Computer Backups

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hello,

I recently had a scare on my main computer at home. After having some trouble getting my computer to boot after installing some questionable software for an off brand MP3 player I realized that I did not have good backups for my computer. I'm mostly concerned about all of the pictures taken with my digital camera and my iTunes downloads. I have more files than I'd like to be regularly burning to CD. Any recommendations for an external hard drive or backup solution? I want a hardware solution attached to my computer, not an over the internet backup service. If my house burns down I have bigger problems than lost iTunes. Thank you for your suggestions!
 
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yukon

Valued Member
personally I keep separate drives in my PC for the same reasons:

main machine:
twin 500gb baracuda's (I'm running the 7200.11 series and they are waaaaay faster then my old one) in mirror contain (I can easily test by unplugging one and rebooting):
1 winxp 64 partition (primary)
1 winxp 32 partition (secondary)
1 linux (currently fedora 9, soon to be 10 when I get around to it)
1 largish (about 350GB) no_arch partitin for data (pics, docs, mp3s, any non-installed / compiled data -> all windows My Documents are shortcuts to the same directory structure here)
an older 300GB drive with single partition for online storage (all stuff I care about gets copied here once a week / month depending on how quickly folders grow)
an extra 300GB USB drive (the 300giger gets dumped here for final archiving)

I have recently gotten my grubby hands on spanking new WD Passport (elite edition, comes with some backup software and cheesy carrying case). I have since begun copying all pics and mp3s also to this drive and it gets carried in my laptop bag which goes everywhere with me.

I have been poking about lately and the one ter barracudas are down to 110 a peice (Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31000340AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Internal Hard Drives) hell for that matter I'm just noticing the 1.5 ters are 130 (Newegg.com - Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive (bare drive) - Internal Hard Drives). I've been thinking about picking up another two and building another SATA mirror, my MB should be able to handle it.

If you don't have a SATA controller that can RAID, it really depends on what and how you want to backup. I would go for a smaller NAS device over a USB drive, and I was just pointed to this today:
Addonics Announces Network Attached Storage Adapter
which for 55 bucks will turn any USB drive into a NAS. I've also heard great things about the Drobo series. I have a bunch of the 500 and 1tb Maxtors we bought for work on the cheap that have performed well enough, but they are pretty slow.
 
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