Online Backup Service
Posted by: Blobdang on 01 September 2006
My PC's 200gb hard drive is nearly full - mainly photos, video and music. I back this up to an external hard drive but for extra security I'm looking at an online back-up service. Does anyone use one?
All ears...
All ears...
Posted on: 01 September 2006 by Tony Lockhart
Considering the slow upload speed most of us have I'd rather buy a new, larger drive.
Tony
Tony
Posted on: 01 September 2006 by Harry
It’s personal but I wouldn’t go there for reasons of security. I’ve just got a WD 500Mb external HDD for around £130 and it’s doing the job very well.
Cheers
Cheers
Posted on: 01 September 2006 by Blobdang
Harry
Call me neurotic ,but what if that crashes??
Call me neurotic ,but what if that crashes??
Posted on: 01 September 2006 by Derek Wright
Have two spindles inside the machine with automatic copying from master to serf each day, and then have an external drive thast can be unplugged and stored remotely that you update on a weekly process.
Also if the drives have SMART monitoring, check the stuaus of the drives periodically.
Also if the drives have SMART monitoring, check the stuaus of the drives periodically.
Posted on: 01 September 2006 by Jim Lawson
quote:Originally posted by Geoff Rowland:
Harry
Call me neurotic ,but what if that crashes??
Well then, you have the original intact. The chance of both drives failing at the same is negligible.
Jim
Jim
Posted on: 01 September 2006 by PJT
Do you burn your photos/DVDs to CD/DVD?
Apart from portability convenience, the "hard" copy is less likely to crap out in a microsecond.
I burn all my photos to CD.
Saying that, I bought an external HDD for my old man to use for his small business backups. Mind you that only covers his data files etc, and not the actual OS or installed programs.
Big businesses spend huge dollars on backups and disaster recovery - with the payback being in most instances the actual survival of the company post (massive) failure.
You might have guessed I work in the Computer Industry, but essentially you have to ask yourself can I afford (both minetary and sentimentally) to lose this file?
Given the MeanTimeBetweenFailure ststistics, I would recommend the external HDD backups for system "rollback" after a disk crash. If you want to keep something permanently, then burn it.
Cheers
Pete
Apart from portability convenience, the "hard" copy is less likely to crap out in a microsecond.
I burn all my photos to CD.
Saying that, I bought an external HDD for my old man to use for his small business backups. Mind you that only covers his data files etc, and not the actual OS or installed programs.
Big businesses spend huge dollars on backups and disaster recovery - with the payback being in most instances the actual survival of the company post (massive) failure.
You might have guessed I work in the Computer Industry, but essentially you have to ask yourself can I afford (both minetary and sentimentally) to lose this file?
Given the MeanTimeBetweenFailure ststistics, I would recommend the external HDD backups for system "rollback" after a disk crash. If you want to keep something permanently, then burn it.
Cheers
Pete
Posted on: 02 September 2006 by Derek Wright
However recordable CD or DVD is not a guaranteed storage device, you need to check the CD/DVDs periodically and transfer the data forward to new medium before (!) the Cds degrade.
I have some data CD-rs that are 10 years old that I can read on the computer - however I also use old CDs both "r" and permanent as bird scarers in the garden and the "silver" on the CDr washes off after a few weeks.
I have some data CD-rs that are 10 years old that I can read on the computer - however I also use old CDs both "r" and permanent as bird scarers in the garden and the "silver" on the CDr washes off after a few weeks.
Posted on: 02 September 2006 by Harry
quote:Originally posted by Geoff Rowland:
Harry
Call me neurotic ,but what if that crashes??
A very good point. Well, the HDD on the PC would not likely fail in unsion. The 500Gb external HDD is backed up to a 250Gb external HDD every night. The vital files backed up onto on the 250Gb are then backed up to a server we have running upstairs. It's all done on scripts and every PC and HDD is on a different ring and has its own UPS in tow. You've probably gathered that this isn't yer bog standard domestoc installation but I didn't want to make my first reply too complicated. besides which, the 250Gb drive (now used to back up the back up) has been doing nightly runs for years with no problems. The reason we're now using a 500Gb as the primary back up is because although it shows no signs of age, the 250Gb box is getting a bit long in the tooth.
If I had a remote box in other premises I'd do remote backups. But I personally wouldn't put my data on someobe else's HDD. We have on occasion done backups during power cuts - seemingly without difficulty - everything was fine the next day.
This must sound sad and complicated. But once it's set up it can be forgotten about - just so long as it's checked regularly.
I do burn all my RAWs and processed images to DVD, duffers and all. It's no different from keeping negatives. But they also reside on the external HDDs (what a surprise!)
Cheers
Posted on: 02 September 2006 by Harry
quote:Originally posted by Harry K:quote:Originally posted by Geoff Rowland:
Harry
Call me neurotic ,but what if that crashes??
A good point. Well, the HDD on the PC and the external HDD would not likely fail in unsion. The 500Gb external HDD is backed up to a 250Gb external HDD every night. The vital files backed up onto on the 250Gb are then backed up to a server we have running upstairs. It's all done on scripts and every PC and HDD is on a different ring and has its own UPS in tow. You've probably gathered that this isn't yer bog standard domestoc installation but I didn't want to make my first reply too complicated. besides which, the 250Gb drive (now used to back up the back up) has been doing nightly runs for years with no problems. The reason we're now using a 500Gb as the primary back up is because although it shows no signs of age, the 250Gb box is getting a bit long in the tooth.
If I had a remote box in other premises I'd do remote backups. But I personally wouldn't put my data on someobe else's HDD. We have on occasion done backups during power cuts - seemingly without difficulty - everything was fine the next day.
This must sound sad and complicated. But once it's set up it can be forgotten about - just so long as it's checked regularly.
I do burn all my RAWs and processed images to DVD, duffers and all. It's no different from keeping negatives. But they also reside on the external HDDs (what a surprise!)
Cheers
Posted on: 02 September 2006 by Harry
Oh yeah - and the box upstairs gets backed up daily!
Bet you thought I'd missed a trick there
Bet you thought I'd missed a trick there
Posted on: 09 September 2006 by Martin Payne
quote:Originally posted by Harry K:
A very good point. Well, the HDD on the PC would not likely fail in unsion.
One virus could infect the network and destroy all attached discs at the same time.
Offline backups are safe in this situation - CD/DVD or some sort of network backup that doesn't use a file sharing protocol that might allow the remote machine to get infected.
You might still end up backing up corrupted or infected data though. This is where a permanent backup can at least let you revert back to how your data was six months ago and not lose absolutely everything.
cheers, Martin
PS today was the first time I ran data backups for ages, then I came across this thread. Spooky, eh?