Hard Drive backup

[NickfromWI]

What options are there for backing up your computer? I've been looking in to it lately to see what it might cost and how much of a pain in butt it might be.

I found this article that shows you can do it for free via Windows XP . So I'd probably ebay an external hardrive just a hair bigger than the combined GB on me and Karina's harddrive, then use the XP software to back up the info monthly or so.

There apparently there are online options like www.carbonite.com or http://www.ajsystems.com/obp.html. I looked at the carbonite site a lot and it seems like it works in the background when you aren't using the computer and it finds changes to your files, and stores them in the internet somewhere in la-la land. I guess it's like a way-external hard drive. For $50/year, it's moderately affordable, but it seems like anyone would have access to all my info if they really wanted. Not that they couldn't get it anyways...

So far it seems like I can get a 200 GB harddrive on ebay for less than $70 and use free XP software, or another (free?) program to do periodic saves. Not too much money, and not THAT much of a pain.

Any other options out there?

love
nick

 

[MasterBlaster]

Maybe I don't 'unnerstan, what's the big deal? I just have a copy of all my stuff on CD's, and I add to it as I get more stuff.

 

[NickfromWI]

CD's...I never thought of that.

However, documents are always changing so the CD would have the original, but not the recent changes. I think that'd be the advantage of an external hard drive- you don't have to go back...and it's a lot faster than trying to burn 40GB of photos onto a CD.

love
nick

 

[MasterBlaster]

It didn't take me long. Besides, the computer does all the work.

 

[JamesTX]

A USB harddrive is probably easiest. CD's are easy, but you end up with a stack of cd's. A USB is easy to disconnect and take with you - which is what you should do if you want to do it the right way. The backup should be in a different physical location from the source data.

 

[Che]

I picked up an external USB harddrive....320 GB for about $100 at BestBuy.

I don't backup the 'programs'....I've got them on their original CDs anyway. But anything else gets backed up.

Helpful hint: Get pretty consistent about putting ANY created files into ONE spot. Ex: My documents (my pictures, my music, my videos, etc. each family member has their own 'folder' too, but it's still in that one "My documents") Then, when you do a full backup (that adds only items that have changed) it's not a big deal at all.

I would NOT backup with an online site. Say something should happen to THEM...you have no control....you're sunk.

 

[SkwerI]

Of all the complaints you've heard about Vista (and most of them are accurate), one of the good features is that MS finally simplified the backup process to the point where you don't have to decypher or set up any complicated program in order to do it. Mine came preprogrammed to do regular backups and prompted me to insert the blank DVD and it did the rest. I scheduled mine to back up once per month and it only adds the changed items. I've done 5 backups and I'm still on the first DVD.

I had my last computer 5 years and never backed it up once, I never decyphered the backup program.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Good points, but don't jsut back up the my documents, but rather the documents and settings\ %YOUR ID%. This gets Outlook stuff, Desktop, favorites, user data etc. Also, go to tools->folder options and turn off file and folder hiding for that directory (if not already done)so that you can choose these folders to back up. If you only see a few folders and/or none are 'greyed out'; then they are hidden. You can still be kinda lost and upset if ya lose Outook mail. appts. (if that is what you use), favorites, desktop setup andother program identity folders placed in documents and settings.

 

[Frans]

I have a terabite remote back up.

The CD solution does not really work especially if you are rendering movies. Also I was never able to remember which CD was what. Despite whatever I had wrote on the CD, their was always something else on that paticular CD that I did not have room for on the label...


Far better to bite the bullet and have a huge storage device which you can simply copy over any and all files you want to back up.

With my business, I need to back up alot of files. Burning CDs is out of the question because it takes too much time and the home computer is not designed to handle that kind of CD production burning..

 

[Tom_Scheller]

If I had a PC I would use carbonite. It is encrypted, so it's probably safe. The best thing is that it is far away. Fire, theft, lightning, no problem. $50/year doesn't seem to bad.

TS

 

[Al Smith]

Backing up is a good idea if you take the time to do it.I'm lacking somewhat in that department.

On one of my older computers had two hard drives an 80 and a 20 .The twenty was the back up.

My pictures etc are backed by either cd's or dvd's but I'm not good at remembering to use them.

 

[cybergeek23851]

I backed up my data on Saturday night. On Monday morning, my drive crashed...

Of course I was getting errors before I backed up, and figured it was on it's way out. Instead of needing data recovery, and 3 days with my computer in the shop, I had it back overnight, and am now back up to operational status. I got it back at 10:30 this morning.

 

[Al Smith]

Our massive systems at work do an auto backup at times during which the machines are sitting idle ,wee hours of the morning . The IT people take care of that .

If I were in business I believe I would investigate something like that .There are many ways ,perhaps running duel hard drives in redundency etc. To me though it would seem the remote drives would be a much simpler solution for most of us. Talking strictly about myself the more simple the better,old dog new trick thing .

 

[cybergeek23851]

Our massive systems at work do an auto backup at times during which the machines are sitting idle ,wee hours of the morning . The IT people take care of that .

If I were in business I believe I would investigate something like that .There are many ways ,perhaps running duel hard drives in redundency etc. To me though it would seem the remote drives would be a much simpler solution for most of us. Talking strictly about myself the more simple the better,old dog new trick thing .

That's called mirroring a drive, Al. Basically if you do certain RAID setups what it will do is mirror the drive on to another drive.

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

In a R.A.I.D. array; information is split acrossed multiple disks. This gives greater speed af access, while reading info from 1 disk the other is seeking for the next cluster and having it ready to fly down the pipeline. If it is mirrored across(RAID 1); then it goes fully to more than 1 disk; through the same disk controller. But, duplexed(RAID 2); is same, only with separate disk controllers to rule out the disk controller as a failure point of info loss. But, then there is RAID (Redundant Array of Independent (used to be inexpensive) Disks) 3 on up; that are like RAID-0 in that there is no direct mirrorring or duplexing; but is better than 0(no failure protection in RAID 0) becasue there is parity checking, so a failed file can be rebuilt from the error checking info. This gives speed, but less storage space(stripping in other than RAID0) than recording everything over; but still some safety. RAID 5 is best because it spreads out the info in smaller pieces, and the parity checking too; but takes at least 3 drives. But, you should be able to about totally rebuilt a crashed drive.

Otherwise you have to pay like $600 for a hard drive to be taken apart and rebuilt in a clean room (Zer0 dust) in white suits and breathers if it crashes. Or other trick software if it wasn't a mechanical crash of a micro arm. The micro arms float inbetween the platters (6 or so; double sided inside a half inch of hard drive height); very close/smaller than hairline tolerances.

The latest and greatest drives; are all digital/no moving parts(like large thumb dirves, but on faster/internal bus); so are very fast too(faster than the 7200 that beat out the 5400rpm standard). i believe these are going to be debuting in the Apple laptops. So, no wear, no mechanical skip on vibration etc. too.

Remote backup gives offsite storage. Cd/DVD's. tapes are proferred often; as you can record on site, then store offsite in vault; to cover fire and Natural disaster; in a Grandfather, father, son triple backup type strategy.

Spock Out!

 

[Che]

I guess I am pretty leery about having someone else hold my primary or sole backup. BUT....I'm also certain that feeling comes from my experience with one of the photo hosting sites way back when. I can't remember their name, but it was one of the biggest at the time. They folded. No warning, just up and disappeared. I had just paid for upgraded service....bad timing all around.

 

[Al Smith]

That's called mirroring a drive, Al. Basically if you do certain RAID setups what it will do is mirror the drive on to another drive.

At work we have a certain amount of our machine drives done thusly.One of my older computors had the hard drive partitioned to operate this way also .

 

[JamesTX]

A partition isn't going to do anything. A raid array is used to protect against a hardware failure. If your hd goes, it will take both partitions with it.

 

[Al Smith]

A partition isn't going to do anything. A raid array is used to protect against a hardware failure. If your hd goes, it will take both partitions with it.

Yes,in that case.How some ever I did experiance a corruption in the operating sytem once and was able to restore from the partitioned side.It was better than nothing . That was long ago running Windows ME.

 

[sotc]

what do i need to buy to back up my laptop?

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

Raid 0 has no protection, only speed from ability to access next sector as it is reading this one; and get a tighter stream etc.

External hard drives have become very affordable IMLHO. You can get 4 gigs on a DVD; 8 on a double sided; without compression. B ut it all depends on how much junk ya got; what will suit ya.