Best Form Of Backup?

ste6168 · Jul 6, 2007

Alright, I am getting to the point where I have spent ALOT of time, effort, and (for the sake of argument) money, on my media collection (music, movies, audiobooks, etc). The question I am posing to you all is what is the best form of backup to back all of these files up? I thought about burning to DVDs, but that posed the question of, say in a month or two, how will I know what has been added since last backup? will I have to go through and pick all of the files out manually? I would like something other than the suggestion of having a mirror HDD if you would.

Thanks in advance, Mike

kkelly122 · Jul 6, 2007

i would recommend an external hard drive that has automatic backup and you program it what to back up at that certain time. there are tons of external hdds that do this you just have to researc.

Original Nerd · Jul 7, 2007

kkelly122 said:
i would recommend an external hard drive that has automatic backup and you program it what to back up at that certain time. there are tons of external hdds that do this you just have to researc.

If you back up to a external hard drive does it just keep adding new music etc to your backup file or does it create a new file?

PapaNoHair · Jul 7, 2007

I am not sure I am qualified to say what is best but I use the program "Backup" and backup my files to a second HD that I have installed. Effortless and efficient.

ste6168 · Jul 7, 2007

see all of these options are for a second hdd... I would rather not do it like that as "what if" both hdd's would fail at or around the same time (seems not possible, but it could happen) and also I really do not have the money to buy another 160gb and two 500gb's at the moment.

I have been thinking about it though and you can sort itunes through date added instead of artist, album, etc. what I might do is go through now and just burn all my music to DVD's (over a week or twos time) and then once a month sort by date added and just add all the new stuff from the last backup... To me it seems that it would work, does anyone have any thoughts on this?

cwa107 · Jul 7, 2007

You asked for the "best form of backup", in my opinion, that would be a large external hard drive and regular backups using SuperDuper - which will backup absolutely everything on your system AND make it bootable. In the event of a failure, you can immediately be back up and running by merely attaching your external drive and booting from it.

It's expensive, I know. And yes, there is a very small likelihood that both drives may fail simultaneously - but then, there's a very small chance that an asteroid will hit the Earth and wipe out life as we know it as well - rendering your backup useless anyway

But if your data is important to you, it's well worth the peace of mind and short recovery time.

Sure, you can backup to optical discs, but there's a chance that they can be damaged too. Just as backup tapes can fail over time. My point is that all backup media has a small chance of failing. Choose your poison, but the "best" form of backup, is an external, dedicated backup hard drive.

ste6168 · Jul 7, 2007

cwa107 said:
You asked for the "best form of backup", in my opinion, that would be a large external hard drive and regular backups using SuperDuper - which will backup absolutely everything on your system AND make it bootable. In the event of a failure, you can immediately be back up and running by merely attaching your external drive and booting from it.

It's expensive, I know. And yes, there is a very small likelihood that both drives may fail simultaneously - but then, there's a very small chance that an asteroid will hit the Earth and wipe out life as we know it as well - rendering your backup useless anyway But if your data is important to you, it's well worth the peace of mind and short recovery time.

Sure, you can backup to optical discs, but there's a chance that they can be damaged too. Just as backup tapes can fail over time. My point is that all backup media has a small chance of failing. Choose your poison, but the "best" form of backup, is an external, dedicated backup hard drive.

yes I see what your saying, maybe I will just have to keep putting money aside, hope my drive doesnt fail for a little longer, and buy a 1tb drive eventually for backup.

bobtomay · Jul 7, 2007

Have to 2nd cwa107 on this one
superduper is a great app - I've had occasion to restore my internal drive twice in the last month, i tend to do some things that I know I shouldn't

And just consider, to put 1 TB+ of stuff on DVD's you'll need 250 disks or more and the time to do it.

ste6168 · Jul 7, 2007

bobtomay said:
Have to 2nd cwa107 on this one
superduper is a great app - I've had occasion to restore my internal drive twice in the last month, i tend to do some things that I know I shouldn't

And just consider, to put 1 TB+ of stuff on DVD's you'll need 250 disks or more and the time to do it.

yeah thats why i was going to start now, but i think i will wait it out and go for the backup drive..