OT: External Storage for Independent

Hello All,

Well My son's Computer teacher's house burnt down on Sunday morning. Everyone is fine, but it got me thinking that all of my client files are here at home. NOT smart I know.

So... I want to get something that I can take off site every week or so. I guess I want a hot swappable HDD. So, my question to you all is:

Does anyone in a similar situation have any tips for me? Any suggestions as to hardware? Should I be looking at SATA drives? Is there an External Enclosure that would have the SATA controller built in or will I need a controller?

So many questions. If some of the independents here would clue me in as to what they use I would be eternally grateful.

Thank you, Muggs

Reply to
Muggs
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I sympathize in that it is not so easy to pick.

I went thru the tape phase, but with expensive tape drives that seemed to malfunction once a year and tapes that had continual problems, (& both tapes and drives were expensive).

Hard drives are it, and there are many ways.

Archiving to Hard drives each day or two catches changes so you can revert if needed to earlier versions.

Duplicating Data to one or more drives is terrific.

RAID arrays of various types can protect the whole OS & DATA from catastrophe.

Checke out:

formatting link
Bo

Muggs wrote:

Reply to
Bo

I use external drives to archive stuff, although I'm trying to use DVDs to save stuff I'm not going to use. If it's truly archive material, it doesn't need to be on a live drive.

The external (portable) drives allow me to take it places with me too.

Anything I'm really working on is on the local drive, backed up weekly.

Reply to
matt

I have several methods:

1: 2 x esata portable harddrives - one stays at a friends house and I swap them every couple of weeks, whenever it's convenient.

2: raid5 array in the system I store my data on

3: carbonite online backup, 5$/ month for unlimited storage - works great.

matt wrote:

Reply to
Zander

I have several methods:

1: 2 x esata portable harddrives - one stays at a friends house and I swap them every couple of weeks, whenever it's convenient.

2: raid5 array in the system I store my data on

3: carbonite online backup, 5$/ month for unlimited storage - works great.

matt wrote:

Reply to
Zander

Hey thanks Bo, Matt, and Zander,

I'm sure I'll get some replies overnight and tomorrow, but it's looking like the Wiebetech SilverSATA II SR using RAID 1 is just the ticket. Reading a review suggests that you use the SATA for really high speed read/write.

Thanks aga> I sympathize in that it is not so easy to pick.

Reply to
Muggs

Myself, I'm using an external 3.5" HDD. The USB interface is far faster than any data rate that a single drive can sustain, so it's not a problem. The whole deal is dirt cheap, quick, and reliable. 3.5" drives are available up to 750GB now, so they can easily back up a lot of data. Get one of those, pop it in an enclosure, and you're ready to go. Use some fancy backup software if you want to keep incremental backups and whatnot.

Reply to
Dale Dunn

I'm using synchback se as backup management software ( recommended ) which backs up all my saved files daily at midnight to an on site external drive.

Weekly, I use the same software to backup to an inexpensive mp3 player ( 20 Gb $90 at hastings ) thats encrypted. It spends most of its life in either my pocket, or glove compartment, so is relatively safe from site related catastrophies.

The software has several comparison options including archiving. Its already saved me from a couple "oops, I didn't really mean to delete that" incidents. It also is set up to backup the pdm vaults' latest revision copies to the production shops' computer ( read only ) daily, so that they don't have to wonder if they have the latest revision of a drawing.

Reply to
Brian

To actually answer the question about enclosures: anything with a USB or Firewire interface will have a drive controller built in. I'm using a Maxtor "One-Touch" external backup enclosure that came with some backup software that activates when you push a button on the enclosure. I don't use it that way, but it was the best deal at the time. Internally, I'm not sure if it's a SATA or PATA drive. It doesn't matter, because either one is more than fast enough.

Reply to
Dale Dunn

We use external 300GB drives. We make an image of the partition and save it there. In this way we can not only restore lost data but can completely restore the whole system. There are two external drives and one is always off site.

Reply to
TOP

In addition, discussions of backup, duplicating, and archiving software is somewhat like discussing "Which CAD is best?". Flame wars have erupted over such discussions.

I will say that I have used Retrospect on both PCs and Macs for a long time and it has been bulletproof (unlike some of my Hard drives, Tape Drives and Tapes).

You can check it out at:

http://www.emc> Hello All,

Reply to
Bo

Wireless hard drive!!

I have one of these drives situated in the company next door, I back up to it every night. They also have a drive situated in our building, hence equaling the electricity bill!! The drives are hidden above the false ceilings so out of sight of burglars. This gives me an off-site, no-hassle, low cost, reliable back-up.

formatting link
Simon Cube3 Creative Product Design

Reply to
Designdude

It has some speed and capacity issues, amongst others, but it might do for a single user to maintain a literal duplicate of a Data folder.

The review is basically 2 years old, though, so a new design is likely available now.

Bo

Designdude wrote:

Reply to
Bo

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