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View Full Version : Backing Up Home PCs Advice


CraigSca
03-26-2006, 07:00 AM
I just purchased my first home backup software application. Backup - it's probably the least most glamorous thing ever, but it has to be done (though I've been highly negligent myself when it comes to this).

The most important thing we have to backup is my wife's PC - she's the holder of about 8 years of family pictures on her hard drive - and it's been backed up sporadically in the past. After that, it's the irreplaceable data on both our PC's.

My wife has a CD RW, but I have a DVD player that can only read. I'd like to backup everything to a single point, though I realize, at least for my wife, the most cost-effective solution is to have her backup to the CD. Between us, we probably have about 2 GB to backup.

I've thought about buying a wireless hard drive to hook into our wireless network (which is now only used to share our FiOS WAN connection - the PCs on the network can't see each other) and use that for backups, but they're still very pricey at this stage. Another option I've thought about is backing up to my web space - I think I have about 10gig available to me. My concerns there are - how do I make it readable only by me (and not make every picture we have available to the general public)? Speed shouldn't be too much of an issue, we can upload at 2 Mbps - so if we do backups at night, it shouldn't effect anything. The plus is that if there's some kind of fire at the home or something, our data is backed up offsite.

So - what is everyone else doing out there?

Eaglesfan27
03-26-2006, 09:23 AM
I'm using a USB External Harddrive and primarily backing up at night. I don't do it as often as I should, but about every 6 weeks, I plug it in and backup all important files.

MizzouRah
03-26-2006, 09:40 AM
Like EF, I also have a USB external HD.. BEST PURCHASE EVER for pc files backup.

the_meanstrosity
03-26-2006, 10:10 AM
craigsca,

I don't know how familiar you are with building PC's, but I would suggest purchasing a couple of DVD writers and installing one in each PC. You can get a NEC, Benq, or Pioneer dvd burner for $40 each. Then you can purchase some writeable DVD's which hold 4 GB's per disk.

The external hard drive's suggested by the other posters is another quality way to backup data. You really can't go wrong with either direction. I prefer DVD's due to the ease of use.

CraigSca
03-26-2006, 12:51 PM
I like DVDs, but I kinda of want to set it and forget it. I just tried doing a backup of my PC with CDs and it said it required 7 of them. Not something I want to deal with.

Thanks for everyone's input!

Antmeister
03-26-2006, 01:47 PM
I would seriously suggest an external hard drive. They are getting signficantly cheaper. I was able to purchase an 100 GB hard drive for under $90 at Price Costco. They may be cheaper now since I bought this almost a year ago.

gstelmack
03-26-2006, 01:50 PM
I use a DVD+RW drive for backup, but I'm backing up 3.5 GB at a time, and only once every couple of weeks.

I want to get a Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive, just a fancy name for an external drive with an ethernet connection. We've got two machines, so I'd rather have a networked drive over a USB drive. Netgear has a $99 box that you then buy a drive to stick in it, so you could be under $200 for an 80 GB+ backup solution that you could have backing up both machines every night.

Airhog
03-26-2006, 02:06 PM
I like DVDs, but I kinda of want to set it and forget it. I just tried doing a backup of my PC with CDs and it said it required 7 of them. Not something I want to deal with.

Thanks for everyone's input!


If you do an incremental backup after the full backup, it would only be 1 cd tops. Do a full backup every 3 months or so, and an incremental every 2 weeks. Even better if you go with CD-RW then you can recycle them every full backup cycle.

the_meanstrosity
03-26-2006, 03:24 PM
I'd look into DVD's then since they can handle over 4 Gigs of data. CD's are definitely not the way to go unless you're backing up a small amount of data.

Are you certain you want a full backup of your PC? Or would you rather just keep your critical data? I rarely do a full backup because I prefer to have a clean system rather than do a restore. It's just a personal preference for me.

I actually have an extra internal hard drive that holds all of my semi-critical data before it's burned to a DVD. The less critical data stays on the hard drive while the critical data gets burned to a DVD. It's saved my butt a couple of times.

I like DVDs, but I kinda of want to set it and forget it. I just tried doing a backup of my PC with CDs and it said it required 7 of them. Not something I want to deal with.

Thanks for everyone's input!

Glengoyne
03-26-2006, 05:05 PM
I'll jump on the USB drive for backup bandwagon.

Antmeister
03-29-2006, 02:32 AM
By the way, the prices have dropped drastically. Because of this thread, Dodgerchick and I talked about getting a backup drive for her computer since she had over 10 gigs worth of picture. A 250 gigabyte hard drive cost her $120. It's Western Digital and she bought it at Costco.

CraigSca
03-29-2006, 07:19 AM
Well, I ended up going network drive - 160GB for $176. This will allow me to back up both PCs at the same time on one media.