Greetings to all,

The last 2 days, I have been organizing myself to backup my PC data. 

Part of the reason was to remove some very old data from my desktop PC. 
The other reason was that I didn't remember when I did my last full backup. 

BTW, I have a question (and I want truthful! answers) how long has it been
since you did a full backup of your data (pictures, music, eMail, ...)? 

One of the things I wanted to backup was the entire content of each of my
flash memory cards (yes, I know that all of that data had already been copied
to the HDD on my PC -- but, how sure was I that I actually got every image???). 

I was a little surprised to find that 11 flash memory cards amounted to 3.6GBy
Since I didn't want to use 5 or 6 CD-R for each backup set, (and the time it
would take), I used 4.7GBy 16x CD-R disks -- it took about 15 minutes for each
of the 2 disks I made. BTW, I always make 2 copies on CD-R or DVD -- I figure
that when i need to use backup, at least one of those disks will be OK.  ... and
if I never need to look at the alternate copy, that would be more OK than not
having an alternate copy that I did need.  (groan!)

That got me to thinking about my backup cost ... and I checked my favorite
supplier: Computer Geeks.  Here are the pleasant results ...

CD burners IDE               $14 to $23
CD Burners USB              $18
DVD burners IDE/SATA   $23 to $99
DVD burners USB            $38 to $60

CD-R 50 48x - 52x            $8 to $17
CD-R 100 48x                   $30 to $34
DVD R/50 8x                     $14 to $22
DVD R/100 8x                   $39
DVD R/100 16x                 $39

Hardly any cost difference between CD vs DVD or between Internal (IDE)
and external (USB).  Of course, the external drives are easier to install. 

Using DVD media gives a real saving over using CD media. 

I'd be interested in hearing your opinions about reliability. 

--
Martin

I backup to a harddisk using an app called Super Duper (for Mac only) it copies/clones everything. If you're going to backup to cd you should use archival disks. DVDs are more fragile than CDs. Reliability is in the disk (and software) more than in the burner. While burning for archive, don't use the computer as it may create an error. One more thing to note is that faster speeds = less reliability.

Yeah I also backup on HD and have a trio of drives for the purpose external USB devices.. Norton goback and windows own restore have proved reliable.. I agree with Radlafx, though I am not sure of the actual lengths of time that files are safe on either CD or DVD as compared to the pure use of a backup HD.. On that point I have found IDE drives to be better in that regard than Seriel ones, which have always been the ones responsible for my serious data loss..

Honestly I hadn't done it for ages and then when I started my tube probject I realised just how long it had been so it's now done (week ago).

I have got a 320GB EHDD - I've got EVERYTHING on there, all my programs, photos, music, everything. Google handles my emails (thank goodness).

Back home (SA) I will start putting my photos onto DVD-RW's again. Those I keep at my mom's as you should always have something off site. If anything you should have 3 backup copies for stuff. One at home, one at work and one at someone's you trust. Plus have password protection on them.

Heaven know I'm sure the government departments that just lost 28 million peoples personal details here in the UK wish they'd done that...

Well that's my 2 pence...

DVD-R is alot better and safer than DVD-RW.

I'm not sure which kind of HDD danob meant when he said,

have found IDE drives to be better in that regard than Seriel ones

By 'Seriel', did you mean External USB dirves or did you mean SATA
drives? 

--
Martin

 Yes I did mean Serial ATA   SATA drives which are supposed to be faster and more reliable, but I have never found this to be the case,,

Thanks to danob fpr his response ...

Hmmmmmmm ... SATA ... yes, faster, more reliable, ... but also a newer
design.  Perhaps you were on the wrong side of the learning curve --
perhaps the underside. 

In any case, a real backup is never online to the computer. 

--
Martin

Hmm thats true Martin,  but two new motherboards later and new drivers never resolved the failures I had on going back to the older IDE 133 drives all has been well..  I had Serials drives set up for both the speed option, and also the backup method.. I may review them at another rebuild, as I am sure the newer Motherboards have fixed some of the issues.. I wonder how others have found the Serial devices have proved for reliability..

My gut feel is that a large drive (anything over 50G to 100G) should be
implemented as a RAID array. 

I also like what PeeWee05 said about having at least 3 external copies: 
one at home, one at work; one with a trusted friend. 

I agree that a backup to an external HDD is far, far more convenient than
backup to CD, DVD, or evenTravan tape or other large capacity tape. 

In any case, a serious backup strategy should create a backup set on at
least 2 different external HDDs -- and 3 would be even better. 

--
Martin

Yes, having a safe copy in a different location is a good idea. Ask anyone who has been burgled or had a fire destroy their stuff.

My only out of home backup is at the printing service I use and that is certainly not everything. 

At home, I have 3 external hds, two Maxtor and one Seagate. The Seagate is fine for the money.

I only use these for backup and retrieval to maintain space on the primary pc. The hds are not connected to the pc unless I am using at the time.  Images are backed up on two hds and the system is backed on the thrid one, dedicated to that task if if should be needed.

Still...when is enough enough? We won't likey know till we loose it. After the fact.  Good info on this thread.       Tom.

I have a second internal HDD (IDE) which serves as a backup. I also have two external HDD's (LaCie, USB2, one for images, and one for ) that are fast enough to burn from on my external DVD burner.
Thiis external setup allows me to place the  puter itself out of view but so that it does have the needed good cooling.
I also open it every three months (approximately) to remove all accumulated dust.

I would never buy a very large external hdd for reasons of failure. Three of 360GB are better that one of 1tera  ( speaking the newest (sigh) speak about sizes of HDD's ). When one fails, you still have the others in the former setup.

Like Tom, I only connect the one I need when the need to backup is there.

I also back up on dvd-r 's. I read Memorex are the most reliable.

I guess I trust this setup for two years. Meaning that I replace my internal hdd's every two years.

And for active use, I have a memory stick of 1GB, usb2, which is always connected. I save all my work on it. As memory sticks have no rotating parts, and a lifelong guarantee (mine, or it's?)  it helps me sleep well.

Burglaring is of course a problem. Living in the city, in an appartment on the second floor, this is less of a problem than living in a mansion on the hill, but I do try to hinder possible burglars as much as possible.

Thanks for the idea to place a dvd backup somewhere else!

I also never had my HDD connected when I'm connected to the internet.

Fire and water are physical threats. But personally I feel viruses are the REAL threat.

DVD-RW I use these as I review my collection and delete stuff and if I really don't want it again I can reformat my DVD-RW's instead of throw away my DVD-R's and start again...

I did a review of Lightroom a week or  so ago this has a nice feature of making a virtual copy which Ihave found great as another means of backing up my images the catalogue of images can then be backed up any way you want..