Back-Up Suggestions ???

[SteveHardeman]

Hello Cozy People. Been awhile. Hope all are well. Balls, Hammer, Bill, Phuckbunny, NameIsJim...even you Ledrak:-)

I've racked up about 600 GB of material. I currently have 100GB on one drive, 500 on another. I just bought a 1TB drive so I can consolidate everything onto one drive. My question is, does anyone have any suggestions on how to back up this stuff with some sort of off-site storage?

I'm sure there are many options. Anyone doing anything with their stuff now that they like and would like to share with the group?

Thanks.

Steve

[Chang]

Get two external usb drives. Keep one in a safety deposit box while backing up on the other. Switch them occasionally.

[balls_deep]

you have a few options...This is what i do.

keep a usb backup of your files and be sure to rewrite it at least every 6 months. I keep this drive with me so that if something fails i can immediately replace it.

I also keep a dvd backup of all my content and sites at a seperate location. This will keep you safe in the event of a fire. I do a full DVD backup once a year. (DVD's have a shelf life of 50 years unlike hard drives)

I also set my DB's to backup daily on my server for even more safety.

[xxxpilot]

Here's my usual routine

Backup my pc once a week onto external hardrive

Backup sites daily onto pc

Backup sites weekly onto dvd including all databases, content, etc..

The external hardrive stays in the house while the pc stays in the office (room that's offset from the house but wouldn't go up in flames if the house did)

DVDs are kept in the office until the newest one is made ie. one week then are placed into a small safe that I have (supposed to be fireproof)

Also once a month I upload all sites that I have to a seperate domain / host that I keep around just for that purpose. It has lots of space but very little bandwidth but since the public can't access it without some major hacking effort makes it fairly safe and reliable.

While some of it may seem redundant I refuse to take chances with my sites, I can get my pc back up and running within an hour without the external hardrive but how many of us could recreate our siets without all the data and content we have

[mynameisjim]

Off site you are going to have to physically move it somewhere else otherwise you're connection will always be in use. You can't be uploading hundreds and hundreds of gigs on a regular basis.

You can set up a pretty simple RAID setup and the backups are automatic and if a disk fails you'll never know it. Just throw it out and replace it and you'll never miss a second of work because it's all redundant. My desktop is set up like that and it works like a charm. Although I do still back up to an external drive every few weeks just to be safe.

[HappySpanker]

I agree with Chang. USB drives, or get a hot-swap tray setup. Duplicating to drives is so much faster and more convenient. Our basic archive with no HD video is about 140 gigs. Just don't have the time or money to make fresh backups to 30 some odd DVDs on a weekly basis. A DVD would handle weekly incremental backups, but I've lost CD/DVDs and never lost a hard drive. DVDs are growing to be yesterday's hi-capacity zip drives.

External hard drives and hot-swap trays are your friend. Treat them nicely but do not have sex with them. They really are not fond of the exercise and heavy breathing.