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Thread: best computer backup solution

  1. #1

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    Frenzied Member wengang's Avatar
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    best computer backup solution

    Hi all.
    I've been backing up my computer on DVDRs over the years, but now I have about 500 GB to back up, and with splitting up folder contents to fit DVDrs, it's a real pain.
    What is the best way to get this all backed up?
    I'm not interested in offsite backup at all.
    I've been thinking about maybe using a set of thumb drives or maybe just buying another hard drive to back up to.
    I suppose I could burn Blu-Ray discs. I'm not sure if my Blu-Ray/DVD burns Bluray or just plays them.

    Any other thoughts?
    Thanks
    Wen Gang, Programmer
    VB6, QB, HTML, ASP, VBScript, Visual C++, Java

  2. #2
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    Even BDXL drives (and most Blu-ray drives do not handle BDXL) and media can only record 100GB to 125GB on a disk, and blank 4x BD-R XL discs cost from $30 to $45 USD each.

    Using a good compressing archiver utility with that probably gets you (at best) maybe 300GB of hard drive crammed onto one disc, and it will take forever. Usually the compression occurs first to create an image on the hard drive so you need extra space for that.


    The real question is whether you want backup (for recovery) or archiving (to go back in time to get things you have removed or changed on hard drives)?

    Archiving means creating and hanging onto many copies over time.

    Backup means 1 or if paranoid maybe 2 copies that you rotate in case one fails. For this it can be far cheaper and more reliable just to buy a couple of 1TB external hard drives. These run around $60 to $70 USD per drive in prepackaged form, but you might be better off buying empty drive enclosures and inserting better quality 3.5" desktop hard drives you buy separately.


    You prices may vary locally.

  3. #3
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    BTW: What do the big boys use?

    A: They use magnetic tape!

  4. #4
    WiggleWiggle dclamp's Avatar
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    The best way might not be the most inexpensive way. It also depends what you are trying to protect against. Hard drive failure? Disaster?

    If you are backing up a PC and want reliable storage without having to actually "backup" you could setup a RAID array on the machine. Preferably RAID5 or 6. However that gets expensive when you have to buy 4-5 hard drives of equal size. However if a hard drive ever fails then your data is protected.

    A program I used a while back was CrashPlan which will back up your machine to 3 different locations for free. It can be another computer running crashplan, an external hard drive, or a network storage.

    Those two protect against hard drive failure. However they dont protect against disaster. If you are backing up your data from your machine to another hard drive sitting on the same desk and a computer in the other room... if you house catches fire that wont protect your data very much. It will just destroy your data more than once. You could use CrashPlan to backup to another computer running CrashPlan in another home or even in your business. It is "off-site" but you theoretically have control over that data and are not giving it to some company.

  5. #5
    PowerPoster Nightwalker83's Avatar
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    I just use the backup applications that comes built-in to Windows and backup the drive on to another partition (or external drive).
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  6. #6
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    While it has been stated time and time again over the decades, it gets drowned out over the marketing schemes of hard drive makers:

    “Repeat after me three times: RAID is not backup. Period.”
    That quoted quote is from NEVER Use A RAID As Your Backup System! I chose that one because it tries to dumb the issue down to try to cut through the FUD and get the point across to the user base, albeit in this case a specialized one.

    Do not waste your money on RAID.

  7. #7
    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    Raid is good for redundancy ... not backup. And even then it's only as good as the configuration. Most people don't realize that there are two types, one where the aggregate of multiple drives act as a single drive and hte RAID controller determines where files should be stored (usually in an effort to "evenly" distribute the data stored. The other is the striped method, where copies of the same file is "Striped" across all physical drives. This one is a bit more common, and what tends to let people think that it's a backup system. It's not. It's designed to avoid downtime when 1 (of say, 6 drives) goes bad... you can pull the bad on out in a hot swap, and stuff in a new drive... the system will keep going, and as time permits, the data that's striped across the remaining 5 drives will propagate to the new drive... but it's still not a backup system. Things still can be deleted. Files can become corrupted (which will then propagate to the other drives) fatalistic errors can and will still happen.

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  8. #8
    WiggleWiggle dclamp's Avatar
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
    Raid is good for redundancy ... not backup. And even then it's only as good as the configuration. Most people don't realize that there are two types, one where the aggregate of multiple drives act as a single drive and hte RAID controller determines where files should be stored (usually in an effort to "evenly" distribute the data stored. The other is the striped method, where copies of the same file is "Striped" across all physical drives. This one is a bit more common, and what tends to let people think that it's a backup system. It's not. It's designed to avoid downtime when 1 (of say, 6 drives) goes bad... you can pull the bad on out in a hot swap, and stuff in a new drive... the system will keep going, and as time permits, the data that's striped across the remaining 5 drives will propagate to the new drive... but it's still not a backup system. Things still can be deleted. Files can become corrupted (which will then propagate to the other drives) fatalistic errors can and will still happen.

    -tg
    Didn't really think about that. I mixed redundancy in with backup.

  9. #9
    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    Quote Originally Posted by dclamp View Post
    Didn't really think about that. I mixed redundancy in with backup.
    A lot of people do... Even I did before I really looked into RAID (I was building a box and the MoBo supported RAID, so I wanted to see if it would be advantageous... turned out it wasn't going to be any advantage) I've seen plenty of systems go down due to that misunderstanding.

    -tg
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    * I also don't respond to friend requests. Save a few bits and don't bother. I'll just end up rejecting anyways.*
    * How to get EFFECTIVE help: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Getting Help at VBF - Removing eels from your hovercraft *
    * How to Use Parameters * Create Disconnected ADO Recordset Clones * Set your VB6 ActiveX Compatibility * Get rid of those pesky VB Line Numbers * I swear I saved my data, where'd it run off to??? *

  10. #10
    PowerPoster stanav's Avatar
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    Re: best computer backup solution

    As Dilettante already suggested, using a couple of external USB or eSATA drives is the way to go. Their prices are pretty affordable nowadays.
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