Computer backup with external hard drive help.

[seige101]

Just realized i have 10+ years of digital photos and so much music here on the computer! It would be horrible if these got lost due to a crash, hard drive failure, or disaster of some kind to the house.

Here is what i am thinking, external networked hard drive in the shed (about 50' from house). This way if the house burns down etc everything would be saved and i would not have to worry about daily/weekly/monthly backups and bringing a portable hard drive off side.

What is the operating temp of such a device? The shed is not heated so temps would be from -5 in winter to 100* in summer. Would that be to cold or would the constant spinning and being powered on keep it warm enough. If not could i put it in a foam built box with say a nightlight to keep it warm?

Any recommendations as to brands or products? I am thinking wired because it's more secured and faster. I will be trenching some conduits to the shed to re-do the power and bury the satellite wires over the weekend. It would be easy to toss cat 6 in with the satellite wires and bring it back to the router.

Does this sound like a realistic idea? Is there another solution out there?

Seemed for about $150 i could get a 1tb networked hard drive and backup both computers in the house to it.

Thanks!

 

[heat seeker]

Why not a cloud backup - Carbonite, etc.
God forbid, but if there was a local disaster, flood, huge fire, electrical disaster, you'd lose your backup drive, too.
I use both. The cloud backup is a lot slower, but it's safer. The external drive mirrors my entire drive, so if my hard drive dies, it will be relatively easy to move everything onto the new hard drive, and everything would be back to normal in little time.

 

[MasterMech]

The cold wouldn't bother it so much as the heat. Find somewhere with more moderate temps. Especially for something you need to trust.

 

[mayhem]

A shed 50 feet from your house is too close for a good file backup solution...too close to the at-risk structure to be considered safe, but if its what you've got you gotta work with it I suppose.

If you're really concerned you cna do a CD or DVD backup and rent a cheap safe deposit box...or get a fireproof box, put the discs in the box and the box out in the shed. The discs will be less sensitive than the hard drive.

Cloud backup is a great way to go for stuff like photos though.

 

[begreen]

If that drive is running constantly it will be just as prone to failure as one in the house. Maybe more so due to temperature and moisture extremes. I would back up to the drive and the store it in a location that is secure and dry. Maybe at a relative's? Then do a monthly or biannual updating of the files.

 

[Jags]

I'm with BG on this one. Get a monster external HD and back up your files, then send it home with your mom/brother/aunt to put in a drawer or closet. Update as frequently as you want.

 

[begreen]

Had this happen to a friends computer recently. In spite of being told to leave the extra drive off, they left it running 24/7. After 3 years it died and they were despondent because they were using it like a secondary drive, but had original files stored there! Oy vey.

 

[Jags]

Had this happen to a friends computer recently. In spite of being told to leave the extra drive off, they left it running 24/7. After 3 years it died and they were despondent because they were using it like a secondary drive, but had original files stored there! Oy vey.

Huh, he failed to realize that the whole idea of "Backup" is the duality of important files located somewhere safe and secure. He broke rule number one of "disaster recovery".

 

[PapaDave]

I've got cd's and dvd's starting from several years ago. Also have an external drive (only 250 G ) from about 6-7 years ago that only gets turned on when I'm looking for something or backing up some files.
Would be great (if needed) to have a hot swappable array , but that's overkill for me. :coolsmile:
Don't trust the "cloud".

 

[btuser]

I'd go for the drive + the cloud if I was really worried.

 

[stee6043]

I bit the bullet this year and invested in a "real" safe for my basement. Inside this safe I have a Sentry fire safe with my backup drives and CDs in it. A large fire safe is not cheap but it's a lifetime unit. It might be worth looking into. it's nice to have a place for everything including your data.

 

[MasterMech]

I bit the bullet this year and invested in a "real" safe for my basement. Inside this safe I have a Sentry fire safe with my backup drives and CDs in it. A large fire safe is not cheap but it's a lifetime unit. It might be worth looking into. it's nice to have a place for everything including your data.

I'd probably wind up keeping the saw in there too. %-P

 

[pybyr]

An additional point about burning to optical disks - it's not a bad thing to do, but they're not something you should rely on as your sole long term storage solution, as their life/ reliability is not necessarily as long or as robust as is generally assumed:

See this, and sources (such as the NIST studies) in it

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/opticalmedialongevity.html

 

[maverick06]

I back up to a 1tb raid array inside my house (raid = 2 hard drives doing the same thing, so if 1 fails the other is still working). Then, I back up to an external drive every few months and i leave that in my desk at work. In between backing up to the hard drive i keep at work, I backup to a thumb drive that I keep hidden outside in the yard. I could easily lose a few of those backups if a big fire (I am on a hill so a major flood isnt possible, other than my basement). but If I loose all of those things, I have more to worry about!

Of course backing up regularly is important... I dont do that as judiciously as I should, maybe once a month...

 

[PapaDave]

pybyr, great article.