If you make physical backups, store them somewhere other than your house (e.g. friend/relative/bank vault), preferably 100+ miles away (as victims of Hurricane Katrina found out). With CDs, DVDs you can just post them.
If you just want a backup and forget system, use an automated online backup system such as www.carbonite.com or http://www.swissvault.org and let someone else worry about such problems.
2. If one of the drives in that setup fails, do a backup somewhere else first before anything. Manufacturing defects which make whole batches of drives useless are known to bring servers down!
3. There are free services for online backups for upto 5GB from Microsoft etc.
4. One can go totally paranoid and do backups on servers in different continents (one in US, one in Australia, one in China etc).
Been using it for 2 years for a portal.
(Not dissing it, just would like to be aware of downsides )
1) Service goes out of business
2) Online backups can take a very long time to restore over a DSL connection (think days for 50GB)
3) Backup service doesn't actually restore properly. More common than you would think. A backup isn't a backup until you can prove that you can restore it...
Best approach is to have both a local hard drive backup and online backup in the hope/assumption that both don't disappear simultanously.
I would also use simple mirroring rather than RAID as RAID devices are dependant on specific hardware/software for rebuilding the data (if the Raid controller fails, your data may not be readable any more). A mirrored disc needs no recovery at all when his brother dies
SyncBack from 2Bright Sparks is excellent for these purposes.
Thank you.
.. snort
I tend to call it.... "knowledged in my job"
How many pics do you have?
You can but 4GByte and possibly 8GByte memory sticks. You can get a lot of pics on those and they are small, reliable, cheap and use no power. You can also plug them into digital picture frames.
Good luck Jim Fuller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical...gies#Longevity
scroll to bottom.
Some cd/dvd medias last only 10 years, less if in sun or other decaying areas.
Longer than any other method? Floppy disks last 10+ unless by a magnet.. optical storage was supposed to be "lifetime"
10 year hard drives? I have lots.
As I said, leave them in the sun or other inclimate conditions, they will fail to be read. You can buy archive DVD's at Media Markt? And any sales rep can sell you these? (or identify for that matter)
DVD's created by manufacturers for movies / Software etc are created using a moulding technology.
DVD's you use to burn data onto use dye's. Which when hit with a laser change to represent the data you are burning. Now just as an analogy think of when you buy some piece of clothing it is dyed to be a particular colour. Now even if left unwashed (yuck) the dye will eventually fade. The same happens to DVD's you burn.
Also they are relatively easy to get damaged.
You have to look at how important your data is to you and devise your own backup strategy for your requirements. Ask yourself how you would feel if you lost those precious photos.
For me having two hard drives with a copy each of my photo's, videos and documents is sufficient with occasional DVD backup just in case. Then again I usually change machines every two years so the chance of a hard disk crash is unlikely in that time and I normally have the second disk just as a spare and DVD's as a third option.
At present I use Windows Live OneCare Back Up. If there are, potentially, problems restoring files, would it be better to copy pictures and documents etc. onto a separate disc? These should be easy to copy back, whatever changes happen elsewhere.
Although all it takes is one dodgy administrator or a decent hacker and you files are anybodies. Although with the size of the internet it's not likely to happen unless you have something unusually interesting saved.
I do agree with your "heads locking onto platters". Most people claiming DOA pcs have been stored for 6+ months (only... ) One good reason to remove the HDD after cooling, wrap it and seal it in a freezer bag.
Maybe I'll try the freezer bag thing and let you know the results in 20 years time :-). Seriously though, we use climate controlled storage and of course all the data on drives going into storage is taken off onto tapes which are refreshed every 5 years. We use the data from the tapes (stored in this kind of monster: [ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ss...D00872USEN.PDF](ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/common/ssi/pm/sp/n/tsd00872usen/TSD00872USEN.PDF) ) rather than relying on the old drives.
The OP wanted advice on backing up their photos. For most consumers, the most practical advice is:
1) Buy an external hard drive (preferably with RAID1) which has drives with at least a 5 year warranty (a lot of the consumer stuff is 3 years or even 1 year which should tell you everything you need to know about their reliability). Replace this drive every two years - you'll probably want to anyway as you will probably fill it up in this time.
2) Use an online backup service such as www.carbonite.com which will automatically back your files up off site every day without you having to remember to do anything. Most people who only buy 1), use it every day or once a week for the first month and then once a month or once a year after that if they remember.
3) Burn backups onto archive quality optical media (DVD or Blu-Ray) at least once a year (better still every 3 months). Post alternate backups to a friend/relative/bank vault at least 100 miles away.