Most reliable backup medium?

[Robert]

What do use for backing up your files in case your computer dies?

I want to know what is the most reliable and cost-effective.

 

1. CD

2. DVD

3. Portable Hard Drive

4. USB stick

5. Other?

[Agozer]

I'm using plain old DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs. For small otherwise crucial stuff (in a different context, like schoolwork) I use an USB stick.

[ken_cinder]

In the case my computer dies? Who cares, data is still on the hard drive, and partitions mitigate the need for recovering anything off the C drive.

If my hard drive died? Nothing, I don't keep anything on my hard drive that is of so much importance, that the world would end if I lost it. Only an idiot would.

 

I put the odd movie, and my roms on CD/DVD, but that's because I don't have 10 terabytes of HD space.

[Ghosty]

I have an external HDD that I hardly use, just when I backup stuff, Its gone through about 30ish internal drives.

[Jitway]

Good external hd, hell they are so cheap now why bother burning dvd's. I also backup my main drive to another external with ghost.

Edited July 6, 2007 by Jitway

[GodPigeon]

I feel a crash coming soon so i have to buy an external very soon. Staples has 500GB external for 130 this week.

[Gryph]

I use DVDs and USB sticks. I will be throwing in a portable harddrive to that soon.

[Shibathedog]

Technically i think the HDD is supposed to be the most reliable.

 

I dont back up anything at all, any work on there thats really important i always have a hard copy of and everything else is just entertainment.

 

anyone else find it kind of funny how people go crazy to back up all their pirated music? It says stuff like that right on the boxes of external HDDs.

[Ahmad89]

I personally like to use a Portable hard drive becuase its just a drop and drag, you can extract files easly, and you only need one. DVD tend to get scratched and you would have alot.

[Alpha]

Good external hd, hell they are so cheap now why bother burning dvd's. I also backup my main drive to another external with ghost.

Very true .. I have been also very surprised by the sudden price drop of the external hard drives. The problem it has caused though is that now if you go to Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.. you will notice that they mostly, if not, only sell external hard drives.

 

Internal hard drives have almost become extinct for the big electronic stores. The only good places still selling them are online (ex: NewEgg). Although I don't need the extra space now, but I know it's going to be a big hassle for me in the future since I'm not much of an online shopper.

[Haldrie]

Actually hard drives are the least reliable of storage mediums as they are guanteed to crash due to the sensitve nature of a hdd. The only question is when. The components inside of a hard drive are very sensitive to contaminantes which is why it's sealed up so tight to keep dust out of it becasue even a small piece of dust could bump into the read/write head(s) and ruin the entire drive as well as a good chunk of the data on the drive.

 

The only reliable back-up medium is optical discs. As long as you keep them stored in a safe place they are guarenteed to last forever. I have discs that I made from when I got my first CD burner that still read perfectly but hard drives that I only had for a few years that give me errors any time I try to use them. I've even had to get a new hdd for my laptop after only 5 months of having it. That's the shortest life-span of any hard drive I've had.

[Shibathedog]

well if you are using an external HDD for backup i think the assumption is you back everything up and put it away somewhere and don't touch it unless you need too, this way that doesn't happen.

 

optical discs degrade too though, they wont last forever, sunlight, slight bending, scratches, crappy chemicals in the disc, there are TONS of factors that screw up optical discs

 

the only option left....TRAVAN TAPE DRIVES!!!....if they weren't so freaking slow i might actually use one for something

 

Oh and gamecop, I still see them in stores, but you really should start shopping online, I refuse to buy anything computer related in a store, especially at a place like best buy because its always a ripoff.

 

With newegg all my parts are guaranteed for a year (plus whatever the manufacturer gives you, like Crucial's lifetime warranty) Its cheap (sometimes a few bucks cheaper somewhere else but the guarantee makes it worth it for me) and no store will ever match the selection, im very picky about what i buy. stores are dead, the future is in the internets!

[Haldrie]

optical discs degrade too though, they wont last forever, sunlight, slight bending, scratches, crappy chemicals in the disc, there are TONS of factors that screw up optical discs

 

That's why I added "as long as you keep them in a safe place". Usually for archiving it's best to use them and keep them stored away from anything that can damage them and a good archiver will do this, especially someone who knows how sensitive most optical media can be. Burning at slow speeds can also greatly increase the chance of the disc still being readable even under severe conditions like bad scratches as long as they aren't too deep.

Edited July 12, 2007 by Haldrie

[Shibathedog]

yeah but even in an airtight safe never to be touched they still degrade, although it is mostly UV light that destroys them.

 

ESPECIALLY recordable discs, they are pretty horrible about it. Pressed discs are much better.

[olaf]

I prefer my external USB hard drive (80GB SeaGate) for backing up all my data. It's great for reformats, crashes, bringing data to other locations, and so on. If there's something I really kept safe? I put it in encrypted/passworded files on a private FTP server or something.