Simple backup for PCs ?

NA8

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Saw various deals on HDD docking stations recently. It's a USB2.0 interface plastic box with a slot in the top for a SATA HDD. You just stick a bare SATA HDD in the slot and away you go. Sort of like an iPod dock. Has it's own wall wart for power and an on/off switch on the back of the box. Looked like a cheap way to use standard HDD's for backup without a lot of fuss. Anyone tried these kind of products ?
 
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mechBgon

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Hard drives are delicate and sensitive to electric shock, so using them as removable media would call for verrrrrrry careful handling and storage. But they definitely have lots of capacity for the money.
 

NA8

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Yeah, that and the connector reliability could be problems. Big HDD's sure are cheap these days though.
 

TacticalGrilling

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I use MirrorDisk.com as my online backup. Machine backs up unattended to a fully redundant server array nightly. Very easy, very convenient. Biggest drawback is time for initial backup. Thinking this would also apply to a rebuild, too.

Be Safe, Grill Tactical.
 

AlexGT

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Acronis True image, automatic backup to a partition in same disk and manual backup 1 for week to an external hard drive.

I also have a copy burned into DVD's once every 3 months.

AlexGT
 

Closet_Flashaholic

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Saw various deals on HDD docking stations recently. It's a USB2.0 interface plastic box with a slot in the top for a SATA HDD. You just stick a bare SATA HDD in the slot and away you go. Sort of like an iPod dock. Has it's own wall wart for power and an on/off switch on the back of the box. Looked like a cheap way to use standard HDD's for backup without a lot of fuss. Anyone tried these kind of products ?

Yes, I use one of these. It has both an eSata and a USB 2.0 interface. I use eSata because it's 3 gb/s instead of 480 mb/s.

Here are some observations:

1) It uses sata drives. The sata drive connector is only rated for 50 connect/disconnect cycles. So swapping drives a lot may wear out the connector on the drive/dock station.

2) Whatever you use for the drive, you still need backup software. I used to use Norton Ghost, I have since moved to Acronis Home.

3) I mainly use this to transport huge (30 GB) files between a desktop and a laptop. The files are for virtual machines that I run. I don't do backups very often. Since the files themselves are the virtual machines, they ARE the backup.

4) eSata connection is nice, but while the physical connection does in theory support hot-swap, no OS (linux or Windows) supports it. So to remove, you have to shutdown the machine. (Obviously, USB doesn't have this issue - but it's a lot slower).

5) The main reason, this is a good solution for me that as drives get more capacity, I just plug in a new drive. I am currently using a couple of Seagate 1 TB drives.

6) I probably have at least 4 outboard USB enclosed drives that I have purchased over many years that are now so small for capacity and can't be upgraded that I got tired of wasting my money on them. (120 MB (yes MB), 100 GB, 120 GB, 250 GB). My electronics closet is a graveyard of these things and they're pretty much worthless to me.
 
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eluminator

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I would put the drive in an external enclosure. Hard drives are easily damaged by mechinical shock, and having them in an enclosure would help. I am also careful when I set a hard drive on a hard surface, even when in an enclosure. Overheating is also a problem. I use enclosures that have a fan.

I guess the small 2.5 inch hard drives run cool and don't need a fan, but they are slow and cost considerably more per byte.

I would only use SATA external drives in a SATA enclosure. Using USB complicates things. They need a "bridge" in the enclosure that converts USB to SATA or IDE. That slows things down and is a source of errors. Also the USB enclosures limit the size of the hard drive you can put in there. An all SATA external drive is just a straight through connection. You can put any size drive in the enclosure.

In fact, the computer can't tell the difference between an external SATA and an internal SATA. This means you can run hard drive diagnostics on them and read their temperature, just like internal drives.

P.S. I also backup my most important data on DVDs.
 

Lynx_Arc

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Yes, I use one of these. It has both an eSata and a USB 2.0 interface. I use eSata because it's 3 gb/s instead of 480 mb/s.

Here are some observations:

4) eSata connection is nice, but while the physical connection does in theory support hot-swap, no OS (linux or Windows) supports it. So to remove, you have to shutdown the machine. (Obviously, USB doesn't have this issue - but it's a lot slower).

I have an Esata/USB2 external drive and it works very good. I can transfer 50Gig files in about 15 mins with it and use Acronis also. I don't have it running all the time I only turn it on when I need to backup once in awhile. I just wait a few minutes after copying to it before turning it off and it takes a few seconds to turn on and connect to my computer. Windows sometimes has write caching for external drives so you may need to disable it if you are impatient.
 

HarryN

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I use carbonite.com for my on-line near real time backup. It works - I know from personal experience. I moved from a failed XP machine to an HP Laptop with Vista. Only minor problems compared to what it could have been. In the end, it turned out I had a ram failure and the computer was ok, but I was real happy to have the backup.

Just an FYI, Microsoft offers an on-line backup with their "one care" service" which is not bad considering the package.

Also, my web host - fatcow.com, includes a subscription to carbonite now.

Local back up has advantages, but imagine if you have lost access to that local backup drive - fire, flood, etc. Then you loose the main computer and the backup. If it is just a few files it is ok, but anything much more than web browsing lost gets painful fast.
 

eluminator

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Local back up has advantages, but imagine if you have lost access to that local backup drive - fire, flood, etc. Then you loose the main computer and the backup.
That's why I back up my important data on DVDs periodically. I store some of them off site. I also check the burn quality of the DVDs.
 
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