Back up solutions, suggestions welcomed

[Ivo]

Hi all,

through the years I had 3 hard-drive related data loss incidents, fortunately none made me lose anything really important, but I really dislike the feeling whenever something happens.

With that in mind, I am wondering if I should invest during 2013 in something better. I probably want to keep using writeable media (i.e. hard-drives instead of DVDs / blu-rays) because I really don't want to accumulate lots of optical drives with backups of different dates (I don't think I would deal well with that).

So, as someone that doesn't know much about this, I think there are some main possibilities for "upgrading" my current back-up solution (which consists of synchronizing my stuff periodically from the internal drive to an external one). All of them involve getting more hard drives:
1. Get more external hard drives, and keep 2 (instead of just one) external copies - this is possibly the simplest "upgrade".
2. Get more internal hard drives (and perhaps set them up as a RAID), keeping 2 internal copies.
3. Get another drive set up as network drive that is automatically kept synchronized with the internal drive, or set up a network drive with a machine acting as a filesystem that the desktop can access.

I'd like advice on the possible solutions and if you think I should reconsider my stance on optical media (I'm reconsidering at least putting some stuff that won't get updated in optical media, as that won't accumulate new versions).

[Ivo]

For those curious about my 3 incidents:

the most recent one is described here
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 17&t=42217
I lost only some stuff that I didn't have duplicate due to lack of space (so all my important stuff, which was also on my main desktop, was safe). And the drive is working.

I posted about a Seagate drive failure before. This was possibly the scariest as that was, at the time, the system disk on my hard drive and although I had pictures and documents backed up I was also quite inconvenienced by not having my main computer available. In the end I didn't lose any data, only a bunch of time (in that case it turned out the issue was due to some bad firmware so after I did not manage to sort it on my own Seagate actually solved the issue for free when I sent them the drive, and they returned it working with the data just as I had left it).

The first one, where I lost a big chunk of data (but nothing really important) was a mechanical failure of my first external hard drive (which was actually an internal one in a case - I still use the case with another internal hard drive inside), at a time when I only had a laptop with a fairly small internal hard drive. Again, I had all the really important stuff duplicated, but a chunk of secondary stuff that I had no space for elsewhere was only there. I lost the drive and the data.

[Ghegs]

I have a simple NAS with two 1.5TB drives in RAID1. Has worked great so far (knock on wood) and it's quite useful to have in a household with many computers. I have my main desktop PC and laptop, the wife has her desktop PC and MacBook Air, and all systems can use the storage space effortlessly.

I can't really recommend optical media for backups anymore. I used to have plenty of DVDs filled with stuff, but I've noticed that many of the discs are now unusable due to bitrot, even though they were supposedly good quality discs, though not "archival quality".

[isiolia]

I tend to just put things on more than one drive. I've got storage drives in my main PC, a fileserver, and externals. Usually I'll keep the files on internal drives, make a copy to my server (which is what I access it from on my HTPC and laptop), and occasionally back up the server to an external drive.

The main mistake I've seen people do with home/personal data is consider things "safe" because they put their one copy on a USB key or external HDD. Then they wind up bringing that device to me when it inevitably fails, hoping I can get the data off of it.

If the data you have isn't critical, I'd just make more a habit of grabbing a new external when you see them on sale or something. Full on RAID is a lot more about reducing downtime than something necessary to prevent data loss. You can use very simple software like Synctoy to mirror (or Robocopy has been standard in Windows since Vista).

Burning to disc isn't bad either, assuming it's a practical thing to do for the data in question. It should still just be an additional copy, not the only one.

For actual important, irreplaceable stuff, store one of your copies off-site. IE, throw baby pictures on a USB key and leave them at a family member's house, or get a safe deposit box.

[Ivo]

Ghegs, how much did your NAS setup cost you? That seems like a nice upgrade to my current methods, putting together point 2 and 3 - it will both allow different machines to access the filesystem without needing to manually synchronize, and keep a copy in a separate location from the main desktop as well (although technically it will still be in the same house, so I would keep a copy located somewhere else as well in case there is a fire or something like that).


My current method is fairly redundant. I currently use Synctoy and have most stuff (and all important stuff) duplicated elsewhere. At least for the majority of my important stuff - the bits that are older than a couple of months are in like 4 different places.

I have my truly important stuff (personal pictures, documents, music and videos) always up to date on my main desktop, and back it all up (with Synctoy) to my main external that has about 700 GB capacity, an ADATA SH93 that is allegedly even waterproof (this was the external that had the issue now).

Whenever I go to my secondary desktop (in another house in another country) I synctoy the stuff from the external into that desktop, which updates the "version" existing there, and then back it up from that desktop to my secondary external (a Transcend Storejet with 320 GB).

I also have an older "version" in a laptop, because sometimes it is handy to have some of the stuff in the laptop when in a trip and I want to show some pictures to a friend. I should update that one more frequently actually.

[Ghegs]

I honestly can't remember how much it cost, it's been a few years since I bought it. But checking at prices now the NAS systems themselves aren't too expensive ($100-200 for basic ones) but of course you need to buy the hard drives as well. Some NAS systems even feature cloud saving and/or have their own FTP servers, DropBoxes, etc. so that could be something to keep in mind if you go looking for a good one to get.

Mine's a D-Link DNS-323 which is actually nearing it's last day of official support fast...

[RCBH928]

I have a simple NAS with two 1.5TB drives in RAID1. Has worked great so far (knock on wood) and it's quite useful to have in a household with many computers. I have my main desktop PC and laptop, the wife has her desktop PC and MacBook Air, and all systems can use the storage space effortlessly.

I can't really recommend optical media for backups anymore. I used to have plenty of DVDs filled with stuff, but I've noticed that many of the discs are now unusable due to bitrot, even though they were supposedly good quality discs, though not "archival quality".

I am not sure about this bitrot thing. I have a bootlegged WWF RAW cd for the psx , that have been lost through the years and survived moving into a new house all without any sleeve or a case and when I inserted the CD in my laptop... the disc was readable! That cd is probably from 1997 .

[RCBH928]

As a paranoid guy , I would like to give my input in this one.

There is an important thing to remember here, are there specific none changing data that you want to save? Or is there a constant changing data you want to save?

An example for the first is your family picture trips form 1997 . Thats not going to change. An example of a changing data is something like your downloaded material or excel worksheets you use for work or game saves.

For the first I would recommend using something like DropBox (depending on how large your saved material is , I think its ok for about 500->1GB ) and its free. I also like to make multiple copies so save them to a USB stick and to a Disc or multiple discs . Better safe than sorry.

As for saving huge amounts of data(like video library or your whole HDD) I do not think you have much choice other than backing up manual with an external HDD. Its really cheap so you can buy like 2 external HDDs . I backup almost once a week . In total, those are 3 copies. 1 in your computer and 2 external HDDs . For all of them to fail , is just too hard of a coincidence .

On mac, I use software called Carbon Copy Cloner which replicate your HDD . So if my hard drive fails, I can reboot from my backup and it would be like the exact same thing. I do not know of similar software for Windows although I am sure it exists.

[Ivo]

Even my older family pictures are going to change, as I'm very slowly tagging them with IPTC keywords (this is a huge undertaking as in the "My Pictures" library I have over 35k files distributed over 1k folders adding up to over 85 GB of stuff - although I have some videos mixed in there somewhere which contributes to the size). I'm using XnView for adding the tags as that lets me tag multiple files, but for most to be tagged properly I need to do quite a bunch of tags "by hand" inside folders.

For stuff that changes more frequently and is not "sensitive", I use dropbox and sync work stuff there (my work is not interesting to industrional espionage I think, so that is probably safe).

Although I wouldn't like to have my personal stuff on the cloud I could encrypt it on my side before uploading it to their servers - I just don't have enough space in Dropbox to keep all my pictures there though.

Before switching permanently to Synctoy (which backs up files), I used a cloning program for Windows (Macrium Reflect, for those interested). Ideally that type of "clone the whole thing and be back just as it was before" would be just what I want, but in practice I didn't like the way it worked through USB once when I wanted to restore a failed Windows partition - it was extremely slow and in the end didn't work. I think it also only could work by restoring to the same hard drive (maybe that was just a limitation of Macrium Reflect?), which is a serious flaw as it really limits the type of problem it can solve.

Ivo.

[RCBH928]

As far as pictures being unsafe on Dropbox(or any cloud system) , I am not sure about why would any one worry about that even though I am a very paranoid guy. How could some one hurt you or bother you if he has your family pic in Disney land or in a BBQ party. Unless they were nudes or private /secrets I do not see why people get upset over this part.

Personally I do not take pictures in the first place.