I’ve been debating about a lot of things to do with backing up my digital files from my various computers. I think my main problem is that I have a LOT of data to back up. Pictures and video take up a lot of my hard drive space (especially 1080p video from my Rebel T1i), so I really need an optimum way to manage all that, have access to all of it, and have it backed up in two places as well.
As far as I can tell, the best way to deal with it is to throw a LOT of money at it. Getting something like a Drobo that will house several hard drives and make sure that all data is recoverable if one drive fails seems like a good option….but an expensive option.
Purchasing a whole bunch of external hard drives and backing up everything twice seems like a more affordable option, but I can see myself backing things up on a semi-regular basis at first and then starting to slack off later as time goes on. So then I’ll have some backups of my old stuff, but still be in trouble if my laptop got stolen or damaged and the data on it was not recoverable.
There is some free Microsoft Software (called SyncToy) that can help with that kind of thing. It helps you sync your files to an external drive without having to do much work other than hooking it up and hitting start. It does cut down on the work, but it also requires diligence to do on a regular basis. I often lack diligence when it comes to things like that.
Another option is to build my own computer/server that can have a whole bunch of hard drives in it that are running in a RAID configuration so there is more than one copy of data at any given time. The problem with that is it takes a lot of time to setup and I still am not able to have an off-site copy of my data in case there is a flood or theft of the machine. That being said, I could probably hide the machine somewhere in the house and not have to worry too much about a thief finding it.
So, I’m not really sure what I should do going forward. I guess it’s a balance between cost and effort. Any suggestions for an optimum solution?
I have also had the same deliberation. Let me share with you what I have found.
It all depends on what you are using to start. Laptop is a little harder but I have found a pretty easy solution, desktop is quite a bit easier.
Let start with desktop. Raid 5 is definitely the best way to go for data integrity with a couple of exceptions. Raid 5 is striped with parity. You can lose a hard drive and not even blink an eye. We have found that the best setup is dual scsi raid cards with 5 drives in raid 5. The reason is if 2 drives die, you can still run, and the chances of 2 drives dieing at once is rare, but not unheard of. The dual raid cards are for the same reason. chances are both your raid card aren’t going to die at once. We use this on our servers in conjunction with a tape library backup as a just in case precaution. With this way, you can use something like hamachi or some sort of vpn to create access to where ever you are. Won’t take that much to setup (I could walk you through it in about 10 minutes over the phone) but it also does limit where your data is.
So as for the laptop, one thing you could try is setting the windows 7 backup to backup to a network drive. You buy a NAS, and it backs up your system every night at like 2am. With the size of HHDs nowadays it should break the bank to get a NAS with 2x2TB drives in a mirror. That way, you have 2 hard drives with potential multiple copies of your system, as well as your system itself. Windows 7 has a pretty nice integrated backup system that allows you to backup to network storage.
Another alternative that you could look into is getting a web hosting company with a boat load of disk storage space and do an automated ftp backup of your system. Again this would take a long time so you might want to do this at 2 in the morning.
And the last is to do the separate file server and have it backup to a remote ftp site. that way you have access to very recent files (not real-time unfortunately) via ftp, you could access them real-time via vpn, and you have your data backed up both on your system, your fileserver and a remote system. probably the best you can do with out going all out and spending boat loads of money on a backup syncing system.
Cheers
Thanks for the advice Adam. That’s lots to think about. I have another wrench to throw in now. Now I’ll have a laptop and a desktop that I want synced with all my project files for Web Design, but also have backups of all the pictures and video that I create. Right now I have almost 1TB of data that needs to be backed up…and that’s only going to grow…so having things synced online via ftp or something would not be an option as my upload speed at home and at work is still less than 1Mbps. But looking at my web design project files, they add up to 200GB of data….so even that is a bit unmanageable for online syncing. I’m going to start budgeting now though so that when I finally make a decision, I can have the funds to do it!
Have you thought about possible remote management? The problem with laptops syncing to desktops is your laptop will never be able to hold as much data as your desktop. Have you thought about terminal server?
Heres something else you have to think about also. Do you need all 1TB of data with you at all times? Or do you just need access to some of it? Also, access to it and back of it are to separate issues. If you want it backed up, you may have to settle for it not being readily accessible.
As for the sync, I would say see if you can create a folder hierarchy where you have your stuff to sync (price lists, customer data, website information (passwords, paths, etc), etc), and stuff that doesn’t need syncing (web files, media (videos, pictures, etc). The stuff that doesn’t need syncing doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be inaccessible though. If you set up a DDNS on your router using dyndns.org, then you can have RDP access where ever you have access. You can also use ultravnc (uvnc.com) which includes a file transfer so you can access your files and transfer them to yoru local system (compared to redirecting your local drives through rdp, which considerably slows the rdp down).
Lets talk! remote support is one of my strong suits