Backing up your stuff

[Bozza]

There are two sorts of people: Those who have had a hard drive failure and those who have not had one yet.

I'm paranoid about losing digital photos - particularly those that show my daughter from birth to her current 5 years of age. I back up my Macbook drive to an external hard drive but if there was a house fire, or the house was burgled or some freak magnetic event happened I'd still probably lose everything.

So I'm currently trying Jungledisk (http://www.jungledisk.com/) which is a method of storing data online (on Amazon's S3 storage, as it happens). The problem is that my broadband speed here in Sticksville is pretty slow and upload speeds are not as good as download speeds. Because of this, my 20gb of photos has been uploading for over 48 hours continuously now and it is still reckoning on another 8 days to complete the process.

What do you do, if anything, to backup your essential stuff?

 

[Beach Hut]

Something I have been thinking about for a while as well as I have photos from the last 6 years all digital on my PC so interested in advice as well.

 

[NMH]

Why not burn them onto DVDs or CDs?
There are also external hard-drives you can transfer important irreplaceable stuff onto.

 

[bhaexpress]

I burn my stuff onto DVD and have copies at a relatives and I have his stuff here, mind you, as I am used to mainframes and their practices it's pretty much second nature. My main PC also mirrors it's disks so it's pretty sturdy.

 

[Beach Hut]

I burn my stuff onto DVD and have copies at a relatives and I have his stuff here, mind you, as I am used to mainframes and their practices it's pretty much second nature. My main PC also mirrors it's disks so it's pretty sturdy.

Would the best solution for me be a portable back up for the photos ?

 

[Ernest]

Would the best solution for me be a portable back up for the photos ?

The best place for your photos is Scotland Yard

 

[Beach Hut]

The best place for your photos is Scotland Yard

Yes I am sure they would like to see pictures from my holidays you silly billy

 

[Bozza]

Would the best solution for me be a portable back up for the photos ?

As I say - I back up all my stuff to an external hard drive. But as I say that's no good if the house burns down or the house gets burgled whilst I'm on holiday as the chances are both copies will go at the same time. That said it's certainly better than having a single copy on one hard drive - you're playing Russian Roulette with your data if you do that. You can get massive capacity external USB drives for under a hundred quid nowadays.

For me the key is to also have data replicated in another physical location. Burning DVDs and storing them somewhere else is one approach. Using an online storage provider is another. Or you could do both!:mushy:

 

[dougdeep]

I bought one of these. Maplin 500GB Seagate FreeAgent™ Hard Drive

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

Massive (and cheap) Maxtor external hard drive. No gizmo's, one button and 500GB of space. Comes with sound back-up software and runs automatically over night.

Unplug it and take it with me on hols for safety.

Available at Amazon (use NSC link) or E0buyer for around £80.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

What do you do, if anything, to backup your essential stuff?

Got a memory stick, but when travelling, scan in passport pages & mail them to meself. Same with travel insurance documents. Oh, and photos also, tho the quality isn't great.

 

[fatbadger]

I back up everything - music to an external hard drive; photos to a different external hd; documents onto USB stick as and when changed, CD-RW on a weekly bais, and CD on a monthly basis. The system gets backed up weekly (with anything not covered by the above) onto yet another external hd. All external hds are, of course, left unplugged when not backing up.

 

[Jesus Gul]

I back up my digi photos on this new fangled glossy paper...it'll never catch on mind

 

[Marc]

I'm building a new PC soon so this current one will become my BackUp machine, normally just save stuff to CD or DVD.

 

[bhaexpress]

Would the best solution for me be a portable back up for the photos ?

I'd burn them to CD/DVD. I have two portable drives a 120 Gig and an 80 Gig as well as several Pen drives but with a halfway decent computer burning is not a difficult task. Incidentally, take my word for it, Nero is far better than Roxio.

 

[Deano's Right Foot]

My laptop is synchronised to my work network and as it is a small company they don't mind our private stuff taking up diskpace. There is always a backup of the network data stored off-site, so at any one time there are 2 (if I'm at work) or 3 (if my laptop are at home) locations where my files are.

If you have a DVD writer on your computer I would backup to DVDs twice a year and take them to work. Disk's cost you a fiver or so - money (and time) well spent I'd say.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

My missus tends to burn hers to CD or DVD which we keep in the house. This obviously protects against hard-drive failure but nothing else.

We never worried about house fires destroying our photos prior to the digital age, so we are kind of keeping the same mind-set in the digital age.....if the house goes up and we survive then think ourselves lucky to be alive and not worry too much about the photos I guess.

 

[Beach Hut]

Right I am thinking along the external hard drive route so one final question:

Is it worth waiting to get this in the USA as it will be cheaper than the UK ?

 

[beorhthelm]

i dont see the value of online storage, its fairly expensive in the long term. what if your t'internet connection goes off, they go bust, lose data, or in 5 years time they charge hundreds for recovery? burn to dvd or even get a cheap extrenal drive, then put in safe deposit or in firesafe or at someone elses house.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

I bought one of these. Maplin 500GB Seagate FreeAgent™ Hard Drive

I bought one of these from Maplins, plug it in and its ready to go, copied over my whole hard drive in a hour or so. You can then plug it into other PC/laptops easily (needs configering for Macs) Really pleased with it, good value,
easy to use and looks good.