Best back-up solution recommendation please.

DebtMan

DebtMan

DebtMan

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I'm sure it's been asked before and I've read a couple of threads one or two questions seemed to be asked but not answered. So here's my bit:

I'm looking to back up my important data - docs, pics, vidoes, downloaded programs & files, etc & to a lesser extent music & some other media.

At the moment I have two HDDs - one Windows & one for data and a CD writer drive (no DVD write capability). I'm worried about hard drive failure and in the past have burnt stuff to CD. As my data is now much larger, this is getting to be laborius (sp?) and inefficient.

In total so far, I have about 42Gb-ish of data, with a lot more to be generated soon-ish.

I reckon an external drive is probably the best way to go as far as storage is concerned and some form of automatic software to manage it. But what about ghosting/cloning? And can I include NAS/wireless NAS? Oh, and what about RAID? Do I need it?

So what are the best options with a budget in mind of about £100?

If I use an external drive of the likes of say, LaCie, WD MyBook, etc, do they need to be connected to the PC or can I attach them to my home [wireless] network?*

I think that covers it. Have I missed anything?

*Mainly Linksys kit.
 
personally i would go for an external hard drive as you don't have much data like, you would have to have it plugged into your computer to back up onto it.
 
Possibly not the best forum to post this in but... you can pick up a 320GB External USB HDD for less than 70 quid now. You can use something like Norton Ghost to take a snapshot of your drive and save it to the external drive too.

There wont be much point in getting a NAS as it will be slower than a locally installed USB2/Firewire drive. Plus if you are only backing up one machine and not sharing anything across a network i see no point.

Hope this helps. :)
 
hybrid said:
Possibly not the best forum to post this in but... you can pick up a 320GB External USB HDD for less than 70 quid now. You can use something like Norton Ghost to take a snapshot of your drive and save it to the external drive too.

There wont be much point in getting a NAS as it will be slower than a locally installed USB2/Firewire drive. Plus if you are only backing up one machine and not sharing anything across a network i see no point.

Hope this helps. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks both.


At the moment, we have 3 PCs, a laptop and a PDA that will all connect to the network. I have plans to buy a wireless media player that will also need connecting (KiSS DP) so it would be useful to have the backup on the network so that everyone can access the data on it from wherever they happen to be in the house and the media player all the more so.

Additionally, at least one of the PCs will need to back up added data regularly, maybe a little less for the others.

If I ghost the drive to back up, presumably if the main drive fails, I can ghost the image back onto a replacement drive? What's the footprint of the ghosted image? The same as the data it was copied/mirrored from?

I was thinking more along the lines of storage media (external drive) and software to manage the incremental additions from each of the PCs connected via the network as and when required in addition to regular weekly back ups.

The reason I asked about RAID was that I was thinking about backing up the back up. How often should I look to replace a hard drive?
 
It all depends on what you want. For instance in the event of total loss you won't have a bare metal restore option with anything local to you keep on site (in this case your home). However you seem to have two distinct requirements, firstly you want to back your data up safely. Secondly you want everyone to be able to get at it on your LAN.

If you back up to any local storage device on your PC for other people to access it you will to have your PC on at the time or physically move the device about. RAID seems overkill for you tbh, but if you want to run RAID1 and mirror your data so in the event of one total HD failure you still have a copy of everything as is then it's easily done but you will get no additional storage space on your PC.

The cheapest way is going to be to buy a new HD and share it over the LAN. The slightly more expensive version is buy an external drive, the NAS version speaks for itself and removes the need for a PC to be on 24/7. Personally I like the Terrastation's or Linkstation's but the Synology units are arguably more consumer based (ok i'm a sucker for the i'm here jingle they play when you can't work out what's what!)

None of this will prevent fire/theft/viri/physical hardware failure/human error/physically dropping your data.
 
caithomas44 said:
ethernet connected external hard drive.

This one

under 100 quid, set windows to automaticaly backup !

i will be buying one as soon as they are back in stock :)
Click to expand...

nice link, recommendation. Any idea when OCUK will have these back in stock? Was considering buying an external storage solution after reading the threads.

This WD would meets my needs and requirements.
 
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