I would be interested in knowing of good backup up solutions. I have a home computer and want to backup the data. What would be better types of media. I read info on the Net and there seems to be problems with most types, what are the most reliable?

Thanks

Hi,

I recommend hard drives in a redundant raid array for backups.

Evo2.

probably you can use a storage (or several different) on the net somewhere, they will take care about backups and safety.

There are a number of possibilities. What the best option is for you, depends on a number of factors, such as:

• the amount of data to be backed up
• how often backups need to be performed
• if the operation has to be fully automatic or if a (partly) manual procedure is acceptable
• to which extent the data includes confidential information
• how fast you need the restore procedure to be
• exactly which scenarios you want to protect against (theft, hardware failure, disasters, accidental deletion/corruption, malware, malicious acts)

As evo2 mentioned, you can use a NAS unit (or a second computer) with a RAID array to store backups. Such backups can be fully automated, and both backup and restore operations will be quite fast. On the other hand, your backups could be stolen along with your other equipment, or destroyed by the same fire, flooding, lightning strike or other disastrous event that would damage your PC. A virus infection or "ransom" malware would probably affect both your PC and the backups.

You could use a cloud service to store your backups. This would make the backups immune to most of the threats listed above, and as most such services are based around incremental backups and deduplication, each backup would only have to cover added or altered data since the last backup. In other words, the more often you run'd the backup job, the less time each job would take. Most providers offer encryption both for transmission and storage.

The downside to cloud backups is that you'll have to keep paying, or your backups will simply vanish. The same might happen if the company goes bankrupt. Also, restoring large amounts of data over an Internet connection will take time. Bare metal recovery, if supported at all, could literally take days.

If you're willing and able to install and manage your own backup system, you could create a "personal cloud", possibly at a secondary location. You'd get almost all the advantages of cloud-based backup and none of the downsides.

Optical media are slow and surprisingly expensive due to low capacity per disc. They're pretty easy to transport and store off-site and can be read by any dirt-cheap DVD or Blu-Ray reader, but some discs degrade quite quickly unless stored under ideal conditions. If you can fit all your stuff on a single disc and you're prepared to make multiple copies, optical media might be worth considering.

Tape is insanely fast and great for long-term storage (10+ years). Media cost per gigabyte is still slightly lower than even the cheapest SATA drives, and with decent backup software even bare-metal recovery is fast and easy. Most drives support hardware encryption, and software encryption is always an option. The downside is of course the tapes and the tape drives; the tapes have to be manually changed and transported off-site, and the drives are really quite expensive (but last forever).

At the lowest level; I'm more a proponent of personal solutions for personal data. Why? Because one point that Ser Olmy brings up which is if you have paid storage, you need to keep paying for it. Also, because my data is my data; if I wanted it "out there" then I'd post it on facebook or something. Bottom line is my tax returns, personal correspondence ... none of the world's business for general access.

Therefore the first level is to obtain a good USB flash drive, consider using something like truecrypt; and place backups on there; or just place my media on there always. I do that actually. I keep my data not on my system, but on attached USB drives; I buy 500G or larger USB drives and place my data on them. After a few years I buy another one, typically larger, and copy all of what's on my smaller/older drive to that and continue; but keep my older one as backup.

There are NAS level drives one can buy; just google for "NAS drive" and you'll find the wiki as well as tons of products. That's about as high as I'd go. But these days it seems almost worth it to consider that for your personal data. For instance we're at a point where you buy stuff as pure digital media all the time, music, movies, as well as your personal media and documentation; along with the tons of random stuff one downloads which they might wish to hold on to. Therefore it slowly becomes more worthwhile to maintain a good backup of that information.

There is a new optical disc that is supposed to be fantastic. Forgot the name but it isn't that expensive.

Tape or mechanical drives or even offsite may also be a choice.

How much data?

Cloud storage solutions, some of which are free, are a) convenient and b) as reliable as anything. The consumer-targeted ones are particularly good for individuals with small amounts of data (say, documents).

If you would prefer to have custody of the media, then I'd just make redundant backups. I have two hard drives in different locations (well, one in my tower and one not), each containing the same archive data. Large hard drives are not reliable; that's why I have two.

Where I am, you can buy 128GB USB3 thumb drives for $60CDN. That's another good option, which falls somewhere between the "free cloud" and "hard drive" solutions.

I might get some flash drives for the moment. Which are better brands as far as reliability and price. I was looking at 500G on a web site where I live and it was expensive.

I like my Blu-ray burner, 15-pack x 25GB each, divided by about $12.99; burners around $100.

Edit\add: Comparably (not always software wise (unless)) lasts forever.

Hi,

I'd be keeping away from truecrypt if I were you. See for example http://boingboing.net/2014/05/29/mys...nt-from-t.html

Not sure why you are choosing flash drives over conventional spinning disks.

Evo2.

Doesn't burning take too much time?

More significantly, IMHO, it requires manual intervention (assuming you've not invested in some robotic disk changer).

Evo2.

Depends on the data, I can't remember a full disk ever going past an hour.

For home use? And, it can be automated with software but yes only up to 25GB, unless your good with an erector set.

Mechanics fail easier than plastic.