Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Getback on May 14, 2009, 07:19:40 PM

Title: New HD for backups.
Post by: Getback on May 14, 2009, 07:19:40 PM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL051409&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL051409-_-HardDrives-_-L0A-_-22136320

I'm thinking about buying this internal hard drive and using it to back up 2 computers over a network. Any thoughts? I will be using acronis and hope to mirror both machines. Not sure yet.


addendum: The drives to be backed up are 250 gig and 320 gig. The most space used by either machine is 20 gig.
Title: Re: New HD for backups.
Post by: Fulmar on May 14, 2009, 07:26:18 PM
Don't rely on one source of back up.  It's good to also burn multiple DVD backups of your most precious stuff.
Title: Re: New HD for backups.
Post by: BaldEagl on May 14, 2009, 09:31:32 PM
Personally I'd get a Seagate since I've had problems in the past with two different WD's but never with any of my Seagates.

As to network back-up I've got three systems set up as follows:

Laptop:
60Gb boot drive
60Gb shared storage drive
60Gb external drive

Desktop:
20Gb Win98SE boot drive
60Gb XP boot drive
120GB shared storage drive
120GB shared storage drive
120GB shared external drive

Desktop:
250Gb boot drive
250Gb storage drive
500Gb network back-up drive shared as needed for back-up
500Gb network back-up drive shared as needed for back-up

I personally think that as long as you have the original files/drive and a back-up copy on another drive no further redundancy is needed although a virus infection could potentially wipe out everything.  That's why I only share my back-up drives during back-up and otherwise don't share any drives on that machine.  Still, an infection to that particular machine could also spread to the network wiping me out.

I've never really had a virus so I don't worry too much about it and I don't have the time/inclination to back up to a complete spindle of CD's but if you really want to be safe just dissconnect the network back-up drive(s) when not in use.  That gives you redundancy in two isolated locations.

BTW, I don't bother mirroring drives.  I just back-up my settings and data.  If I have a failure I'll reinstall the OS and programs.