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[Ecrofirt]

I'm just wondering what the best solution would be for me to make weekly backups or thereabouts.

I've got 320GB of hard drive space, and I'd want to back most, if not all of it up. Obviously DVDs aren't a viable solution, but I don't know what is.

 

[Jotaro]

Humm, other HDDs, possibly in an external USB 2.0 slimcase?

 

[Wired]

Would be easier if you'd try to slim down that porn collection to the essentials...

 

[Jotaro]

"A porn movie? When you've seen one, you've seen them all!" :lol

 

[mrklaw]

I've just reinstated my essential stuff when my HDD died. XP+documents+photos+ office/productivity apps = 10GB. Plenty easy to ghost to a couple of DVD-RWs. Do that monthly, keep three on the go at once, erasing the oldest each time you backup.

Then for your pron/other wasteful stuff, work out what can be reinstalled/downloaded. Like games. Then ignore those or create one-off backups for reinstallation.

The rest isn't really that important, so I'd get another big HDD in your PC and just mirror your data so its on two HDDs at once. Then if one goes down, you should still be OK to resurrect and recopy back.

With my HDD failure its come back to haunt me, so I'm going to start my regime this weekend. Prolly with a USB2.0 / Networked HDD just because its more convenient for streaming etc.

 

[Jotaro]

I backup a crapload more data than you, and it's all on high quality DVD-Rs.

 

[Ecrofirt]

I have no porn on my PC. All the stuff on here is important, and not for one-time backup.

I'd like to do weekly backups, with a monthly backup going in an off site location. 72 DVD-Rs for each backup isn't really a smart option. I've heard there are other forms of data storage that hold more for when you want to back stuff up, but I've got no idea what they are.

 

[tedtropy]

I have no porn on my PC. All the stuff on here is important, and not for one-time backup.

I'd like to do weekly backups, with a monthly backup going in an off site location. 72 DVD-Rs for each backup isn't really a smart option. I've heard there are other forms of data storage that hold more for when you want to back stuff up, but I've got no idea what they are.

You're likely thinking of tapes, which support compression for archiving. Modern tapes can hold a shitload of data, but most tape backup solutions are intended for large network environments (we're talking potential terrabytes of archiving) and are obviously going to be kind of cost prohibitive. Why not just get a matching-size HD and use a mirrored-drive RAID configuration? And what the heck kind of data do you have that requires 360GB to be backed up on a continuous basis? ARE YOU A TERRORIST?!

 

[Ecrofirt]

Well, doing weekly backups with once a month going offsite would require me to get 1280GB worth of hard drives. That's quite a bit of money for hard drives which can easily fail if I accidentally(sp) drop one or something.

 

[tedtropy]

Well, doing weekly backups with once a month going offsite would require me to get 1280GB worth of hard drives. That's quite a bit of money for hard drives which can easily fail if I accidentally(sp) drop one or something.

Ah, sorry, I misread. Honestly, for your situation, it may do well to look into some sort of low-end tape backup system. It'll easily store that much data, there's software that makes it fairly automated, and it's reliable. Just bare in mind that tape backup is generally an "all or nothing" restore.

 

[jenov4]

Something of this nature definitely requires some tape backup arrangement.