What do you use to backup your computer with?

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

JtB

Prepare a way for the Lord
Location
North Hampshire
Need to get my hard drive backup procedures a bit more formalised, so just wondering what device you use to back up your computer with and if you can recommend somewhere to buy one - thanks in advance.
 

rockyraccoon

Veteran
I use an external portable hard-drive to send music, photos and files via usb.. It all depends on how much space in disk you need. There are several types/brands and capacity. This one is very good and it is good deal at moment.

If you don't need a portable one have a look at this one (1.5TB)
 

Norm

Guest
I've a couple of WD "My Passport" drives, which are good and the software is pretty easy.

But, for a hands-off solution, a NAS (Network attached storage) drive can give you a server with files which can be accessed from any computer on your network and which can keep live back ups of any computer on your network, with just a little bit of setting up.
 
An external drive is a good start as long as you keep the originals on your computer and don't start using the backup drive as an extension of your pc.
NAS drives tend to be better if you have multiple pcs and use the NAS to share files and use a USB drive to backup the NAS to.
Note some folks will be along in a bit to explain how your house will catch fire and demonstrate how neurotic some folks can get about losing photographs they will never actually look at.
An external drive is a good start and you can move onto backing up to a system sited in a Scandinavian nuclear bunker later (Wikileaks joke)
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
Note some folks will be along in a bit to explain how your house will catch fire and demonstrate how neurotic some folks can get about losing photographs they will never actually look at.

Err... we have a disk in the shed I think ... and one stored with family (ok out of date ... but a better than nothing solution), and we have a computer dedicated to backing up information and I leave all of that to my back up manager! We have in the past lost some files during computer crashes. We have also done the on-line back up too but it takes such a long time to get all your data stored that way.

As for never looking at the photos I do anyway... but after a change in our TV recording system which we now use a PC for (again Mr Technical did it), its screen saver mode is to flick through the entire database of photos (we take 1000's of photos every year) which often has the family saying things like "I remember that..." or "who's that" etc.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Primary Drive is Raid 1 - two drives mirroring each other - only 160gb but were big enough when I bought the PC 5 or so years ago - has saved my bacon twice (the original drives failed - replaced under warranty).

Also have a internal secondary drive for storage of stuff I can lose - 250gb, and a 1TB USB external drive for photo backups etc.
 
MAC Time Capsule
 

pepecat

Well-Known Member
Firelite external harddrive (firewire connection), or, after the recent demise of my old laptop, the hard drive of old lap top which was sent back to me by the insurance company in a nice case with usb connection. It's 120 gb so plenty big enough for all my stuff. It was the motherboard / circuitry which got damaged and killed the laptop - the hard drive was undamaged.
 

gaz

Cycle Camera TV
Location
South Croydon
My important documents get stored on a file server in the basement. Monthly backups of this are recorded onto a tape drive which is then stored off site. Safest way to do it.
Online, whilst is a good idea, your data could become available to anyone if something went wrong.
 
Raid 1 is now generally considered to be good for protecting you against downtime due to the vagiaries of disk drives and will protect your most recent files that may not have been backed up. But a power surge will quite probably take out both drives so of dubious merit on its own.
Don't use online backup as your sole form of backup as what would happen in the event of bankruptcy ?
I reiterate that an external drive is a good start.
Advocating a more expensive and complicated system to someone who currently has none may simply discourage them from trying. Save the more advanced stuff for those already doing some backing up and asking about more advanced solutions and therefore more inclined to invest time and money.
In the twenty years I've lived on a street with more than 100 houses on it there's only been one fire and that was a shed :tongue:
 
Top Bottom