How do you back up your storage?

[imported_Gelfling]

I am getting ready to put a 1.5 TB drive in my HTPC. I plan to archive most of my DVD collection to the HD. Then I began thinking, "What happens if the HD fails?" Ripping all those disks is a rather large time investment. Should I just use Raid-1 (and get a 2nd drive)? The way I see it, I got the 1.5 TB for ~$110. Buying another drive for $110 and being sure that I don't have to do though hours upon hours of re-ripping seems reasonable. Any other suggestions or is this the best option?

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

RAID is not a real backup solution.

RAID 1 only provides hardware redundancy to protect you in case of a physical failure. It does NOT protect you from data corruption or accidental data loss. If something goes wrong and you lose something on one drive, you lose it on the other as well; there is no backup image to restore, no way to retrieve what is gone. If you're only concerned about hardware failures, this might be the way to go if you have a cheap RAID controller or are using software.

Otherwise, you should invest in some network storage or an additional drive and make regular backups. It would be easy to create a drive image periodically and throw it on a large external drive once a week/month or whatever you're comfortable with.

 

[Phynaz]

I backup to external drives that I then bring into work for off-site backup.

 

[imported_Gelfling]

I like the idea of just putting another drive in another computer on the network. How long would it take to back up a 1.5tb drive though. That must take forever!

 

[techmanc]

Some suggestions here

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...ht_key=y&keyword1=MX-1

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: Gelfling
I like the idea of just putting another drive in another computer on the network. How long would it take to back up a 1.5tb drive though. That must take forever!

Over 4 1/2 hours using a SATA connection, and 4x as much for USB, and it gets much worse for 100Mb ethernet...

With big HDs, you have almost no other choice than to get another HD of the same size (or bigger), and use that for baisc backup.

 

[Denithor]

Phynaz +1

Second HDD for full backup is the way to go. Whether you keep it in the closet or at work is up to you. But I tend to agree, my time ripping DVDs is worth a lot more than the $100 I'd spend on the second drive to avoid having to re-rip everything if the primary dies unexpectedly.

Personally I always keep my important stuff (photos etc) backed up on DVD at work and keep my previous main drive in the box with files intact (copied onto new main each time).

So I have immediate access to stuff if just the drive fails and a "hard" copy offsite if my house burns down (cringe).

 

[boomhower]

I use 2x1.5TB Seagates on a custom built Windows Home Server. I rip them with my laptop and transfer them over gigabit. Not a bad solution. I just use my notebook connected through HDMI as my HTPC.(I just stream video, no tuner)

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Elixer

Originally posted by: Gelfling
I like the idea of just putting another drive in another computer on the network. How long would it take to back up a 1.5tb drive though. That must take forever!

Over 4 1/2 hours using a SATA connection, and 4x as much for USB, and it gets much worse for 100Mb ethernet...

With big HDs, you have almost no other choice than to get another HD of the same size (or bigger), and use that for baisc backup.

GbE FTW!!! I backup my 1TB drive by splitting the data on 2x 750GB drives, which reside on another computer on the network. I use Microsoft's SyncToy v2.0 to accomplish this easily on a daily basis. Every month of so, the 1TB drive also gets offloaded to a 1TB eSATA drive, which is kept offsite. I have 700GB or so of data to backup and it takes around 2.5 hours over eSATA.

 

[darkenedsoul]

Once I get windows home server box (whenever HP gets off their asses and release the new ones....) I will be backing up my 2 desktops + laptop to it as well as storing my mp3's onto it to serve out/be my media serve. I still will be doing image backups to external HDD's as well for the systems as well so I can restore to a recent image then restore remainder from the server.

 

[imported_Gelfling]

Thanks for all the advice. It just strikes me as funny that I buy a HD and then need to buy a 2nd HD just in case the first one fails. Its not like we all have spare cars in our driveways just in case our main one breaks down.

 

[n7]

I have the silly amount of storage i do over all my PCs because i basically have a second copy of everything i value highly on a different physical drive.

So yes, basically for every 1 TB HDD, there's a 2nd one in another of my PCs with the same content...

 

[imported_wired247]

Originally posted by: n7
I have the silly amount of storage i do over all my PCs because i basically have a second copy of everything i value highly on a different physical drive.

So yes, basically for every 1 TB HDD, there's a 2nd one in another of my PCs with the same content...

as inefficient as this is, I basically fall under the same category. except for me, I basically just lug around a 1TB external and go around backing up different computers with acronis. then i store the backup files on various hd's

 

[Tweakin]

I back up to an external drive monthly, and then to DVD's every 6 months (unless nothing major has changed)

 

[dunkster]

I back up to an external drive monthly, and then to DVD's every 6 months (unless nothing major has changed)


Similar backup strategy here.

I frequently image two critical partitions to protected archive partition on my main drive, and periodically do a raw sector-by-sector clone of the main drive to a removable drive.

In the event of failure of the main drive I can simply replace the failed drive with the clone.

Hope this helps!

 

[RebateMonger]

I used to use external USB drives for backups. Nowadays, I just make daily automatic backups of all seven of my PCs using Windows Home Server. I can wake up every morning and know that all my PCs are fully backed up and I can fully restore any of them in less than an hour.

Right now, my WHS has four drives and a storage pool of 1.2 TB. When I need more space, I put another drive into it and add it to the pool.

 

[rarebear]

I keep large amounts of data and a hard back up (DVD) is always best for you favorites movies or data files..


I think if you partition a large drive might improve your crash chances that just one platter of the drive dies but not really sure..

 

[dunkster]

I think if you partition a large drive might improve your crash chances that just one platter of the drive dies but not really sure..

The problem is that no user knows how the internal platters are handled by the HD firmware. Users have no control of discrete platter assignment. Using a 3-platter HD for example, users cannot discretely assign platter1=partition1, platter2=partition2, etc.

Partition1 may be assigned to portions of all three platters. Just try to get an answer on this from WD, Seagate, etc. They cite product specifications and guarantee compatibility with industry standards (IDE, SATA, etc.) only.

Hope this helps!

 

[MTDEW]

Originally posted by: dunkster
<I think if you partition a large drive might improve your crash chances that just one platter of the drive dies but not really sure..

The problem is that no user knows how the internal platters are handled by the HD firmware. Users have no control of discrete platter assignment. Using a 3-platter HD for example, users cannot discretely assign platter1=partition1, platter2=partition2, etc.

Partition1 may be assigned to portions of all three platters. Just try to get an answer on this from WD, Seagate, etc. They cite product specifications and guarantee compatibility with industry standards (IDE, SATA, etc.) only.

Hope this helps!

Good point, i never really gave that much thought.

Of course, now that you put it in my head, now i'll think about it all the time and wonder why we dont have utilities to split partitions to different platters....LOL

 

[Jumpem]

Originally posted by: n7
I have the silly amount of storage i do over all my PCs because i basically have a second copy of everything i value highly on a different physical drive.

So yes, basically for every 1 TB HDD, there's a 2nd one in another of my PCs with the same content...

I was thinking I would need 4 1TB drives for every 1TB of data.

2 to keep mirrored in the PC.
1 external in a safe at home.
1 external offiste.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I'm just wondering what people have that is so large and important that you invest so much money into backing it up? I have files from the 90's still that just get transfered from one PC to another as I upgrade.
The only thing that ever took up so much space was TV shows I downloaded. But now that you can find box sets for most shows on sale for $20 I tossed all my burned DVD's out.

I just can't fathom what some of you guys are storing.

 

[Jumpem]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
I'm just wondering what people have that is so large and important that you invest so much money into backing it up? I have files from the 90's still that just get transfered from one PC to another as I upgrade.
The only thing that ever took up so much space was TV shows I downloaded. But now that you can find box sets for most shows on sale for $20 I tossed all my burned DVD's out.

I just can't fathom what some of you guys are storing.

Financial spreadsheets, photos, HD home video.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: Jumpem

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
I'm just wondering what people have that is so large and important that you invest so much money into backing it up? I have files from the 90's still that just get transfered from one PC to another as I upgrade.
The only thing that ever took up so much space was TV shows I downloaded. But now that you can find box sets for most shows on sale for $20 I tossed all my burned DVD's out.

I just can't fathom what some of you guys are storing.

Financial spreadsheets, photos, HD home video.

Wow, them some big spreadsheets

Man you guys must be camera happy. We have 10 years worth of photos and no where near 3 GB of space taken up for that.


The biggest space takers I have are VMs for screwing with different OS's and if those get nuked, I don't care. (I don't care about the pictures either, but apparently women need help remembering the past)

 

[Jumpem]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
Wow, them some big spreadsheets

Man you guys must be camera happy. We have 10 years worth of photos and no where near 3 GB of space taken up for that.


The biggest space takers I have are VMs for screwing with different OS's and if those get nuked, I don't care. (I don't care about the pictures either, but apparently women need help remembering the past)

Tje only thing taking up alot of space is the HD video... about 11 GB/hr.

 

[JimKiler]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski


Man you guys must be camera happy. We have 10 years worth of photos and no where near 3 GB of space taken up for that.

Get a DSLR camera and shoot in RAW mode, 10MB or more a file, mine at 10MB and I only have a 6megapixel camera. Then use Bracket mode which takes 3 pictures instead of one, over and under exposing the shot in case your settings are not perfect. Then convert your files to highest quality JPEG at ~5MB a file. I have had a DSLR for only a few years but every vacation the amount of shots grow. I have over 120GB of images in RAW and JPEG. Granted I do not need all of them in JPEG.

Now I am going to get an HD camcorder for my expected baby, I think the camera files will be dwarfed in size compared to video.