• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Backup Solution - Avoid Raid?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Brunel07

Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
Hi,

Im a little new to this so you will have to excuse me if this is common knowledge.

I have 1TB harddrive, but currently none of the files have been backed up apart from about 1GB of the most important stuff. I need to backup the entire 1TB harddrive now. Ive been looking into a RAID 1 setup to keep a copy of the drive, but from what ive read this is only good if the drive fails, if I corrupt my harddrive then im still buggered.

1. How often does a drive get corrupted? Ive never heard of it happening, and even if it does, isnt it still easy to get the files off as long as the drive isnt broken?

2. Is having a separate backup drive without RAID the best option to protect my files?

3. Are there good software options for automatic syncing and backup? I only ask because I dont want to have to hit a physical button every time I want to update my backup (because ill probably forget to do it in weeks) but at the same time, I dont want it backed up in real time incase I corrupt the drive.
 
1. The answer to this is "impossible to tell" and "anywhere from trivial to impossible". It's safest to assume that a drive WILL eventually fail. There is no reliable way to predict lightning strikes, house fires, theft, floods, shock damage, destructive pets, fat-fingering the delete key, etc. Even if you could reasonably guess the rate of failure, it'd sure suck to be wrong!

isnt it still easy to get the files off as long as the drive isnt broken?

This not a question you should ever be asking yourself. As the great Optimus Prime once said, "Fate rarely calls upon as at the moment of our choosing." In this case, Murphy would make sure that your hard disk's fate would be met at 2AM on the morning before your semester term paper is due.

I had a friend who assumed that he could recover files from a failing drive, so long as he "had enough warning", so he never bothered to back anything up. How well do you think that went?

2. Yes, preferably somewhere far away from your computer. Don't get an external drive, back everything up, and then set it down next to your computer case, because it too will get blown up when a meteor hits your house.

Tape drives are backups, external HDDs are backups, offsite mirroring is backup, RAID is NOT backup. It is a high availability and reliability solution.

3. You either want auto syncing or you don't... choose one, the computer can't decide for you! I personally use AllwaySync Pro, it's a great piece of software but requires my intervention to do its thing.
 
Hi,

Im a little new to this so you will have to excuse me if this is common knowledge.

I have 1TB harddrive, but currently none of the files have been backed up apart from about 1GB of the most important stuff. I need to backup the entire 1TB harddrive now. Ive been looking into a RAID 1 setup to keep a copy of the drive, but from what ive read this is only good if the drive fails, if I corrupt my harddrive then im still buggered.

1. How often does a drive get corrupted? Ive never heard of it happening, and even if it does, isnt it still easy to get the files off as long as the drive isnt broken?

2. Is having a separate backup drive without RAID the best option to protect my files?

3. Are there good software options for automatic syncing and backup? I only ask because I dont want to have to hit a physical button every time I want to update my backup (because ill probably forget to do it in weeks) but at the same time, I dont want it backed up in real time incase I corrupt the drive.

http://www.carbonite.com/
 
1. How often does a drive get corrupted? Ive never heard of it happening, and even if it does, isnt it still easy to get the files off as long as the drive isnt broken?

I have no idea.

2. Is having a separate backup drive without RAID the best option to protect my files?

That is a step in the right direction, it just depends on how valuable your data is to you. For my needs (backups of my movie collection) I use two 1.5 TB drives that I switch between that are clones of each other. I never have both drives connected to the same machine unless I am using rsync to sync them. If I wanted to go a step further I could buy a third drive that I could store in my office at work to prevent loss in the event that my home burned down.

3. Are there good software options for automatic syncing and backup? I only ask because I dont want to have to hit a physical button every time I want to update my backup (because ill probably forget to do it in weeks) but at the same time, I dont want it backed up in real time incase I corrupt the drive.

I assume you are running a Windows Operating System. If so reading the below article looks like a good start:

http://www.ghacks.net/2009/04/26/the-10-best-windows-backup-software-programs/
 
Like rolling thunder pointed out. For back up solutions there is online services, if your stuff is "THAT" important. In general, I like to keep two hard drives. One serves as my media Hard drive which is also the back-up and the other the Main OS hard drive.

Now the question is, is your media whats important, or is your OS/Settings/Information most important. If the OS is the question, the cheaper alternative is to just get a second hard drive and use windows back-up to back up your files. If its your Media Hard drive your most worried about, then I would get an identical hard-drive and raid them or just schedule windows to back up your media hard drive to that drive on a regular basis.

Like its been pointed out. Too many options.
 
1. How often does a drive get corrupted? Ive never heard of it happening, and even if it does, isnt it still easy to get the files off as long as the drive isnt broken?

The reason why you have not heard of this happening is that it does not, a hard disk only fails, it can partly fail or completely fail and for a number of reasons such as controller fail, bearings, heat the results of whicht may even corrupt the data on the drive.
The term hard drive or hard disk corruption is loose slang meaning 'corrupted data' the drive itself can not corrupt

Your choice in data protection and backup depends upon how redundant you want the solution and if you wish to treat the data further such as scan it for viruses etc.
Other considerations relate to the reliability of the backup medium.
If doing backups I prefer to get the backup machine to access the client and initiate the task as this will generate logs of completed data backupsets

I have a Western Digital Mybook (Modified) with a 1TB drive that runs a script as a cron job which backs up data on a nightly basis keeping 1 weeks worth and rotating the oldest data out of the set. Easy, reliable and cheep
 
Last edited:
If you have a gmail account, just use Gspace and move it there...

Or, just get an external USB drive, and download a free program called "Syncback" and schedule it to backup your stuff.

I've set this up on a few clients who love the automation...
 
Like rolling thunder pointed out. For back up solutions there is online services, if your stuff is "THAT" important. In general, I like to keep two hard drives. One serves as my media Hard drive which is also the back-up and the other the Main OS hard drive.

Now the question is, is your media whats important, or is your OS/Settings/Information most important. If the OS is the question, the cheaper alternative is to just get a second hard drive and use windows back-up to back up your files. If its your Media Hard drive your most worried about, then I would get an identical hard-drive and raid them or just schedule windows to back up your media hard drive to that drive on a regular basis.

Like its been pointed out. Too many options.

Guys,

There are many alternatives, I've use quite a few over the years until finally I tried Carbonite through an introduction from my son. "Auto" backup has low overhead and is not intrusive. No, it's not free, I've borked a few files accidentally and on purpose to test it and after initially setting it up to suit myself, I'm satisfied and it works fine. It's not for everyone. Their email support is non-existent, I tested it so you're on your own once you understand how it works. I have not tried live support, it's not that complicated.
 
+1 to carbonite and +1 to external USB HDD storage. A lot of those also come with some backup software too.
 
Back