Backup Hardware Recommendation

RCor · Joined: Jul 07, 2004 Posts: 6

Zip drive, external hard drive....something else

What is the best hardware that you recommend to backup important information.

I have looked at different options and i can't decide what i want to do so feel free to add your own thoughts to help me choose which is the best

Thanks

cmfavorito · Joined: Nov 17, 2003 Posts: 80

Used to use Zip drive, no problems except that low capacity means standing around to change out disks. Also, there is always the specter of the "Click of Death." Haven't experienced it on my machine but one of my in-laws disks went south.

Now using CD-RW. With compression I can back up my most critical files on one disk. Be sure to shop around for the best software, though. Several programs simply didn't work on my machine - thank goodness fot trialware.

CF

bigd1 · Joined: Jan 25, 2003 Posts: 1721

I use Ghost 2003 and a CD burner with no problems.

Take the time to do a compare after you back up to CD's.

falliston · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:22 pm Post subject:

Second harddrive daily, CDR or DVDR weekly or more often depending on conditions and how much the data is worth.

If it's worth lots, like a PHD Dissertation or novel, back up every few paragraphs, to two locations on two different media. There is software out there for this, Word used to save every 5 minutes if you set it up (in the good ol' DOS days).

Paranoid enough yet? I talked to a lady one night in tech support who's HDD had packed it in. Badly. She was two weeks from presenting her Master's Thesis, and had never backed up anything. Thesis, research, bibliography, nothing; and there was a CDRW in the PC.

CDRW or DVD+-RW for short storage R for long term.

That's for files. For OS partitions etc I agree with BigD, disk imaging.

You can go extremes and use tape or external Harddrives, but it gets expensive. For an even more expensive Click-of-Death, Iomega is coming out with a 37GB ZIP drive soon...

madjack53 · Joined: Aug 22, 2003 Posts: 1341

:ph34r: .....I use Nero backitup to cd or dvd depending on what and size. An external USB2/FIREWIRE enclosure for 3.5 in optical drive and a 200gb drive if you want an external device capable of removal and storing opp premisis
madjack

bigd1 · Joined: Jan 25, 2003 Posts: 1721

As falliston stated, tape if it's critical. I used tape for years. Kept the back up out of the house. Tape has just out priced itself. I back up important files daily to a CD and move to a bedroom on the other end of the house (I had an electrical fire in the wall in my computer room about 3 years ago. We live in a brick house. Only gutted my PC room).

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I back up to a 2nd hard drive every 2 or 3 days and images every week or two, depending on what I've been doing at the time.

goretsky · Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2004 2:48 am Post subject:

Hello,

Asking what medium is best for backups is something of a subjective question.

In order to better answer your question, perhaps you could tell us more about the environment to be backed up? In particular:

How many computers do you wish to backup?
How much data per computer do you need to back up?
How often do you wish to back up?
Do you wish to back up only your data files, or do you wish to do image backups, where a copy is made of the hard disk drive?
Do the backups need to be scheduled, run manually, or both?
Is there a window during which the backups can be performed, or can they be run at anytime?
What operating system(s) do you need to support?
How reliable does the backup need to be?
How far back do your backups need to go?
What is your initial budget for the backup solution and your recurring budget for media and maintenance?

If you can answer some of these questions I'm sure the forum members will be better able to answer your questions about backups.

You can also read some earlier discussions of backups here, here, here and here on the forum. Perhaps some of those message threads will help answer your question.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

TuxthePenguin · Joined: May 03, 2004 Posts: 28

i back my stuff up on my xbox.

xbox-scene.com

Ehwaz001 · Joined: Jan 10, 2004 Posts: 1236

RAID 1 or 5 (if you can afford it) and CD-R. But before something becomes a backup, I consider if it's worth it...
Once had the W32.CIH virus and lost all my data, but most of it was junk, since I didn't seem to miss my data after a couple of days...
So be sure to take a backup solution that fits you.
You have to consider if the data is very big or not, very important or not.

Greetings,
Ehwaz001
B)