My current favorite backup system is a USB 2.0 external harddrive.
I do incremental backups every day and a full backup once a week. My full backup (of my data files and system state) take 28 GB so it's really not feasible for CD-R's.
Right now you can get a 60 GB drive for $166 on Buy.com. It installs in seconds and takes a lot of the chore out of backup. I know despite my best intentions I rarely took the time do backups before getting this drive. Now at least I can sleep better at night.
I'm considering getting another drive and keeping one "off-site" to take care of the disaster-by-fire scenario.
One note, most computers don't support USB 2.0. So unless you've got a fairly recent motherboard you should plan on spending another $40 or so on a USB 2.0 card. The drive will work with USB 1.1 but it's painfully slow. However if you are backing up overnight this might not be an issue. It think it took me about 10 hours or so to do the backup over USB 1.1 and about 1.5 hours using USB 2.0.
BTW, I've also seen external harddrive "shells" that you can just plug your own drive into.
Brian Rahill
--
Brian M. Rahill
President
RainStorm, Inc.
http://www.rainstormconsulting.com
"Designing Strategies for Internet Success."
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At 08:02 PM 11/13/2002 -0500, you wrote:
Hi, Paul,
I use 100 mb Zip and CD-R media. The CDs are sure handy and they are so
cheap. I have a few re-writable CDs but I haven't used them yet, I just burn
another one. I hear Iomega claims the Zip disk media will last for decades,
while the CDs will delaminate and deteriorate in about 15 years, so magnetic
media is better for long term storage. (But I still prefer paper for stuff I
want to pass on to the next generation.)
So far the cost of the Jazz disks, and now the bigger Zip disks has stopped
me from going that way. However, the bigger drives are compatible with the 100
Mb zip disks, so you only have to use the big ones for the big jobs.
Cheers,
Ralph Grimes
---------------------
Paul Schroeder wrote:
> Hi all. Seems questions come in bunches.
> The mere possibility of having to backup my entire disk before cleanup was
> daunting, esp. since I use 100 mb. Zip disks. Right now I'm up to 9 disks
> for backup of data files - quite inefficient. Just got a promotional
> message offering a new 650 mb Zip upgrade for $125. How much are those
> disks? Someone else suggested going the writable CD route - though I don't
> yet have a CD burner. What's the current wisdom on fast, economical, and
> dependable backup alternatives?
> Thanks, Paul S.
>
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