What media should I use for my backups?

[mikeloaf]

I need to design myself a decent backup strategy. I currently have 2 lots of data I cannot afford to lose. 1 is my email (outlook 2k internet mail only) and another is a folder currently stored on my desktop 40mb ish.

I currently copy my outlook pst file to another disk in the same system whenever I think about it and copy this and my important folder to cd every week or so. This is not good enough. I want to be sure my data is recoverable and cannot afford to lose more than about 1 days work.

I dont want to manualy burn a cd every day if I can avoid it.

I have considered the following options:

Software Raid 1 - I have thought about getting two cheapo IDE disks and mirroring them to store all important data. This would prevent problems with disk failure but what about software problems such as a virus (although i am running an up to date version of norton)??

My PC is networked to my girlfriends (nowt complicated just a workgroup) and so I have also been copying data to her PC sometimes. What if there is a fire and both computers go down??

I will have broadband by next week and will have always on connection through decent netgear router.
I assume I can map a drive to an FTP address?? Could I use my IPS's free webspace for storage?

The question is - what do people think my best method of protection is. Im reasonably technicaly able and not a complete muppet. I am capable of writing a logon script to copy files etc and can manage to use windows backup
Is web storage a good idea? I am concerned about the time taken to copy 40mb over a 512 connection. Can I use offline files and folders? WIll this be like an incremental backup to reduce the time taken to copy?

I am unlikeley to need to restore to a specific date (although yesterday would be handy) just want to be sure I can get my current data back should something horrible happen. Im running XP Pro and I do have a cdrw drive.

Suggestions please - I aplogise for the long winded rant but im hoping to avoid most of the obvious questions pple will ask.

 

[comtec17]

I would suggest getting an External USB or Firewire drive and using the software that comes with it to backup specific file sets.

I personally use the Maxtor and it comes with Retropect Express which allows me to do backups or duplicates of any file I wish.

 

[mikeloaf]

But if the place burns down, both disks will be lost? If I am going to take that risk I could just use ms backup and backup to a network drive in the missus computer?

 

[comtec17]

Then go with either CD-R or DVD.

 

[HenryTerners]

Hi,

Every backup solution should include the ability to manage several versions of your backup. This way if you have backed up a “virused” or a deleted file, you can restore from an earlier date. Relative Rev Backup does this nicely (from

http://www.datamills.com)

as it can be set to discard outdated snapshots. It will also take incremental backups of your data, which will save you lots of space.

As for the target backup media, I would suggest to backup up your data to both your girlfriend’s computer and to a CDRW. Once again Relative Rev Backup can be scheduled to backup to network and to CDRW. Assuming that your data does not change radically, and that your emails take less than 50MB, you should be able to use a single CDRW for ages.

As for backing up to an external location over the Internet, I would fear from security issues, transmission time, and space consumption of multiple versions.

Henry