I find that I can fit all my data and email on to a DVD and still have
room to spare. A single dvd is still (though only just) enough for me
to back up the photos that have accumulated at home. Would be more than
enough if we ever got around to deleting the ones with closed eyes etc.
My strategy always involves: a copy to a different disk in the same
machine, and/or another copy to another machine on the network (assuming
multiple computers at home), but more importantly copy to DVD for taking
offsite.
(Note to self...) My current home strategy is lacking in that i don't
often enough remember to take that DVD to another site. At work, I
ALWAYS do (and we are small enough that DVDs are enough).
A key part of the strategy though is TEST!!! You MUST test restoring
from backup. If you can't restore, you may as well not bother in the
first place. My experience is that from time to time, something goes
wrong and i need to manually intervene. The more testing, the more
refined will be your strategy, and the less likely you will be that you
can't recover in a disaster.
cheers,
Roger
Craig FALCONER wrote:
I can't really speak authoritively, but here are some points.
1) Tape is dead. Really dead. The only reason for using tape is if
you have a tape drive already. Work has an Exabyte VXA2 tape drive that
cost around $2000, and the 210 metre tapes are $155 each. So 110 Gb of
storage costs around $1.40/Gb.
2) Hard drives are good. A 300 Gb drive will cost you $203 inc GST
from ascent. An external IDE/USB caddy is worth ~$60. Put that together
and have storage for $0.96/Gb. And you can read it on anyone else's
computer after yours is stolen/burned/destroyed. With a tape you have to
find a compatible drive.
3) CD and DVD is okay, but if you've got lots of files then 650 Mb or
4700 Mb or 8500 Mb can be constraining. And its hard to automate a backup
reliably.
4) Off-site! Your backup must at absolute minimum live in a different
building to the machines where it lives for real. Leaving your backup in
the car is only marginally better than leaving it in the server.
Rsync is your friend for moving the minimum data required. For limited
backups talk to me about hosting them on horse.
-----Original Message-----
From: Wesley Parish [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, 5 March 2006 11:16 p.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: update on dying disk
Quoting Robert Fisher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
On Sat, 04 Mar 2006 11:54 pm, Wesley Parish wrote:
Now that is techie practice no school will ever give you!
And the next lesson for Wesley?
Backup strategy!
Yep! And part of that is, what is the best backup (sub)system? CDs? DVDs?
Tape?
Perhaps that should be a talk subject, done by someone wiser and more
experienced than myself? Show of hands?
Wesley Parish
Rob
"Sharpened hands are happy hands.
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
"I me. Shape middled me. I would come out into hot!"
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
