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Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

shermans
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Registered: ‎07-09-2007

Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

My external 1 TB hard disk is nearly full after many years dedicated service !  It is time to buy new capacity, as I like to keep all my history and can go back to the days before Windows 95 - even if some of the old media can no longer be read ! (5" floppies).

So what I am wondering is what the best media is today ?  I do of course use memory sticks which are convenient, but easy to lose and very slow compared with the old fashioned external hard disk.  I do not know how reliable they are in the long term.  The hard disk of course is mechanical and therefore also potentially susceptible to failure.

So I would be interested in other people's views on this subject before I rush out and buy another 1TB hard disk on ebay.

10 REPLIES 10
daveplus
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

@shermans I have a number of WD Elements desktop version. I also use WD for my PC storage with an SSD for the system. They are all very reliable except that the internal part that provides the USB access on my latest one (5TB) failed recently, I have dropped it a few times so that probably didn't do it much good. But the disc is fine so I will get a new housing for it.

Anonymous
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

The answer really lies in how deep your pockets are @shermans. If your budget is for a single disk then get yourself the biggest SSD you can get for it. However, if you can dig deep into the fluff of your pockets and find enough for a NAS device then QNAP and Synology have good offerings at reasonable cost.

For me I use a Synology RS815+ with an RX-418 expansion unit giving me just under 16TB of storage and like you I can go as far back as the invention of the wheel!

I also have an Apple AirPort that I use exclusively to back up my Mac, but not only does it do this it also provides me with a 5GHz Wireless Network, that, when purchased was the best and fastest available and my still be the case now.

wisty
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

as @Anonymous says it depends on your budget but for me +1 for a Synology NAS

I have an old (6 years) 213Air with 2*3TB disks in a mirror. I use it for archives, regular partition backups (Acronis) and also use Synology's Cloudstation app to backup all my current files. It takes a copy every time a file is changed, and keeps a (user selectable) number of previous versions. That feature has saved me a couple of times when I have made a major error editing files.

I had a disk failure on the NAS after 4 years. Recovery was as simple (if slow) as swapping out the bad disk, letting the  box recreate the mirror, then ( for safety) swapping out the other one of the pair for a second new drive and allowing the rebuild,. . 

 

 

Alex
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Registered: ‎05-04-2007

Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

I'd like to get another device to replace my HP Microserver which was good while it lasted but sadly died.
I had a static IP with my old ISP, which my current one does not offer - so PlusNet people feel lucky you have that option!

It had 4 disks on a RAID5, but I didn't really use it for data storage more for remote access where internet blocking was implemented. Set up Remote Desktop on a custom port, open up custom port on router and off you go. Then created a DNS A record from server.mydomain.com to the static IP so I didn't have to bother to remember what it is.

Even had a RDP app on my iPhone, where I could access it from which was good.

The actual server I got for something silly like £200, once I got the £100 cashback from HP (nice!). So can't grumble about that. Main cost was the 4 disks (I think they're 4x2TB ones).  

Ahh when I am a bit better financially I would like to have a similar setup again as I really do miss it.

Browni
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

I'm another one that has opted for the NAS option, in my case quite a new QNAP TS-453BE with 2*10TB in RAID 1.
Alex
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

I went for RAID 5 as I believe with RAID 1, that just links the disks together so it one fails you've had it.

RAID 5 spreads the data out all across the disks, so when you get used to it and subject to funds of course, I'd expand it to 4 disks and switch to RAID 5. Downside is you lose the capacity of 1 disk - so you only get 3 but upside is it is more secure should 1 fail - it can be rebuilt.

Mind you, it would take some feat to have more than 30TB of data you need to have backed up Tongue

Me - I got a Blu Ray burner in my PC which can hold 25Gb. The only thing which is important to me to back-up are photos. For reasons I won't go into, some are VERY important for me to keep, so the Blu Ray burner for now suits my requirements. 

wisty
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

@Alex 


@Alex wrote:

"Me - I got a Blu Ray burner in my PC which can hold 25Gb. "


Be careful what you use to write to the  Blue-ray. make sure that you will be able to read them in the future. I was clearing out some old (2005) backup CD's the other day. They had been written by Adaptec's drag and drop CD writer which used something called UDF format.

I discovered that under windows 10 the reader that was written onto the disk will not run under windows 10. I no longer have a version of the Adaptec software that I used. To read them seems to need (third party software that costs money. Fortunately I still have all the data on the NAS - so they can be  erased.

I also have some backup tapes (HP Surestore), and some MO disks from the 1990's. The drives to read both are long dead. Again the originals on hard drive archive have outlived both.

madswitcher
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

Hi there,

you don't say what software you use for backing up your data.  The fact that you have almost 1TB collected in backed up data would seem to indicate that you may have more data backed up that you actually need. 

Modern archiving software can give you options to perform incremental backups and also delete backed up data that is very old.  For example, "Back up my files incrementally and every 5 incremental backups do a full backup." Also "delete backup files that are more that 5 chains old".

If you are going to use an external drive and want it to be reliable, I would suggested some form of mirrored drive (2 physical drives behaving as 1) and connect it via a USB 3 port on your computer.

If you do need to keep data indefinately, like photos etc. then copying it to some form of file-based archive disc drive such as Blu-Ray might be helpful, but limited in capacity.

Hope this helps

Mike

 

Browni
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

@Alex, RAID 1 is mirroring so recovery is possible if one drive fails.
Alex
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Re: Back-up media. What is the latest technology ?

Yep my bad @Browni it appears I was thinking of RAID 0 instead.