# External HDD for backups



## zhaoqingMal (Jul 31, 2013)

Hi all,

I'm currently backing up all my photos and other work on a second (and third) physical drive in my PC, but I've decided that I'd also like to back everything up on an external drive. I'm not interested in the passport-sized 2.5"drives, as I've had a couple of them in the past, and they've both recently died for some reason. I'd prefer a 3.5"sized drive that also needs plugging in to the mains. As for size, something around 2TB is ideal, but if anybody can suggest a bigger one that is better, great!

As for brands, I'm not that particular, although I had one of the LaCie Porsche drives about 8 years ago, and it died the second time I used it. If their quality has improved much in the last few years, I'd happily consider them too. 

As for interface with the computer, it'll have to be USB2. I don't have USB3 ports on my computer, and I don't have Firewire either.

What would you guys suggest as a solution for this?

Cheers,
Malcolm


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## Tabor Warren Photography (Jul 31, 2013)

Hi Malcolm,

I purchased a 2TB external from WalMart about 2 years ago for $80. It's a Western Digital. It's been working like a champ ever since I purchased it. I also back up the WD, my other hard drive, and my computer on a cloud subscription which I would also recommend looking into. I use Backblaze, but there are other popular options, just make sure they cover external hard drives as well. I just checked WalMart, and they have 2TB for $99 or 3TB for $140.

Best of luck!
-Tabor


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## kaihp (Jul 31, 2013)

I use a Western Digital MyBookLive - 2TB, and connected with Gig Ethernet. It has built in web server for configuration/remote access, support for Apple TimeMachine, and of course SMB (Windows) services.

If you want to copy large amounts of data, a GigE line (even though if it can only sustain 30-35MB/s) is very useful.
I'm as happy as a plum with it.


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## pj1974 (Jul 31, 2013)

This is a good (& important) matter for everyone to consider.

I backup most of my photos using mains powered external HDDs. I have a few USB powered external HDDs too. Mains powered external HDDs are about half the price per TB as USB powered devices. The mains powered external HDDs also are slightly faster than most of my USB powered external HDDs. Usually I buy a number of the same mains powered external HDD brand / type (so I can keep 1 power adapter plugged into my AC wall socket, and also use the same USB cord). I use Seagate & Western Digital as the most common actual drives.

Most of my external HDDs are USB2, but the latest half a dozen or so are USB3 - I have 2 x desktop PCs (one less than a year old, which has USB3 - the other about 4 years old) and I have a 7 year old laptop. The size I'm currently buying is 2TB, as when they're on special they give me best value for money / 'bang for the buck'. No doubt in time this will increase. 

My first external USB powered HDD was a 40GB Gigapro 1 (which I still use, as it has a CF reader incorporated into it; which is convenient as a portable backup device on the fly, though 40GB isn't that big these days!) I have several TB of storage space on my PCs and laptop, and after I run my photos through DxO - and have chosen the 'keepers' (full size, and I of course keep the original RAWs as well) and favourites, I process my photos via DxO Optics Pro (great program)- outputting them in various sizes (eg for emailing / web-upload).

As well as copying my photos on external HDDs and keeping them at home, I also have copies of my photos in additional external HDDs in a secure cupboard at work. As I'm a manager in Federal Government, I have my own filing cabinet / cupboard in the secure Government building where I work. So that's a great 'insurance' policy for storing my photos, which I can use for free (as the external HDDs sit behind my snacks and other personal items at work in the cupboard part of the lockable drawer).

My recommendation - even to 'not too serious' photographers is to always keep a copy of _at least _ your very favourite photos on an external HDD in a location away from one's home - so if your home is burgled or the immediate area where you live (eg suburb) is destroyed by any event - such as: fire, tornado, earthquake, etc - you should still have your very favourite photos safe in that other location. For photographers where photos are their work and income, this is a no-brainer- do it!

Regards

Paul


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 31, 2013)

pj1974 said:


> My recommendation - even to 'not too serious' photographers is to always keep a copy of _at least _ your very favourite photos on an external HDD in a location away from one's home - so if your home is burgled or the immediate area where you live (eg suburb) is destroyed by any event - such as: fire, tornado, earthquake, etc - you should still have your very favourite photos safe in that other location. For photographers where photos are their work and income, this is a no-brainer- do it!



+1

I use LaCie Rugged 1 TB drives for backup, the FW800 is quite speedy (a lot better than USB2). I have a pair of them for complete clones and another pair for just RAW images and also video, and I keep one set at home and another set at work. Every 2-3 months, I burn the recent files to a DL-DVD and store that in a safety deposit box (in a bank that's in a town separate from where I live and the city where I work). I write RAW files to two cards. So, right when the image is captured, I have duplicate copies. After processing, the images are on my laptop and on four external drives in two locations, and eventually there will be 5 copies in two locations.

The separate HDDs for images/video are planning ahead for the time when my laptop drive isn't big enough to store all my RAW files (although I deferred that time significantly last week when I replaced my internal 500 GB HDD with a 960 GB SSD). If/when I get to that point, I can delete a year at a time from the internal SSD, and thus those will be deleted from the clones, too. BUt I'll still have 3 copies in three different locations.

Overkill? Maybe. But maybe I should add Mozy or Carbonite, too?


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## schill (Jul 31, 2013)

I back up everything to bare 3.5" drives (usually 1TB).

I have used an external USB or esata adapter for these in the past. You just plug the drive into the adapter and it shows up like any normal external drive.

Thermaltake BlacX ST0005U External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5” & 3.5” USB 2.0 & eSATA 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153071

I've had problems with the USB 3 version, but I never figured out what the real issue was.

I now use an adapter that fits in a 5.25" bay of my desktop that allows a direct sata connection to the drive.

KingWin 2.5" and 3.5" Multi-Function Hot Swap Rack with USB 3.0 Hub Components Other KF-253-BK
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00856XFUS/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The USB ports on the adapter don't have anything to do with the drive connection. They are completely separate. Since it's a direct connection from the drive to the motherboard sata, it should be faster than usb.

I store the bare drives in static-free plastic boxes made to hold them. I keep a set at home, a set at work, and a set in a safe deposit box at my bank.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jul 31, 2013)

I have a 12TB (6 Drive) QNAP NAS running raid 5 that sits on my network 24/7 and has been operating nonstop for about 2 years now. It can be wireless as well, and has a print server, so you can network USB type printers too. It holds backups from all 7 of my computers.

Its just a matter of what you want to spend. I also have several 3.5 HD housings that will hold any 3.5 SATA drive and have various interfaces. They are reliable and great for backups where I want multiple backups at different points in time, or a image of my HDD to keep just in case.


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## ablearcher (Jul 31, 2013)

schill said:


> I back up everything to bare 3.5" drives (usually 1TB).
> 
> I have used an external USB or esata adapter for these in the past. You just plug the drive into the adapter and it shows up like any normal external drive.
> 
> ...


 I use exactly the same backup for a number of years now. I have several HDD caddies (mostly BlacX, but some others too). This is the easiest and the most economical way, IMO. You just keep buying bare drives, insert into the caddy and you are good to go. I stopped using "enclosures" for regular backups as this proved to be too expensive and the need to deal with all the power adapters was driving me nuts. IMO, if you are using multiple drives for backup, do not want the clutter of extra wiring and power adapters and want to be able to switch drives real fast - this is the best way to do this. Caddies work with USB2/3 and esata connections. Just pick the one that is suitable for your PC. If you do not have a usb 3.0 yet - get a PCI card installed with USB 3.0 ports. It costs less than $20 and takes 5 minutes to install. Totally worth it.


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## cayenne (Jul 31, 2013)

I'm still setting up my main NAS, doing a DIY freeNAS set up (www.freenas.org)....and I have a Synology 2 drive one I'm using right now for one backup site.

But I started with and still use a simple method. I bought a USB hard drive dock..and I just buy off the shelf regular internal SATA drives when they go on sale. 1TB or larger.

I just plug one in, back up to that, and pop it out and replace with another to do another backup. I'm basically using external harddrives like I used to use floppy disks....this is a cheap and viable way to make multiple copies.

But for real backup, you also need offsite.

Once I get my NAS set up they way I like it, I'm going to build an identical system and put it out of state at my parents' home and rcync my data to it and that way I'm covered if something happens to my home and I lose drives there....

My $0.02,

cayenne


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## rpt (Jul 31, 2013)

I have a WD 1TB network drive that plugs into my router...


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## cayenne (Jul 31, 2013)

neuroanatomist said:


> pj1974 said:
> 
> 
> > My recommendation - even to 'not too serious' photographers is to always keep a copy of _at least _ your very favourite photos on an external HDD in a location away from one's home - so if your home is burgled or the immediate area where you live (eg suburb) is destroyed by any event - such as: fire, tornado, earthquake, etc - you should still have your very favourite photos safe in that other location. For photographers where photos are their work and income, this is a no-brainer- do it!
> ...



On a slightly OT version of this...

I'm running quickly out of hardrive space on my late 2011 macbookpro. I need somehow to get external HD space I can hook into this to do PS, Aperture 3, Premier, FCPX work on...so I can free up my main harddrive.

My MBP only has Firewire 800, Thunderbolt and USB2 as hookup options.

I was looking at the Lacie 2-3TB external harddrives, to use the Firewire connection...would this be fast enough to house my working files that I'm processing? 

USB2 would be too slow I think...and I don't think thunderbolt would be an option since I'm having to use thunderbolt to display port adapter to run my Dell U2711 monitor and get full resolution out of it...I dunno if that would work daisy chaining....

Thanks in advance,

cayenne


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## neuroanatomist (Jul 31, 2013)

cayenne said:


> ...and I don't think thunderbolt would be an option since I'm having to use thunderbolt to display port adapter to run my Dell U2711 monitor and get full resolution out of it...I dunno if that would work daisy chaining....



Not sure about the display adapter, but connecting an external HDD via Thunderbolt, then plugging an Apple Thunderbolt Display into the HDD works fine.


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## RGF (Jul 31, 2013)

I used a combination of

1. Drobo as main storage for my images (both raw and those I have processed). The drobo I use has 5 drives (hot swappale) with dual redundancy. In other words, if 2 drives fail, the data is safe. I can pull a drive out and replace it will the machine is running (Hot swappable). The dual redundancy reduces storage by 40% but adds safety from failure, not stupidity.

2. I keep backups on either Seagate or western digital external drives (2 or 3 TB), never plugged in except when I am using them. That way they are immune from lightning strikes which could fry everything inspite of 2 surge protectors.

3. I don't do this, but need to do it soon. Keep a copy of the files off site, that way I lose the house (fire) I still have a backup my images.

I don't go to the cloud - cost, speed, and companies have been know to go out business without warning.

hope this helps.


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## sanjosedave (Jul 31, 2013)

I just bought WD My Book 4TB External Hard Drive Storage. Today, it will be used on a USB2 PC, and later, a USB3. After I move the images, I plan to get a Carbonite account, the one that backs up external drives. I'm guessing a new backup of an external drive with ~500GB of images, will day a few days, depending on fast Comcast's upload speed is that day(s)


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## titokane (Jul 31, 2013)

sanjosedave said:


> I just bought WD My Book 4TB External Hard Drive Storage. Today, it will be used on a USB2 PC, and later, a USB3. After I move the images, I plan to get a Carbonite account, the one that backs up external drives. I'm guessing a new backup of an external drive with ~500GB of images, will day a few days, depending on fast Comcast's upload speed is that day(s)



I don't want to discourage you from using Carbonite, because it's a great service to have, but you should know they throttle uploads to 2-3 GB a day (at least they did when I did my initial backup). It took me months to get my computer initially backed up, and that was less than 400GB of data.


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## tpatana (Jul 31, 2013)

If it's only for backup, speed doesn't really matter, only reliability.

After a shoot when I tell the PC to mirror my photos on 2 external drives, I don't care if it takes 15 minutes or 2 hours. But I do care that I can get the images back when needed.

One of the important items is that never buy 2 discs from same batch, even better if you use different brands. Every brand has had bad batches which have higher than normal failure rates. You don't want both your copies to be on the bad batch discs. Applies both for pure mirroring, and also Raid-5 and such. Especially if you build NAS Raid with several discs, it'd be convenient to buy same brand discs from same batch, but you should think reliability too, not so much convenience.

I currently have ~10TB of drives, but all data (=photos) are mirrored so usable space is ~6TB only. Every drive is from different batch, only one with same brand/size were bought about year apart.


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## CTJohn (Jul 31, 2013)

titokane said:


> sanjosedave said:
> 
> 
> > I just bought WD My Book 4TB External Hard Drive Storage. Today, it will be used on a USB2 PC, and later, a USB3. After I move the images, I plan to get a Carbonite account, the one that backs up external drives. I'm guessing a new backup of an external drive with ~500GB of images, will day a few days, depending on fast Comcast's upload speed is that day(s)
> ...


I agree that the Carbonite upload takes forever, particularly the initial and after a photo trip, but the security offsite from my computer makes it worthwhile.


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## kyamon (Jul 31, 2013)

I import at home with LR and have it make a backup copy during the import. Both on non-mirrored external HDD. I have a separate drive that I keep at work and occasionally take home to backup all the new photos to it.

An automatic way of doing this would be via a cloud service, but I don't want that due to cost and security. What I have come across is a (free) tool called AeroFS that lets you set up your own private cloud. I don't actually use this for photos, but it could easily be set up to mirror the folders containing my pictures to a computer that is somewhere else. This has two advantages - one being the backup off-site, and the other one that I have a second (or more) computer that I can work on without having to worry about messing up my catalogue files. And no shady company ever owns or sees my files. 
For all the uses that I have AeroFS for, it works flawlessly. It is a bit slower than, for example, dropbox, but it has all the mentioned advantages.

(disclaimer: I don't work for AeroFS - I just like their product)


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## SithTracy (Jul 31, 2013)

The Western Digital MyBook drives use a proprietary encryption. If the micro USB bus should break you will have to pair the data with another WD device of that era to decrypt the data. I have had a couple of these drives. Would never store anything important on them for fear of expensive data recovery services.


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## hediz (Jul 31, 2013)

I use LR to import from camera then directly another copy to another drive in the PC. Then I use a script to backup these to a Synology NAS with 12TB storage 2+2x3TB RAID 1. Then once a week I backup the NAS to a external(offsite, far away) QNAP NAS with 2x3TB RAID1

Seems advanced but with scripts and the built-in rsync capabilities its pretty straight forward.


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## Lloyd (Jul 31, 2013)

I have an iMac and all my documents, photos and data are stored on a Promise Pegasus configured under raid 5 with about 5TB available and connected via thunderbolt. I have two external 3tb Seagate GoFlex drives which are connected one at a time via thunderbolt. I swap the GoFlex’s out every week bringing one to my office. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to automatically and daily clone the Pegasus to one of the Seagate GoFlex’s. It clones all the files on the Pegasus to the GoFlex except for Time Machine backups. I use Time Machine to back up the iMac in separate backups to the both the Pegasus and the GoFlex drive currently connected to the iMac via thunderbolt. 

As a result of this process, I have daily backups of both my data on the Pegasus and my iMac on one of the GoFlex drives and have at least a weekly backup at my office of both the iMac and the Pegasus. Right now it works well as I have less than the 3tb of data capacity of the GoFlex drives. The only issue I have noted is that FCPX sees both the projects on the Pegasus and the GoFlex with the same names, as they are duplicates of each other, and gives me a warning, which I have been ignoring and hopefully not at my peril.

I considered an offsite backup such as Carbonite, but I am a control freak and the online transfer speeds were slow especially in the case of a catastrophic failure with the need of a full data recovery. However, it is my understanding that in the case of a catastrophic loss of data that you can have the offsite storage company such as Carbonite load your data on a hard drive and overnight this to you. I don’t know the cost associated with this option, but it would speed up a recovery.

P.S.- I would also not recommend the Western Digital MyBook drives. I had one fail and turn into a brick. I didn't have anything significant on it other than some old backups that fortunately I did not need. I like western digital drives but the software associated with this particular product, such as noted by Sith Tracy above, seems to make it more vulnerable.


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## corey.kaye (Jul 31, 2013)

DNS325 which I use all the time to store files on-line. I don't edit from there as it's too slow (access speeds generally around 20Mb/s).

Once a month I take out a 3Tb external I got cheap ($120) and copy the entire contents of the DNS325 + working files on my PC's C:\ drive.


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## fugu82 (Aug 1, 2013)

Offsite backup of some type is essential, in addition to external drives, disks [I burn blu-rays now] and/or some combination thereof. 
Let me relate my experience with Carbonite, tho. My initial b/u of maybe 500GB of data took something like 6 months. Recovering that data in the event of a disaster might not take that long, but was extremely slow when I tried it. After that the service seemed OK until I upgraded my 2007 Mac Pro to a loaded up iMac this year. A few months later I got this perky email from Carbonite saying that my 50GB of data were all backed up now, isn't it wonderful? Their tech support dude that I talked to said basically, sorry about that, but they have no way to recognize your new computer, even though all your account info is unchanged, and all that data is unrecoverable. None of my complaints to Carbonite on this matter were ever answered.
I now use DropBox to b/u 100Gb of my newest stuff [which takes maybe 3 days]. YMMV


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## cayenne (Aug 1, 2013)

SithTracy said:


> The Western Digital MyBook drives use a proprietary encryption. If the micro USB bus should break you will have to pair the data with another WD device of that era to decrypt the data. I have had a couple of these drives. Would never store anything important on them for fear of expensive data recovery services.



When I get those drives, I just first immediately "slick" them, and wipe off all the WD programs and all they put on there, and then just use them as a regular, harddrive.

I dunno when they started putting that [email protected] on their portable harddrives, but it is annoying a bit.

I just need them for storage, not management.

C


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## SithTracy (Aug 2, 2013)

cayenne said:


> When I get those drives, I just first immediately "slick" them, and wipe off all the WD programs and all they put on there, and then just use them as a regular, harddrive.
> 
> I dunno when they started putting that [email protected] on their portable harddrives, but it is annoying a bit.
> 
> ...



The encryption is not in the software included on the drive, it is a hardware based solution between the USB bus and the SATA connector on the internal hard drive.


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## tron (Aug 2, 2013)

I use some 2.5 inch drives but these contain just 2 of my 4 copies. The other 2 are 3.5inch Western Digital Enterprise Series RE4 disks (one internal, one external in a USB case)

For now I have not implemented a remote storage scheme...


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## scottkinfw (Aug 2, 2013)

Here is an alternative for you.

Consider getting a Drobo. I have one and love it.

It is a breeze to set up for windows and Mac. You can add HDDs as you need them. It has "beyond RAID" which is fast and safe. They are in the process of merging with another company like Pogoplug so hopefully one day soon you can create your own personal cloud. 

Present offerings include Drobos for one compute or a networked one (NAS). I like that it is expandable and hot swapable. It will tell you if a drive is dying or dead and you won't lose data.

And no, I have no financial stake in the company. I have been using mine for about 2 years now and love it.

sek


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## alexanderferdinand (Aug 13, 2013)

My strategy:
I use 3 external 2TB HDDs; after every save or printing session I save the month I saved/worked with on one of them; they change like in a merrygoround.
Stored on three different places.
If they are full, one gets a friend of mine to store it in an other house.
I like the fast eSATA- connection.


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## cayenne (Aug 14, 2013)

I just got a setup I'm going to try, the Seagate backup plus thunderbolt adapter.
I'm going to try to use it on my MBP (late 2011), and from there daisy chain my thunderbolt to display port I currently use to get my Dell u2711 monitor to work.

I bought a thunderbolt cable, and a seagate backup plus 3TB drive (strangely enough, cheaper to buy in pieces rather than the bundled package by seagate)...

Anyway, I hope to set this up and try to use that for my fast off laptop server access (photoshop, premier, AE work).

When SSD comes down in price a bit, I will likely pull the mechanical drive mentioned above off of it and drop the SSD on the thunderbolt adapter (which I've seen will work )...

Anyway, that's a new attempt I'm making. I have slower NAS stuff out there for longer term storage, but I'm hoping this thunderbolt adapter (essentially a thunderbolt to SATA adapter) will prove to be speedy enough for my needs, and relieve my onboard drive of some churn and keep it from filling up all the time.

C


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## bycostello (Aug 16, 2013)

you want raid.... i like WD....


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## cayenne (Aug 16, 2013)

bycostello said:


> you want raid.... i like WD....



RAID for backup is what you're referring to?

C


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## Botts (Aug 17, 2013)

zhaoqingMal said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I'm currently backing up all my photos and other work on a second (and third) physical drive in my PC, but I've decided that I'd also like to back everything up on an external drive. I'm not interested in the passport-sized 2.5"drives, as I've had a couple of them in the past, and they've both recently died for some reason. I'd prefer a 3.5"sized drive that also needs plugging in to the mains. As for size, something around 2TB is ideal, but if anybody can suggest a bigger one that is better, great!
> 
> ...



My list of must haves:
[list type=decimal]
[*]USB 3.0 (future speed advantage if you don't have it now)
[*]*Minimum* 3TB (it's a minuscule price to upgrade to 4TB even, nothing is worse than outgrowing your backup and having to buy a new drive and subsequently throwing out your previous 2TB drive.)
[*]Seagate, WD, Hitachi, or G-Drive (sometimes Lacie's are great, but you never know what drive you're getting inside it.
[/list]


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## s2kdriver80 (Aug 17, 2013)

I run 2 4TB drives in a RAID1 config inside a Synology 2-bay NAS. Since RAID isn't truly a backup, I run a separate external 4TB drive that's connected to the Synology and periodically sync them.


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## JPAZ (Aug 17, 2013)

My requirements are a bit less intense than others since I am not a professional. Were I to lose data, it would be very sad but it would not be an adverse effect on my income. That said, I've been using tow 1 TB drives in a mirror RAID. I've had 1 drive go down and simply replaced it. Since it is possible that both would go or that there would be another type of catastrophic failure, I supplement this with a periodic external backup where I rotate 2 external drives.

Now, the reality. I don't do the external backup often enough. Someday, it could burn me. In fairness, I don't generate too many new files except after a trip. But still, this could be a problem.

Human nature being what it is, I am therefore trying out Crashplan. The initial upload is gonna take days. Then, I'll see what happens when I add some files.


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## Halfrack (Aug 17, 2013)

cayenne said:


> bycostello said:
> 
> 
> > you want raid.... i like WD....
> ...


RAID isn't backup, it's redundancy. RAID saves you if a drive fails and you have a spare one to put in. RAID doesn't save you from corruption or accidental deletion.


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## sleepnever (Aug 18, 2013)

I currently don't have any off-site backup, but that is about to change. What I have is my data on a mechanical HDD and backed up on a secondary mechnical HDD that only wakes up when I copy to it. When I go on vacation, both drives are pulled and put in my gun safe.
I was pointed to www.CrashPlan.com by some people and this is one of the major features that caught my eye, that alot of you are complaining about with Carbonite.

_Seeded Backup and Restore to Your Door_
_If you have a lot to back up, the initial backup might take longer than you'd like. So we offer a ‘seed service’ where we send you an external hard drive to use for your first backup. After you send it back, we transfer the data directly to CrashPlan Central, saving a lot of time on your first backup._
_Similarly, if you ever need to restore a large amount of data, use CrashPlan’s Restore to Your Door service, to have us ship your computer backup archive to you on a hard drive, so you can restore locally._


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## JPAZ (Aug 18, 2013)

sleepnever said:


> _Seeded Backup and Restore to Your Door_
> _If you have a lot to back up, the initial backup might take longer than you'd like. So we offer a ‘seed service’ where we send you an external hard drive to use for your first backup. After you send it back, we transfer the data directly to CrashPlan Central, saving a lot of time on your first backup._
> _Similarly, if you ever need to restore a large amount of data, use CrashPlan’s Restore to Your Door service, to have us ship your computer backup archive to you on a hard drive, so you can restore locally._



Doing my initial synch / backup of just my photo to Crashplan now and the site estimates it will take 28.5 days!


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## risc32 (Aug 18, 2013)

currently i have one HD in my computer in a 5.25 bay in a "trayless" removable thingy, and i have a secondary HD sitting on my desk. The second HD actually sits in a HD cloning device as the "target" drive, and every week or so i pull a lever in my main HD enclosure and slap it in the cloner, and i clone it to the secondary. If my main HD ever drops dead i'll be up and running at full speed within maybe 30seconds. Then i'd just use it as the main and buy another secondary. I know it's not perfect, but it's easy, with no monthly backup fees, and i could easily knock out another clone and have it offsite if i wanted. I also post nearly everything on my flickr account, so i consider myself pretty well covered.

BTW- i've got a copy of norton ghost and i can't get it to work properly.


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## cayenne (Aug 19, 2013)

Halfrack said:


> cayenne said:
> 
> 
> > bycostello said:
> ...



Sure.

A back is a 2nd or great number of copies of your files pretty much by definition.

But two or more mirrored RAID set ups would count as backup.

Or, in many of these cases, the NAS units set up with RAID are being used to back up data on the computers' main disk, in which case it would be considered 'backup'.


Especially since today, for the most part...tape backup isn't really an option to the common person.

C


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