How do you backup?

[Howard]

I recently got my nice shiny LaCie 160GB USB2.0 hard drive as my backup device, and it's fantastic. Takes me about an hour to backup the whole of my D drive, which is about 70GB full ATM. Plugs in and works



Looks sexy too!


So how does everyone else backup their important data?

[nichomach]

Our primary back medium is a 500GB Lacie Firewire 800 disk,



which then gets streamed off onto AIT3 tapes. NB: Sony's stated compression ratio for this medium is a joke, one of the grossest overstatements I've met. The native capacity is 100GB per tape and even with compression, don't reckon on getting more than 120-130. Word to the wise, is all.

[daniel_owen_uk]

DDS4 tape drive in my fileserver 20-40gb on a tape.

[Stewart]

Back up? Oh, you mean that thing professionals do...

If my drive goes up the wall, at home, I lose some games and some music. I absorb this damage, and come back stronger. Like a wasp.

Actually, I don't think I've ever had a harddrive give up on me... burning important stuff to DVD is as sophisticated as I get.

[nichomach]

In that case I won't tell you about the 20GB Quantum sat on my desk spluttering its last as it gives up it's few intact remaining files to the other disk in the machine I've bunged it in...

[turkster]

Well rather haphazardly I'm afraid .

My main drive is a RAID 0 Arrayand I have another 80 GB drive in my main system which is used to backup up important stuff on the RAID array. I do that quite often (every few days) but not quite as often as I should . Then I periodically put stuff on CDs if its finished or on CF or SD card if I'm working on it. Also I have a network drive and copy important stuff to that as well.


PS Nice looking drive Howard . I want one.

Oh and Vaul I have also had a HDD fail after only 18 months although I managed to get most of the important stuff of it by slaving in another system .

[daniel_owen_uk]

Back up? Oh, you mean that thing professionals do...

No he means what do you do with stuff you no longer have space for

[directhex]

RAID 1 in the server, i occasionally copy important stuff to there (and all my important music & dvd rips are on there)

[Aaron]

No he means what do you do with stuff you no longer have space for

What did of "stuff" would that be?

[Spud1]

i dont really, all my music is backed up on my iPod tho so if all my drives die ive still got that, but all my games etc arent backed up at all ;/

still its not too much trouble to reinstall it all again

[Allen]

I had to choose CD's or DVD's, though I back up mainly to my 2nd HDD (not listed). Important stuff is saved to DVD's.

[Howard]

Backing up was never really in my mind until my HDD died. Then it was. Cos it was a royal pain in the arse. Lol.

[Butuz]

NB: Sony's stated compression ratio for this medium is a joke, one of the grossest overstatements I've met. The native capacity is 100GB per tape and even with compression, don't reckon on getting more than 120-130. Word to the wise, is all.

It totally depends on the data you back up. If you back up 200 gig worth of web server log files chances are they will fit on one ait3 tape. If you back up 130gig worth of (already compressed and therefore uncompressible) jpeg files, you'll be lucky if it fits.

On a mix of server system files, and user data (word, ppt, excel, etc) i fit about 45-50gb onto a 35GB ait tape. Thats not bad compression.

Its just your fault for trying to back up uncompresible stuff

Butuz

[Devilbod]

I have a seperate Hard Drive that is my backup, just has all the applications, pictures, patches, drivers and updates for a quick intall takes about 1 to 2 hr for a complete reinstall. Other than that DVD's. Everything that I need that doesnt fit on the back up will probably fit on a DVD and just to be on the safe side I back the backup drive once every now and again.

I know it sound a bit extreme but I use programs that use all four of my processors (2 real = 4 hyperthreaded) at 100% and with older versions of windows I used to get fatal errors every now and again purely because it couldnt cope, XP pro does seem a damn site more stable. Anyway I like to flatten my system every know and again to clear out all the junk.

[myth]

I have been trying to figure out a way to backup all my data... Well I have decided to get 4 Mator 250GB harddrives and put them in a nice raid! This will alow me the speed I need when restoring to my raptors and will provide the security I need! Humm... Now all I need is $800 dollars....

[DeludedGuy]

DVDs.

Last time I backed up i used 5 DVDs, which I got for free, buy one pack of 5, get one free at HMV