After my slight disaster of losing a backup drive (that foolishly I wasn't actually using "as" a backup). I need advice regarding modern external drives....I presume you can get SSD external drives now, but cost per gb will still be more than an old HDD. But should be more durable (will mainly be writing once and reading more often). Or would it be better to just buy flash drives, although I'm thinking of doing that as well so I'll have data backed up twice. Any recommendations on what to look for?
External storage advice request
- Thread starter Damage Inc
- Start date
Have you thought about a cloud backup strategy instead? It is obviously highly dependent on your internet performance, needs, and security concerns around using the cloud, but for backing up important information it might be a good choice.
Something like Acronis True Image allows you to backup a whole machine or selectively backup what you need depending on space. You can automate it to run at a set time. It creates multiple versions so if you've ended a document two days ago and made a mistake you can go back in time. Most importantly it's offsite so if you were burgled or had a fire / flood then the backup is still protected and available.
If I was doing an on-premises backup I'd probably buy a standard HDD rather than an SSD. The performance difference, after the initial backup, shouldn't be an issue.
Something like Acronis True Image allows you to backup a whole machine or selectively backup what you need depending on space. You can automate it to run at a set time. It creates multiple versions so if you've ended a document two days ago and made a mistake you can go back in time. Most importantly it's offsite so if you were burgled or had a fire / flood then the backup is still protected and available.
If I was doing an on-premises backup I'd probably buy a standard HDD rather than an SSD. The performance difference, after the initial backup, shouldn't be an issue.
mmm dunno about putting important info on the cloud, then again as you say if burglary or fire happen I'm still smegged (although data loss would probably be the least of my worries in those events!). I may do it all, cloud, an internal drive for documents, external back drive, and flash drives as well!! I'm actually thinking of a second internal SSD as my first is rather full now (I don't uninstall many games! as I never know which one I want to play at any given time). How much storage is too much...answer, you can't have enough storage (IMO!).
Still I'm saying all this but cost will probably make me cut back! But I have around £500 to play with. Any suggestions? Bit wary of external Samsung as that was the drive that failed, my "old" 1tb Seagate is still going strong (touch wood!).
I've bought two synology Network Attached Storage units and their pretty good. It's not a simple external hard drive though, it's basically a mini server but the advantage is you can run raid array. I have one with 5 hard drives, if one fails you can just slap a new one in and keep all your data.
There are smaller units with less hard drives that can maintain the data should one drive fail.
It's still not perfect, ideally you would have another offsite back up like cloud. But the system comes with apps that will attach to any cloud service you want. It can run as a CCTV server, media server, email server, pretty much anything a real server can do just with a simplified OS.
Over all though, you do kind of need a back up of our back up, to be sure to be sure. It is an expensive option but it would be much more dependable than an basic external hard drive.
There are smaller units with less hard drives that can maintain the data should one drive fail.
It's still not perfect, ideally you would have another offsite back up like cloud. But the system comes with apps that will attach to any cloud service you want. It can run as a CCTV server, media server, email server, pretty much anything a real server can do just with a simplified OS.
Over all though, you do kind of need a back up of our back up, to be sure to be sure. It is an expensive option but it would be much more dependable than an basic external hard drive.
This is just for a home though, mainly home business stuff (Downloaded PDFs of receipts and documentation), isn't that a bit overkill?
My side job/hobby is motorsports photography so I have 8+ TB of media.
I use 2 external systems.
I use 2 external systems.
- Drobo 5C (raid type system with about 15 TB of storage) This is not a backup. I use this for working directly on photos using a USB-C port
- FreeNAS computer using retired computer parts (this is the primary back-up for all media)
It depends. Synology is trying to add value to their units by adding all these features, at the end of the day it's storage.
If you just want external storage you can plug in an external hard drive and leave it at that, but you'll have no redundancy, you'll be just as venerable to failure as before. Cloud is a great solution as long as you can deal with the load times and not having access to your stuff if you lose internet.
Using an old PC as a NAS like BillyBobSenna suggests would maybe be a cheaper alternative, you'll be able to do some raid for redundancy and use up any old equipment you have lying around, but still have all the benefits of a simple to use NAS.
The Synology stuff is probably more pug and play. I've had my original unit fail, synology sent out a replacement (under guarantee) and I was able to just put the hard drives from the old unit into it and boot up as if nothing had changed.
It all depends on how much you value that data. If you can't live without it a NAS with a cloud backup is the best option. If you'd be really sad but not that put out by loosing it, you can take the risk.
Lots of backup strategies out there, but the key question is always how much you'd care if you lost it. If the answer is "a lot" then you should try very hard to never have less than 3 copies of it (including the live version on your machine). Ideally at least one copy isn't on the same premises.
For example, I don't back up my Steam games, but important documents are both in the cloud and on an extracted disk (I still run a pair of RAID-1 HDDs, with 3 spares set aside, so I can swap one out regularly and store it separately).
Key tip (that basically everyone learns the hard way): no backup system is commissioned until you have actually tested recovering stuff from it.
But whatever you do, don't do what an acquaintance of mine insists on doing: after losing everything (including business records) to a ransomware attack, this person was given some dodgy advice by an "expert" and now scrupulously uses an external drive for backups, and leaves it plugged in all the time. (Yes, I've tried to explain why that's nuts.)
For example, I don't back up my Steam games, but important documents are both in the cloud and on an extracted disk (I still run a pair of RAID-1 HDDs, with 3 spares set aside, so I can swap one out regularly and store it separately).
Key tip (that basically everyone learns the hard way): no backup system is commissioned until you have actually tested recovering stuff from it.
But whatever you do, don't do what an acquaintance of mine insists on doing: after losing everything (including business records) to a ransomware attack, this person was given some dodgy advice by an "expert" and now scrupulously uses an external drive for backups, and leaves it plugged in all the time. (Yes, I've tried to explain why that's nuts.)
Durge Driven
DD
I used to worry about sim backups endlessly but now use Steam for everything ( bar GPL and old gmotor ) I use SSD drives as Steam partitions lose a drive just let Steam reinstall everything
More important of course is personal data
With everyday and sim towers I run a USB hub that holds a 128GB corsair 440mb SSD thumb drive
To switch PCs I flip switch on monitor hub and have to swap USB lead to have 10+ devices swapped
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On thumbdrive I keep all personal stuff , passwords etc so anytime I update anything I only need to do on 1 PC I also use the drive for downloading so i can swap PC and keep download going
When I go out I take my phone and the thumbdrive, leave Google and MS in constant pause mode
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More important of course is personal data
With everyday and sim towers I run a USB hub that holds a 128GB corsair 440mb SSD thumb drive
To switch PCs I flip switch on monitor hub and have to swap USB lead to have 10+ devices swapped
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On thumbdrive I keep all personal stuff , passwords etc so anytime I update anything I only need to do on 1 PC
I also use the drive for downloading so i can swap PC and keep download going When I go out I take my phone and the thumbdrive, leave Google and MS in constant pause mode
Best security is VPN black friday sale ... https://nordvpn.com/ ..... also see "secure" cloud
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cheers lads, i have a lot of info to digest!!
Just as a side-note: The times of 1-disk-redundancy are long gone (assuming that the disks used are of significant capacity and non-enterprise-grade). Resilvering a new disk in such an environment calls for an addition drive to fail (while resilvering not even one single bit may fail) and math says that failure is a lot more likely than we all think. Yes, I had that practical experience, too
Simple calculator: https://magj.github.io/raid-failure/
Some background: https://www.digistor.com.au/the-latest/Whether-RAID-5-is-still-safe-in-2019/
As a backup strategy I use one disk that I store at home and two more that are stored in the office. I backup on them using a SATA/USB3-Docking station. Why two backups in office? So there's only one at home at the same time. Yes, this is crazy but it would need a more catastrophic event than a part of my house burning to loose data.
As for cloud backup: Always a good idea (backblaze comes to mind). Problem in my case: 9TB of data, 1Mbit upload connection. Those numbers don't match well
Surprising how many people do! I tried to explain to someone recently that a virus, Trojan or ransomeware will potentially affect everything plugged into the PC making an external backup drive useless as a means of system recovery unless it’s disconnected at the time of infection.
You are absolutely right - that's why this does not fully count as a backup. And for sure not as the only one!
M D Gourley
Premium
I personally use 'Acronis True Image' for a complete clone of the entire 'Operating System and all my Sim Racing games contained on that Drive for my dedicated Sim Rig PC.
I generally do a complete Clone Back Up of the entire drive when a number of Sim / Windows updates happen and it usually takes approx 30 -40mins to clone approx 400 GB from one SSD to another SSD, once done Acronis gives you the option of using that cloned drive in the existing PC or transferring it to another PC. Once the Clone is done I just un-plug the SSD Drive so it does not have any power or data connection for any electrical spikes that could hurt it and just leave the cloned SSD in my PC for the next time I do a complete Clone update.
I like doing it this way as I have over the years had a number of drive fails / corruptions and when that happens I can be up and running again with the cloned copy in approx 2 mins, enough time to un-plug the old failed drive and plug in the new cloned copy and turn on the PC and your away Gaming again....however, the Cloned Drive contents are only a snap shot in time at time of cloning so if I did not clone back up for 6 months that cloned drive will be 6 month old data, so I personally do it very often in case of a failure.
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3-2-1 is the basic methodology - 3 copies of your data, 2 of which are back-ups, 1 of which is stored offsite.
Instead of 3-2-1, I use a Pegasus R8 in RAID6 and Backblaze for my offsite. Figure that the 2 drive RAID6 redundancy provides an equivalent level of protection. I signed up early on with Backblaze and only pay $60/yr for over 16tb of online backup. Backblaze also offers version history for an extra $2/mo which helps protects against malware encryption.
Instead of 3-2-1, I use a Pegasus R8 in RAID6 and Backblaze for my offsite. Figure that the 2 drive RAID6 redundancy provides an equivalent level of protection. I signed up early on with Backblaze and only pay $60/yr for over 16tb of online backup. Backblaze also offers version history for an extra $2/mo which helps protects against malware encryption.
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Chers lads...right I'm thinking of geting 2 4TB external drives, a smeg load of Flash drives and looking into cloud backups as well.
Thing is best place for getiing hardware in UK, Scan, ebuyer, not sure about Amazons packaging and handling being good enough for harddrives. Any UK bods have a fave place?
Thing is best place for getiing hardware in UK, Scan, ebuyer, not sure about Amazons packaging and handling being good enough for harddrives. Any UK bods have a fave place?
I use AOMEI Backupper Standard with an Orico USB 3.0 to SATA docking station which accepts bare 3.5 inch drives,
which get stored in one of those waterproof fire resistant chests. Full image backups about once a year
or whenever differential backups get too large. Since disconnected mechanical drives can fail
e.g. from bearing lube leaking onto disks and sticking to heads (happened to me),
I alternate full image and differential backups between drive pairs (so 4 drives in play).
Other than being free, AOMEI allows restoring individual files and folders from image backups.
Creating a standalone UEFI-bootable recovery CD that could access NAS was a hassle at the time,
but may have been simplified in more recent versions.
which get stored in one of those waterproof fire resistant chests. Full image backups about once a year
or whenever differential backups get too large. Since disconnected mechanical drives can fail
e.g. from bearing lube leaking onto disks and sticking to heads (happened to me),
I alternate full image and differential backups between drive pairs (so 4 drives in play).
Other than being free, AOMEI allows restoring individual files and folders from image backups.
Creating a standalone UEFI-bootable recovery CD that could access NAS was a hassle at the time,
but may have been simplified in more recent versions.
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