[Leica] RE: External hard disk for backup - which ?

[spencer at aotera.org (Spencer Cheng)]

BD,

I don't know if anyone remember Brian Reid's suggestions for the
best and most cost effective way to do backups. It basically involves
using regular harddisks(!) which are stored offline (not connected to
anything) in a cool dry place.

To be serious about backups, you must store regular backups
offsite. If you want to be really sure, you should also store it on
different media (HD, DVD, tape, stone tablets,...). I use to do this
at a startup - backup tapes taken home by myself and another employee
on alternating Fridays.

No one should trust CD/DVD as the only source of backup. They are too
fragile. One accidental scratch with a key (or even the wrong type of
marker) on the back of a DVD/CD would make everything unreadable.

While data could be recovered off damaged harddisks, this is not true
in all cases and as Phong mentioned, it can be very expensive.

Did I mention that the backups has to be done regularly? If not, let
me mention that a few times. :)

Regards
Spencer

>>>>> "BD" == B D Colen <bdcolen@earthlink.net> writes:

    BD> For a while now I've been using a four-drive system - a 30 gig
    BD> C drive with all my software - and a ton of vacant real estate
    BD> - a 30 gig scratch drive, which is also an enormous amount of
    BD> wasted space. And a pair of mirrored 80 gig drives for image
    BD> storage - the theory being that if one implodes, the other is
    BD> still there. Of course, at the time this thing was built for
    BD> me, 80 gigs seemed like an enormous amount of space.  Now,
    BD> despite moving gigs and gigs of images to DVDs, I still only
    BD> have about 12 gigs free on the 80 gigs. So now the question is
    BD> what external hard drive to add, and whether to use it for
    BD> straight image storage and access, or for backup. I'm sorely
    BD> tempted by the 300 gig Maxor, and am also sorely tempted to
    BD> use it for storage and access, rather than backup - the theory
    BD> being that short of a building collapse or newquler war, it
    BD> will probably be possible to pay someone to get my images off
    BD> the disc if it dies. Is this not correct, IT mavens out there?