Data Backups?

Both my server and my security program offer it as part of their program. I wouldn't have a clue how to access it and when trouble hit they were no help. I do my own backups.

I do my own backup's to CD ROM once a month. The data on my computers is confidential and I would not want others browsing through it in the ether - or some online 'safe-deposit' losing it. I avoid The Cloud and its clones like the plague. All computers are protected by double firewalls and virus protection.

I store the backup disks in a fireproof data safe and those more than three years old are physically destroyed beyond recognition.

It is sad that we have to be so cautious, but the repercussions of someone getting hold of personal data are enormous and go on for months, if not years.

K1W1 - I think you mentioned on another thread that your laptop was down. Are you having real problems?

I have my own backups but one iomega 1TB gave up all by itself. So I would recommend to have at least tripled backup. It is not that expensive to buy storage devices today.

But online like in "clouds" I would not feel comfortable with. It´s like the phone-app that just downloaded your phone-book to the suppliers server "as a service" to connect with more friends or how the explanation was. They have now deleted the info they say, but who knows what all of these online suppliers have in mind... http://blog.path.com/post/17274932484/we-are-sorry

Forgot to say (and AMG reminded me) that my data duplicates to a 1TB external drive as well. If I'm hitting the road for a while, I take that with me. On the road, I save all new data to a separate folder and copy it back to the main PC when I return.

I use NAS based local storage, dropbox, and crashplan for autmatic backup to the cloud (encrypted with a personal key etc)...

I am real easy going in terms of all the paranoia so I may not be your typical example... I'm not skeptical of my data, nor do I have anything to hide nor prove...albeit, the data is encypted...

I use this combination since my laptops SSD fried and my backup solution (NAS) had fried the evening before... I lost a whole lot of stuff from about 6 months (thats when the previous backup I had was from)...

I now have everything on crashplan which I like, as well as the local NAS for speed.

I also wouldnt go back to a regular HD from SSD even after that one catastrophic failure (I wont buy crucial ssds however after their support after the fact - i have been using another ssd for about 2 yrs since the issue and havent had a hiccup) - but this wasnt the question, so sorry for the sidetracking.

This was precisely my setup....

I really do suggest you either have 2 backups or 1 cloud/remote and one external drive...

For some reason the external drive crashed 1 day before my ssd... (actually it was about 3 days apart but the HD failed on friday, and I was late for a trip, when I came back sunday evening the laptop wouldnt power up (ssd failure) I had used it a few hours before and all was fine ...)

Kiwi is asking for an online backup that he can access through the internet from multiple computers, not hard copies.

While I don't know a lot about it, but I think you can back up a certain size of stuff on gmail. I know you can then access it from any computer. The only thing I backup on gmail as of right now is my cellphone stuff......

No affiliation but both that I mentioned i use above (dropbox and crashplan) allow for that...

None whatsoever.

I don't trust online services for anything important, I keep my own backups.

External hard drives are cheap enough these days that it's not expensive to have multiple backup copies. You can save a bit of money by getting a USB-SATA adapter and buying bare drives if you use them in a clean (i.e. home or office) environment), but the Western Digital and other brands that Costco carries are very affordable.

I can easily fit almost* every file I've ever worked with on a 320GB drive: I'm currently using about 200GB for documents and email archives that go back 25+ years, digital pictures (those only go back about 10 years), compressed family videos that go back 6 years or so...

My "master" copy of all my files is on a WD Passport drive that I carry around with me. I have two backup drives at home and two at the office. There are another 2 backup drives that sort of float around... so that's 7 copies in all. There are a variety of tools that can be used to keep files in sync between drives, I use one called SecondCopy. You set it up to tell it which drive is the source, which is the destination, then each time you run a task it checks which files are different between them and makes them match. I usually have one backup drive plugged in along with the master, and whenever I feel like I've changed enough files, I sync them. Then at the end of the day I'll usually do another backup to the other disk. Same thing if I'm working at home.

If I was still moving around a lot from site to site, I'd carry a second small external drive and backup the master to that during the day.

This system works well because until about 7 years ago when my kid was born, all my files were pretty small - documents and just a few pictures and
downloaded videos. Someone who's been doing more graphic work for longer might not find this workable. But if you have, say, 1TB or less, this is probably still affordable.

The benefit of this type of system compared to archiving files or having a distinct backup system is that I don't have to worry about which files are "current" and which are dormant. Effectively, everything is active and backed up.

(*The raw video files from the DV video camera we used to uses and now from our DSLR are too big to keep them all on the same hard drives. I compress the raw files to divx or h264 and keep copies of the smaller files on my master disk and backups, and have 2 1TB drives with all the raw files.)

I use 2 NAS in addition to 1 portable HDD.

So at any given time I have a triple backup of everything.

Been nuked before & learnt a very harsh lesson ... data rebuild is a major PIA ...

p.s. i do NOT trust ANY offsite backup system.

My phone backs up to DropBox and Google. While it's a cloud, I don't consider it a backup solution. Although some would, and use it as such.

I use Carbonite for most everything else other than critical / confidential data. For that, I link up to a SAN / NAS box on my network at home, and in the office, which each are redundant to one another. Absolutely critical stiff goes to a DVD-ROM and in the safe. If / as needed, I carry a 1TB pocket drive should I need to swap files or data on the road.

For a straightforward online 'cloud based' backup, Carbonite does a good job at a fair price. Data is encrypted both directions and it's relatively painless running in the background. I have had to restore a machine from the carbonite cloud which was not a terrible experience.

K1W1

I have been in the IT business for over 20 years.

With the advent of large capacity thumb drives (over 8GB), I now keep all my active files on one of those (periodically copying it to my home PC for backup). Thumb drives are much lighter to carry than external USB drives.

To protect my home PC, I periodically clone the hard-drive (using Ghost) and keep the extra hard-drive "off-site".

The old KISS principle.

Rod

P.S. For email I use a web-based service (e.g., gmail or yahoo) - I compose/archive important emails on my thumb drive - mostly keep the on-line account "clean".

That's an aspect of backup most people forget. Webmail accounts can be compromised or they can be locked, leaving you with no access to them. I'm not sure about Yahoo, Hotmail or any others, but Gmail allows IMAP access which can be used to back up some or all of your web-based mail to your own PC. Use whatever email client you like (Outlook, Thuderbird, etc.) and retrieve a copies of your messages.

In my case, I make monthly archives of my email with Alpine because I like to have it in an easily searchable text format.

Raid arrays are pretty inexpensive. Setting up encrypted access through a VPN is also fairly common. Entrusting relevant data to an outside provider is actually specifically prohibited in quite a few recent contracts that I've seen. The nice thing about the raid arrays is that you can just pull a drive out on a schedule and take it to the bank safety deposit box. As soon as a fresh drive is inserted it automatically mirrors the other drives. Just because a piece of equipment has a pretty little sticker noting MTBF of multi thousand hours doesn't mean that the device can't decide to fail earlier.
The larger capacity encrypted SD cards are useful for daily backup when traveling or carrying files that ought not to be on the laptop's drive.

Raid 1 and Raid (5)

There are quite a few raid choices,

I use Raid 5 over two raid boxes with each 3 Terra capacity, one on site, the other one via a VPN at a remote location. These boxes are pretty reliable if you use "entreprise" rated drives.

If a drive fails, you just stick a new one in and it will rebuild itself.

If the worst happens, fire/flood, the unit at the end of the VPN will save your data and your *ss.

wickie

Saved Data from XP vs Win7

Any idea as to why that external HD just decide to fail? Was it rather old, or suffered thru some knocks?....just wondering

I got a Buffalo 1-T external HD that I am using in a similar manner on the road.

BUT, I experienced a bit of a problem I have not sorted out yet. I backed up all my data from my home desktop running XP, and the tried to access it with my laptop running Windows 7. It didn't work for some reason,...at least not real easy, and I've not sorted thru the problem yet. Would it have anything to do with the XP software running on 32 bits, verses Windows 7 running on 64 bits??

Also it is my intention to leave this Acer laptop with my wife here in Thailand, and then buy another for myself upon return to USA. Am I going to experience trouble accessing this data I save to the external HD once back to US working on my older XP desktop??

Any hints appreciated for a somwhat novice computer person.