Yo barnson.org bloggers, technical question about backing up data from a hard drive. I’m wondering if anybody out there has ideas of how to backup 5+GB of data from a personal home desktop without having to spend hours burning 10 CDRs or upping to a server at 30KB/s max.
Removeable drives?
Currently, my business and personal files are all on one box. It’s funny to think how one little box, which I really don’t know that much about, controls my fate. Anyway, every week I backup the hard drive on two separate CD-Rs, label them, and put them in the glove compartment of my car. I do this because if something happens to the house, then the data isn’t in the house. Seems to me that this procedure is kind of lame.
Thanks in advance.
Sammy G
DVD-RW + your rotation
Unfortunately, your “lame” proposal for archiving data is exactly what data security professionals do: put one backup in one location, and another in the other.
For more than 5GB data, you’ll want to go wtih one of the new DVD-R drives. There are some with dual-layer capacities in excess of 9GB. However, I can virtually guarantee that those files would zip up into a file much smaller than 5GB — probably onto that same data CD you’re already burning.
You can script it out using WinAT or other scheduling programs, so that you don’t have to do it manually. You’d also need to become familiar with some level of scripting in order to fully automate the process, so that it’s “pop the blank CD in at night, take it out in the morning” easy.
When it comes to backing up data, though, there really are no shortcuts. You need media of sufficient size, and an offsite location to store your data. The basements of nearby friends works well enough š
I don’t recommend removeable hard drives mostly because the swap-out mechanism is likely to fail. That said, they have a better media shelf life than the ink on CDR’s (100 years+ on a hard-disk drive that isn’t used, vs. maybe 10 years if you store the CDR in a cool, dark place)
My method is to synchronize the data between a server I own on the Internet and my machine at home. It works “well enough” for me, but I pay a monthly fee and upload speeds aren’t fantastic. I end up zipping it up, too, and letting it run overnight. I can pump a few gigabytes an evening over a DSL line. Similarly, I synchronize the SQL databases from this server where I run my blog, back to my home machines.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Removeable drives..
I’ve had a lot of success with a homemade removeable drive.. basically a 50 buck kit that will hold an old hard drive (if you have one) that will connect to a hi speed usb or a firewire.
If you want to go DVD-R, the options there are great too – like 80 bucks after rebates if you look around.
Options
My experiences:
A removeable hard drive will hold more space and be much quicker. 5 GB of data isn’t that much when 80 GB hard drives are $100. However, it’s almost a must to have USB 2.0 or Firewire (1394), because that’ll cut hours off the backup time. You may have to outlay for a USB2.0 or firewire controller, and if you have a laptop, that may not be economic.
As Matt said, they’re just starting to come out with DVD+RW drives that are dual layer that hold 9GB. That would work, but you’d have to do your homework to get it to work in a script ( i.e. automated). Again, if you don’t have USB 2.0 or Firewire, the backup times will be long.
Also as Matt said, zipping is a wonderful way to reduce file sizes. If a majority of your data is in Office or text files, you could reduce your backup file size by half or more. Also check and make sure you’re not backing up temp files or other junk you don’t really need.
If you have the $$$, I’d get a hard drive, just because it’s the easiest and has the space to accomodate growth in your data. And most external hard drives will come with backup software that’ll let you set it and forget it. If you’re being money-wise, look into zipping the files and seeing if they’ll fit onto 1 or 2 CD+RWs.
And it’s a wonderful idea to have off-site backups. Nothing lame about that.
My $.02 (with $.015 royalty to Matt) Weed
Keep in Mind
You should also keep in mind what you are backing up. You don’t need to back up programs like MS office since that can be rebuilt with the machine. This may take time and space off your data back up’s.
Just an idea.
JB
A Hard Drive option
I just got back from a trip to MicroCenter (my favorite store in the world) and discovered an option that involves an external hard drive. I’m thinking about getting an Adaptec aluminum casing and a Samsung 100GB hard drive. Manually putting these together would yield an external hard drive that delivers USB-powered, plug-and-play, hot-swap capability. $150 including tax.
I like this better than the portable, pre-formatted external storage drive options, because it seems like these (Western Digital, e.g.) hold data only. I like the idea of installing all my software ALONG with the data onto an external hard drive, because the result will be a roving mirror of my main desktop(s) in my shirt pocket.
Thoughts? Help?
Advice
Don’t carry around hard drives in your shirt pocket.. People will call you a nerd
(The pot lovingly tells the kettle)
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
That’s what I did
I have a 60GB drive in my laptop.
I have a 120GB drive in an external USB case. I just sync up my stuff to the other drive periodically. Works a charm.
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Matthew P. Barnson
I would agree that getting a
I would agree that getting a USB case for a hard drive is a better bet than getting just a specially made external hard drive. It’s cheaper, and actually more reliable, as most external drives on the market don’t have high marks for reliable equipment or service.
Tech Support
So…I put the new external drive and enclosure case together, connected to the PC, and it’s not showing up as a visible drive. I’m getting the ‘device is working properly’ command and seeing it connected under the ‘safely remove hardware’ so I know that there’s a connection made.
Anyone have ideas?
Administration
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Matthew P. Barnson
Also
A shortcut to Computer Management is to right-mouse click “My-Computer” and select “Manage”
Also, in the Disk Management app, make sure your disk has a drive letter assigned, once it’s partitioned and formatted. A lot of times I’ve seen it successfully mount a drive but not give it a drive letter.
My $.02 Weed
You Rule
Y’all be some crazy geniuses. Thanks for helping me out.
Cheap Crash Insurance
The prices on removable hard drives continues to fall: a Micronet 160GB Fantom USB 2.0 External Hard Drive just advertised at $60, with enclosure.
For those who hadn’t heard, one of our barnson.org brethren had their house burn down last week. Everyone is okay, no one was hurt, but we were talking about how in today’s world, due to instant livability support, the most important item to be rescued from a burning house is your digital files. This discussion took place in the aftermath of the inferno, of course. Iām sure had we been calmly contemplating this issue during the blaze, the fire marshals would be stamping the ticket for insurance fraud. š