Backup Options

[michaels]

I currently have 120gb and 160gb IDE drives but am planning on getting a new mobo and adding some sata drives. I might donate the 160gb drive to a new media player pc and use the 120 gb drive for backup purposes (see below)

What I am proposing to do is set up a small (say 80gb) SATA for my OS and other files that I want backed up and then maybe two sata 200gb in Raid 0 for my multimedia contact (that I tend to share with the rest of the family over my lan). What I am not sure of is the best way to make sure the 80 gb drive is safely backed up - should I get another sata drive to run in RAID 1 with the system drive or is it safer to back up to the 120gb drive over the lan - and is there any software that could do this easily, essentially I would like to be able to switch to and boot from the backup drive if the main drive were to fail. Or is it better to backup to different media (tape? DVD?) altogether.

Sorry this question is a bit rambling but I guess that reflects the fact that I'm not yet sure where to go with this.

[mike_w]

While having another drive in the same computer, in RAID or not, can help if one drive fails, it doesn't if the entire system fails. Personally, I have two hard drives with backup data, and I burn it onto CD every now and then. I also use Unison to synchronise files between my computers (I think there's a Windows version).

[blueball]

I use Symantec Ghost Version 9. It can backup to Internal, USB or network drives and you can set it to do incremental backups too. Runs within the OS so you don't have to shutdown to get a backup.

Ghost 9 Page on Symantec Website

[kevpuk]

Ghost is great, or try Acronis True Image 8 - very good backup utility.

I run a 80GB SATAII as my OS drive and a single 200GB SATA as the media etc drive.....I have both a Acronis cloned image (compressed) of the OS HDD on the 200GB and also backup docs/media etc to DVD-RAM (not cheap, but by far the most reliable DVD format !)

[irishjoe]

It depends on how much of ur small SATA drive that u are using.
If it is not a lot, then follow the above advice and make an image of the drive every now and again.
But if the 80 gig is filled, that is a lot of dvds. (About 20ish). If that is the case, RAID 0 it. But it doesn't cover user errors. If you screw the operating system, both drives will be screwed.

I image my operating system drive but not my hard drive that holds all my files. Too many disks. (Lets hope it doesnt die. Touch Wood.)