What's Your Backup System Like?

[mkay]

Hey people, first post in these forums, though I've been lurking for quite a bit.

I was wondering, how's your backup system? Do you use dropbox? Premium or free? Any alternatives? How do you do it?

 

[jedishrfu]

Welcome to PF!

For documents, I tend to email them to myself on gmail. You could use Google drive and that way they get stored on multiple devices like your phone or desktop or laptop...

 

[timthereaper]

It depends on the work I'm doing. I use Git+Bitbucket for programming work, Google Drive for a lot of things, and the rest I have a file server and a NAS at home.

 

[StevieTNZ]

CrashPlan (http://www.code42.com/crashplan/), and external HDD stored at my mums.

 

[DennisN]

I also sometimes mail myself, and sometimes I use Google drive. But my standard backup is to 1) use a couple of USB flash drives (shortttime backup) and 2) burn data on CDs/DVDs (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/cd/formatSession-c.html) (longtime backup). For very important data, I burn multiple discs and store one copy at home and store the other copy at my friend's home.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Most of my documents are on Google Drive. I have a work folder that I zip and upload once a week.

 

[billy_joule]

I use dropbox (free, currently 5.4 GB capacity) mostly, and Google drive occasionally. I like how easy to use dropbox is, but Google drive is great for collaboration.

 

[e.bar.goum]

Important documents and such go on Dropbox (10GB). Raw data is on a server that is backed up via tape daily. The rest of my work (~600 GB) gets backed up onto two different hard-drives daily (with a cron job using rsync). One goes home with me at the end of every day, the other is always connected to my computer.

I had my hard-drive fail a month or so ago. I take backups a lot more seriously now.

 

[TurtleMeister]

I backup important stuff to a flash drive frequently and to an external hard drive less frequently. I use a batch file with robocopy to automate the process. Just click an icon and it's usually done in a couple of minutes.

 

[phinds]

Since I have well over 100 gigs I have to have backed up fairly regularly, I use my own system of external hard drives, one next to my computer, one out in my car and one off-site and I rotate them regularly. Also, I've been doing this for about 30 years (although with less data) so I didn't start out with internet options available. I have my own utility that mirrors from my hard drive to the external drives. I've had to do at least one full restore, and I'd probably have decided to shoot myself had the backups not been available.

 

[mkay]

Thank you for all the answers so far! You've been giving me some great ideas on how to do it myself.

 

[DennisN]

Coincidentally I just bought a new small USB flash drive today (16 GB, USB 3.0, speed 100 MB/s) which was on sale for about $12. I hope it works as expected...

 

[Ben Niehoff]

I built a NAS at home that runs two 2TB HDDs in mirrored mode. It's more of a file server than backup; its storage capacity is much greater than my computer's. I also have a 2TB external SSD that I keep in my laptop bag (it's pocket-sized). I use it a bit less frequently, though.

I don't use any cloud service, because I don't trust them to be secure against their own employees.

 

[mkay]

I built a NAS at home that runs two 2TB HDDs in mirrored mode. It's more of a file server than backup; its storage capacity is much greater than my computer's. I also have a 2TB external SSD that I keep in my laptop bag (it's pocket-sized). I use it a bit less frequently, though.

I don't use any cloud service, because I don't trust them to be secure against their own employees.

You would either need to encrypt the files before uploading or use a cloud service that has client-side encryption. I agree with that sentiment though.

You've a 2TB SSD? Holly.. I didn't even know these existed yet.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

You would either need to encrypt the files before uploading or use a cloud service that has client-side encryption. I agree with that sentiment though.

You've a 2TB SSD? Holly.. I didn't even know these existed yet.

I could be wrong about it being an SSD. It's one of those compact external drives. It doesn't seem to have any moving parts. So I assume it's a bunch of flash memory, which is what an SSD is, essentially.