data storage (offsite?)

[NAILER341]

i recently suffered a hard drive failure, which cost me quite a bit of time in failed attempts in salvaging.
i am now thinking about using an off site storage thing on the net to prevent this from happening again. is anyone using one of these things?

i am also considering setting up a raid set on my computer. i can not afford to lose these drawings. there is too much time in them to allow me to redo them.
i can barely keep up with the incoming jobs let alone redo the old ones for lack of backup.

at the moment i am using a seagete external hard drive, and a secondary hard drive in my computer. this should suffice, but soppose the house burns down?

any other backup solutions out there you might recommend?

also, what backup software are you using that you would recommend?
i want something that will back up automatically replacing only the files that have changed.
it would be nice to have it automatically back up to one drive at a daily interval, and another drive at a weekly interval.
this way at most i will lose a week. this would only happen if corrupted data was backed up.

any thoughts on this?

[Britain]

i recently suffered a hard drive failure, which cost me quite a bit of time in failed attempts in salvaging.
i am now thinking about using an off site storage thing on the net to prevent this from happening again. is anyone using one of these things?

i am also considering setting up a raid set on my computer. i can not afford to lose these drawings. there is too much time in them to allow me to redo them.
i can barely keep up with the incoming jobs let alone redo the old ones for lack of backup.

at the moment i am using a seagete external hard drive, and a secondary hard drive in my computer. this should suffice, but soppose the house burns down?

any other backup solutions out there you might recommend?

also, what backup software are you using that you would recommend?
i want something that will back up automatically replacing only the files that have changed.
it would be nice to have it automatically back up to one drive at a daily interval, and another drive at a weekly interval.
this way at most i will lose a week. this would only happen if corrupted data was backed up.

any thoughts on this?

I have an FTP site. Important stuff also goes there. I should though up grade the account for more storage space. I can access any where I go.

[TrAvELAr]

Check out SyncToy from Microsoft. It's a powertoy that does automated backups via a dead copy. You could also use the Windows Backup utility if you wanted. It works relatively well (because it's not Microsofts).

I have a server offsite and work in both Linux and Windows, so I generally just upload important stuff to it. However, we recently suffered a hard disk failure. While nothing was lost, it could have been. I've since upgraded to RAID on my server and am exploring other options. I'll probably go with an external drive and DVDs just to keep things close.

You could always look at tape drives too. I think you can get a stand alone DLT for a decent price. Not as good as a QIC 80 would run you back in the day, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Just my 2 cents.

[KNCJeeper]

I put all my important stuff and stuff that cant be replaced(like pictures) on DVD-Rs...make more than one copy..have some in my dvd case and have some in my car. I dont trust online storage.

[Navy-Jeepster]

I tried the online backup sites a couple of years ago. It was all right, but they where slow to upload to.
They have since gone under. If they do close their doors, how do you get your backup info back?

I would backup to dvd's, and make more then one copy. Then store a copy somewhere away from our house. Your car is not a good place, because of the heat in the summer is not good for the dvd's.

I would buy the best/fastest dvd burner available to speed up your burning speed. This would decrease the time you sit there and watch it.

Good luck on your decision.

Navy-Jeepster

[cjdirtbiker]

CD storage is one alternative. Especially for archiving.

For working drawings the memory sticks have gotten really cheap - I think 1gig sticks are like $50 or something now. I may be able to get you some at wholesale, we sell them imprinted by the hundreds.

A tape backup is the answer for daily backup. Call me and we can look at the various formats. Symantec make the software, it's very easy and automatic - BACKUP EXEC.

I had a Novel server with a software raid and hot-swap drives. When one drive failed it was definitely not plug and play. It was still a major rebuild, but the one good drive did still have our data on it. The newer machines have a hardware raid, they are more dependable. They are more applicable for a network though.

For your drawings I would think redundant storage, or permanent store makes more sense. Archive your old stuff, back up your current or working projects. You'll be protected from just such a failure. And hardrives do fail!!

--Chris
PS. Did you want to use that sander? It's air drive.

[screwball]

I had posted this on another site, you can either use an USB flash drive, or another computer on your network to backup to.

If you still have that HD, though I make no promise, I have succeeded where others have failed in data recovery.

Also, you dont have to backup the whole "My Documents" folder, you can specify which folder... with mine, I keep spreedsheets & word doc's in specific folders, keeps it organized. I use three forms of backups.

the first of which, USB flash drive. I plug it in ( i setup an "auto run" that goes out and grabs all my spreedsheets, docs, and specific Outlook .PST files) it copies a predetermined set of files that I might need/use that day.

Second is an external 250g HD, it backup's my computer, and others on my home network.

Third, all my computers have partitioned drives, so they keep a running backup of each others data.

RAID, is another execelint solution, but if your going down that path, you might look into "Network-attached storage" (NAS), RAIDarrays. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage

simple batch file for backups, customize to fit your needs.

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@echo off
:: variables
set drive=X:\\Computer name\backup

set backupcmd=xcopy /s /c /d /e /h /i /r /k /y

echo ### Backing up Favorites...
%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\Favorites" "%drive%\Favorites"

echo ### Backing up My Documents...
%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents" "%drive%\My Documents"

echo ### Backing up Outlook...
%backupcmd% "%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook" "%drive%\Outlook"

echo ### Backing up Registry...
if not exist "%drive%\Registry" mkdir "%drive%\Registry"
if exist "%drive%\Registry\regbackup.reg" del "%drive%\Registry\regbackup.reg"
regedit /e "%drive%\Registry\regbackup.reg"
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