of the movies defeats the purpose of my media server. And like Smoblikat, alot of my original discs have either been scratched scoffed or lost now.

 

[PowerYoga]

Get rid of the movies - you have them on their original DVDs - if you don't, they're illegal. That would give you lots of free space.

Sure, those 400 gb movies of my friend's wedding are totally illegal and come with their own DVDs.

 

[marcplante]

Do you need all of your image backups? If you have more than one, consider rolling some of the older ones off to disc. Otherwise. Compression should stall the inevitable.

Anyone with kids can attest to the fragility of Disc media. We went through two generations of Baby Einstein and Dora discs because of scratching, etc. with the kids. My 4 yr old son is working his way through my music collection. Thankfully MP3 rips are space efficient, and my aging ears don't require lossless audio.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Do you need all of your image backups? If you have more than one, consider rolling some of the older ones off to disc. Otherwise. Compression should stall the inevitable.

Anyone with kids can attest to the fragility of Disc media. We went through two generations of Baby Einstein and Dora discs because of scratching, etc. with the kids. My 4 yr old son is working his way through my music collection. Thankfully MP3 rips are space efficient, and my aging ears don't require lossless audio.

I don't need all of them. Pretty much the only thing that changes are the additon of photos and movies as I transfer them to the server, so I pretty much only need the most recent backups.

I'll have to look into some compression options and maybe offload some of the older backups I guess.