Looking for a backup device

[izzyq]

Just had a major catastrophe with my PC and I'm looking for a new backup device that will have an option for me to schedule mu backups daily. I currently have a CD Burner but it's jus not cutting it.

I've looked into the new 750MB Iomega ZIP drive that comes with software which will allow me to schedule backups and I've also looked into some tape drives. These are my two economically viable options but I'd like to get an outside objective view on these two products as well as possibly some new ideas.

If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm also running 3 PC's on a newtork and I'd be backing up just data from all three so the size of the device media would not need to be that great. Just regular old word and excel files and such.

Thanks Help Me Obi Wan Kenobi, You're My Only Hope.

 

[gargouille]

Having worked with tape drives (maybe the wrong ones) I'd be reluctant to ever go down that path...so many negatives I don't want to go there...
ZIP drives...been there...wouldn't go again.
Some good imaging software, of which Ghost and Drive Image are but 2, with an extra hard drive tucked away somewhere in 1 of the machines could be one idea. Scheduling may be done to do dailies, weeklies, whatever.
Unless that hard drive fails outright, your data is reasonably secure.
You'll probably need a multiple license arrangement, which may take this idea to file 13...but thought I'd throw it out there.

 

[edfair]

I have my choice pretty much. I use 100mb zip with an internal drive on one machine. Download everything that is data into that zip drive over the network.
I've used tape, and I do some burning for file sharing, but the 3 zips I end up with are the primary. Actually 9 zips because there are 3 sets, all out of the house. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[cdogg]

Yeah, an extra hard drive might be just as cheap as investing in a ZIP or TAPE drive and its media.

Have you looked into Ghost or Drive Image? I've used Ghost to backup over 1GB of info to a 650MB CD. It uses some sort of compression so that it is able to squeeze that much onto a single CD. Very reliable - never had a problem restoring from CD backup.


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[edfair]

My problem is the need to have the data avialable for either scsi or ide. So the choice is to do it to 2 drives for minimal or 4 to be safe.
I have ghost, but the version I have is flawed somehow. And the shoemaker's kids thing is worse for computer guys.
Think the drivecopy has a problem too. So I stick with zip, for now. The burn bit is good, but data interchange can be a problem.

I've been buying tape drives off ebay for under $20 and the tapes for about $3 so the prices are about right. But support across the systems I use is minimal. And I can't read and write across the network. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[craigey]

have you considered a dvd-writer drive. or how about using a RAID array on your main hard drive (use mirroring not striping) or you could set up a raid array on 2 smallish hard drives (depending on the size of the data you wish to backup) to store just your image file(s).

 

[edfair]

Had considered all but the dvd. I will probably end up with CD-RW.
Backup requirements I spec are:
Easy to do.
Whatever media I use must be swappable on multiple machines.
Media usable on multiple operating systems.
Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[roamer1]

I use zip for my sooper critical daily backup. just the real important stuff. if its more than 100-200mg I get lazy and don't do it. I then use a freeware backup utility from mlin.net to shovel all my data between all my networked machines once a day (auto at night)- the thought being that I am not likely to lose all 4 boxes all at once. Then, once a week I use a sync program (FastMove!) to back the whole works manually to a USB ported external drive which is shut off at all other times. My empirical backup is to CDR volumes (usually 2 to 3)once per month off of the previously mentioned USB drive. Lastly, on each quarter year I maintain the data by deleting older stuff that is allready down on CD and make a quarterly copy of the CDR volumes to go to the bank vault. There! Tada! ( it's really not as complicated as it sounds)

 

[tuggers]

I used to have a zip 100 which was ok but now i use a fast CD-RW.

The CD-RW backs up 750 Mb in 3 minutes at 30 UK pence a throw. So its cheap and easy to use. Plus you can quickly verify that the data is ok by reading a few files from the CD.

Try this with a tape and you need to do a mini restore.

For backup requirements above 750 Mb what does the forum think about external USB2 hard drives?

 

[Ashaman074]

I use an external USB hard drive, can't beat it. Fairly rugged, easy to transport, and blazingly fast with 2.0.

Drawbacks are: No support under Win95, NT, or DOS. However, this is not much of a detriment at this point in time, I am dealing with these OSs less and less. In a pinch if this happens, I will slide it out of its housing & plug it directly into the IDE chain of the machine.