# Advice on data storage



## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

I'm looking for a way to safely store all the photos (1.6 gig) I have on my PC and I was thinking along the lines of a USB stick but as I'm no expert I'm just assuming this would be O.K and a practical and safe method of storage incase the PC or external hard drive gives up ?

Any advice or suggestions appreciated


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## Mini 360 (Jul 17, 2009)

That would work ok but to be safe I would get two put them on both USB sticks and get one of your mates to keep it at their house. So if in the unlikely event your house went up in flames you would still have all those photos. :thumb:

And 1.6 for all your photos! Every car show I go to I take about 3GB! :lol:


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

Thanks, I've only been using digital for the last couple of years and I ruthlessly edit all the pics, the ones I really wouldn’t want to lose are all the ones of my nieces. Most of the others were taken with a normal SLR.

PS. What I meant to say was my nieces and the carp I've caught


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## Razzzle (Jul 3, 2010)

FTP to online backup 

Daz.


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

Razzzle said:


> FTP to online backup
> 
> Daz.


I havent got a clue what FTP stands for and to be honest I dont think I would store anything like this online, I simply dont trust or know enough about these sort of systems.


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## Avanti (Jan 17, 2006)

uruk hai said:


> I havent got a clue what FTP stands for and to be honest I dont think I would store anything like this online, I simply dont trust or know enough about these sort of systems.


FTP = File Transfer Protocol
After changing my PC 6 months back, I soon learned that some external drive is next a must. The system I got backs up continuously and you don't notice it happening in the background.
Thing to watch out for is not just gb/£ but drive speed and read /write rate, some drives are as quick or quicker than the pc drive 7200rpm, also USB 3.0 or esata(if your pc supports it) can be a big benefit :thumb:


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## Coops (Apr 26, 2008)

IF you're using digital then the volume of pictures is only ever going to increase so why not invest in an external hard drive.

I bought a Western Digital PassPort drive last year and regularly back my pictures, documents and generally everything on this once per month.

You can pick up a 1TB version on Amazon for about £50-£60.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-External/dp/B002E7HEVU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=computers&qid=1284492763&sr=8-2


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

http://www.windowslive.co.uk/skydrive.aspx

For 1.6GB, that's plenty. Proper protection then


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## PaulGTI (Oct 21, 2006)

Also have a look at this...

http://mozy.com/home/

They give you 2gb of free storage. External drives are great for you personal back up needs, but what would you do (god forbid) the worst should happen and the external drive is stolen, or damaged by fire or flood?

If you use something like Mozy all your backups are away from the PC, so should be recoverable, so long as you dont forget your username and password!


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

As I said in the first post I do have a external hard drive and obviously the space on the PC itself but I was just looking for another option that could be filled with data of my choice and stored somewhere safe and be unaffected if the PC and external hard drive goes wrong. I wont be using the internet, I simply dont trust or understand it enough, I do appreciate the comments and advice though so thank you for taking the time to reply. :thumb:


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

Well rather than dismissing it out-of-hand, why not make an effort to understand it? It's free, and a good many SMBs use an 'Internet backup' as opposed to physical media. It's as secure as you make it and they have legal obligations to ensure it's backed up and highly available and whatnot.

Dismissing something because you don't have experience of it, how do you ever buy anything?I make absolutely nothing out of suggesting these things, BTW, I just think that they're an awesome method of backing up memories that can't be replaced.

SkyDrive is run by Microsoft, and whilst we all have a dig at them every once in a while they aren't stupid so they aren't going to go through them looking for naked photos of your Mrs!


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

I just use RAID on my pcs, no need to worry then, one fails you replace that one and it rebuilds its self.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

robj20 said:


> I just use RAID on my pcs, no need to worry then, one fails you replace that one and it rebuilds its self.


Until your PSU spikes and kills every component in it. Which I've seen.

After preaching about how wireless is insecure, I'm impressed that you seem to have missed the 'RAID isn't a backup' lesson...


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## PaulGTI (Oct 21, 2006)

I have to agree with the others, backing up is great and can save you a lot of bovva but for that ammount of photos that has value to you you need to look at some sort of off site storage in case of something going really wrong.

That can be by using the msn live space or whatever, Mozy or even backing them up to dvd and storing them at a friends house so that they are away from the master copy should some sort of catastropy strike. Dont forget you can encrypt files and folder so they need a password to be viewed.


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

Mike_182 said:


> Well rather than dismissing it out-of-hand, why not make an effort to understand it? It's free, and a good many SMBs use an 'Internet backup' as opposed to physical media. It's as secure as you make it and they have legal obligations to ensure it's backed up and highly available and whatnot.
> 
> Dismissing something because you don't have experience of it, how do you ever buy anything?I make absolutely nothing out of suggesting these things, BTW, I just think that they're an awesome method of backing up memories that can't be replaced.
> 
> SkyDrive is run by Microsoft, and whilst we all have a dig at them every once in a while they aren't stupid so they aren't going to go through them looking for naked photos of your Mrs!


I appreciate you taking the time to make the comments but as I said before you posted "I dont think I would store anything like this online" !



Mike_182 said:


> Dismissing something because you don't have experience of it, how do you ever buy anything?


I go into a shop and when I find what I want (if it's clothing or shoe's I would try most of them on first !) I take it to a till and pay for it or I may look at a product in the shops and then buy it cheaper online once I'm happy that I want it and it's the same product.

Back on topic !

Considering I just want a simple and secure means of storage for some pictures I'm hopeing that a good USB stick will suite my requirements in a satisfactory way.


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Backup to as many devices as possible. 

1 offsite ie online and another on removable ie cd or dvd.


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

Mike_182 said:


> Until your PSU spikes and kills every component in it. Which I've seen.
> 
> After preaching about how wireless is insecure, I'm impressed that you seem to have missed the 'RAID isn't a backup' lesson...


It would have to be one hell of a spike to take out a decent PSU. Cheaper ones fair enough.

Its funny you seem to think i know nothing about these things, my job is based around this. A machine i have been building today uses RAID and manchester airport and the manchester police seem to think RAID is plenty good enough as backup for the CCTV equipment. The RAID unit i was building today uses 8 HDD and we have sold thousands never had one back because of a power spike. We even guarentee the units to never fail, they even have multiple PSUs incase one of those dies.


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## uruk hai (Apr 5, 2009)

It will be PC, external hard drive and USB stick. 

The End


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

robj20 said:


> It would have to be one hell of a spike to take out a decent PSU. Cheaper ones fair enough.
> 
> Its funny you seem to think i know nothing about these things, my job is based around this. A machine i have been building today uses RAID and manchester airport and the manchester police seem to think RAID is plenty good enough as backup for the CCTV equipment. The RAID unit i was building today uses 8 HDD and we have sold thousands never had one back because of a power spike. We even guarentee the units to never fail, they even have multiple PSUs incase one of those dies.


Bless you. When you start using big boys toys like Backup Exec, NetBackup, Continuous Access etc, come argue with me again. I don't know of any respectable company that use RAID as backup, it's a level of availability - nothing more.

Back on topic, if you won't store it online then I can only suggest against keeping it on flash media - regular backups to DVD is a much better approach as flash media has a habit of just one day disliking life.


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Mike 182 is right. RAID is not a permanent backup solution, it is there for parity to allow you to get running back to normal again quickly. 

Backups should be whole copies of the required data which can be taken offsite. What if there was a huge fire which took out the server room?

What about when RAID is running on an old motherboard or RAID card and that fails, in a lot of cases you will find it very hard to get the data back.


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

RAID can be in multiple sites i dont see what your getting at, say we put the main recording unit for a CCTV system at the main site the RAID unit can be anywhere in the world, you can even have multiple RAIDs.

What if the usb stick your using as backup stops working, or a dvd gets scratched its all well and good but nothing is 100% safe. I have never bothered with anything other than a RAID setup at home which is external to my pc and only wakes up once a week to re-sync all data, so that backs up everything for me. If my house burns down i have bigger things to worry about than some files.

I reckon the best thing to do is have a removable hard drive that you can keep where you like, DVD are all well and good unless you have a few TB of data then it becomes a very tedious task to back up.


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

The point being made is that RAID should not be used as a sole backup, even if you have 2 different RAID systems at different locations.

Backups should be over different locations AND different mediums.

At my old work we had RAID on the server which worked fine (for the most part, the RAID software didn't tell us we had been running with a dead drive for who knows how long) as well as a tape backup which was left in a safe, with a couple held offsite.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

But if you're synchronising data between several RAID units on different locations, then you're backing up. That's not RAID.

You're making it fairly evident you've got a half an inclination or a vague idea of what someone technical does at work. I (MYSELF) look after a NetBackup cluster, I look after DoubleTake replication for disaster recovery and I look after SAN-to-SAN replication.

Sorry to be blunt but arguing the toss over what RAID can and can't do with someone who directly looks after around 150TB (RAW) storage is usually going to end in the same way as a born-again racing Valentino Rossi. Badly.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

And if you want to know how I back my stuff up at home, unfortunately online is prohibitive for me as I've got just over a Terabyte of photos, plus music, plus movies. I use HP RDX modules and keep them in a small fire safe at my mums. :thumb:


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

jamest said:


> At my old work we had RAID on the server which worked fine (for the most part, the RAID software didn't tell us we had been running with a dead drive for who knows how long) as well as a tape backup which was left in a safe, with a couple held offsite.


Software has a habit of doing that, which is why we still run visual checks of the datacentre every day 

At one of my last places they had 12 failed disks in an array that they'd not noticed!!! Fortunately they were in different disk groups on an array with over 160 disks...


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

Im not arguing i put my method across and you started ripping it to bits stating why it doesnt work blah blah blah, but it does for me and has never let me down, even with failed drives.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

I'm simply pointing out the well-known (obviously not well enough) fact that RAID is not a form of backup. Backup is taking it from one system or device, and saving it onto another device or media.

The OP asked about how to 'backup' his things. RAID doesn't even come into it. If you want to do it within your four walls, optical media or another disk (or physically separate RAID array, in the form of a NAS, another computer or an iSCSI target) is the only 'backup' there is. Online is not something the OP wants to do (God I need to see these pictures!) and data replication to another site is... Excessive... For home pictures.


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## Rob_Quads (Jul 17, 2006)

robj20 said:


> We even guarentee the units to never fail, they even have multiple PSUs incase one of those dies.


If they really do 'guarentee the units to never fail' them they are VERY VERY brave. Why...You would be liable if the failure of them item was critcal to something else i.e. if someone ran thier business and had one of these, the system failed you would be liable for any loss due to not having that system available.

As for the original question - I still say Microsoft SkyDrive is the easiest solution. As long as the photos are no illegal you'll be fine.
Otherwise duplicate onto a 2nd hard drive every month which is kept at another house house 
And use a RAID array for simple hard drive failure.

Forgot to say - as Mike says - RAID is not a backup. Go delete a file by accident and see how your RAID system recovers them for you.


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

Like i said it works for me as a backup and has done for many years.


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Rob_Quads said:


> Forgot to say - as Mike says - RAID is not a backup. Go delete a file by accident and see how your RAID system recovers them for you.


If you had a Windows server you would have Volume Shadow Copy so you would be able to get the file back from around 12 hours ago.

I am sure Linux will have a similar file revisioning system.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

It's not a backup! Ignoramuses really grit my ****. RAID will not save you from a virus, or an update that went wrong, or help you recover in the event of disaster!

Your understanding of IT and your claimed position of supporting these things is quite frankly scary. First line of Wikipedia:

*In information technology, a backup or the process of backing up refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event.*

RAID simply does not do that. Ever!

/rant.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

jamest said:


> If you had a Windows server you would have Volume Shadow Copy so you would be able to get the file back from around 12 hours ago.
> 
> I am sure Linux will have a similar file revisioning system.


Virus? Dodgy update? Home computer with no VSS?

It's a way of getting users to stop calling the helpdesk for file restores, not a proper backup process.

What if the building it's in develops a water leak? RAID and VSS won't rescue you from that ****...


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

Course it does, i have a box with a RAID array in it next to my pc that only powers up once a week to backup my chosen files and folders, it also does this for the other pcs in my house. I chose this because RAID covers me for drive failure but also has the capacity to store the 8+TB of data i need backing up.

I really couldnt care less what you think but this works for me.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

That's different you utter buffoon! That's 'backing up to a NAS RAID array', not claiming that RAID is a backup.

Christ on a bike, PC World employ people with better understanding...


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

Mike_182 said:


> Christ on a bike, PC World employ people with better understanding...


That is a little harsh. The only people employed at PC World who know what "RAID" is will think its about World of Warcraft.


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

How is it different, RAID doesnt have to be the cheap ass solution provided on all motherboards? Its also not connected via network its connected via SATA as you would any other disk drive, so not NAS.
RAID means Redundant array and redundant means a backup, each drive is a backup for the others, it has 8 drives in 4 of which are backups of my backups.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

LOL, in fairness to the PC World folk someone spent 5 minutes explaining what RAID was to my mother while I went wandering around the Apple stuff...


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

Redundancy is not backup! Redundancy is high availability which is completely different! Can you even tell me what RAID level that is? Or how wasteful that is for backups?!

With a little bit of luck, you're just the phone monkey for these things, otherwise I really do fear for your clients.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

Last I'll add on this one, as 10 years of enterprise support has evidently taught me nothing:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/resources/articles/RAID-is-not-a-backup-solution.html

http://administratosphere.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/raid-is-not-a-backup/

http://blog.dustinrue.com/archives/73

You've probably never even heard of Administratosphere!


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

You clearly dont read my posts fully i have never said raid is defined as backup iv said it works for me.

And i build these things RAID, JBOD, all sorts of storage/backup solutions.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

Backpedal any faster and you'll trash those bearings...


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

robj20 said:


> Like i said it works for me as a backup and has done for many years.


Oh, hai. x


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## robj20 (Jan 20, 2009)

Yes and it does, does it or does it not backup your data in the case of drive failure which is all i backup for, never had any issues with anything else meaning i lost data.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

It doesn't back up your data.

It provides protection from drive failure (quantity depending on RAID level). That is very, very different. Hence the three links, titled 'RAID is not a backup'.


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## Chris_R (Feb 3, 2008)

Uruk Hai - 
I would personally, discounting the usage of internet storage (see I listened LOL), go with optical media, make at least two copies, put it in a decent case (a normal dvd case is not a great idea as the disks can become unmounted and scratched) and take it to your mums or other relative and ask them to put it in a wardrobe or something (better yet, if you have a relative with a safe get them to stick it in that).
Optical media is more resilient than a USB stick, cheap and lasts something like 50+ years minimum IIRC when stored correctly - out of sunlight for example..
In addition keep your store on the USB stick and any other device you can get your hands on if it is precious enough to you. The more copies in the more places, the less likely you are to not be able recover it.

Not sure where RAID and other multi-thousand quid archival solutions come into a home environment, short of for e-***** purposes but hey.


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

RAID has plenty of uses at home, but not as a replacement for backup :thumb:


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## Chris_R (Feb 3, 2008)

Mike_182 said:


> RAID has plenty of uses at home, but not as a replacement for backup :thumb:


Don't start me off too LOL.

RAID0 does for me at home, not interested in redundancy.

Also one point with backups and one that has served me well for over 15 years - your backup is only as good as your last restore


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## Mike_182 (Mar 22, 2007)

True - a backup is a waste of time if you can't get back to it!

And I run 1+0 (4x300GB 10k) as my boot drive and 6 as my data drive (8x2TB 7200). Redundancy and performance for booting, and a bigass redundant space for porn! :thumb:


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## jamest (Apr 8, 2008)

I hardly back up any of my data. A few documents I email to myself to store in Gmail.

Videos and music can be lost and I won't really care. Pictures are all on Picasa and are copied on to my parents computer.

5TB of data and I only personally back up around 10MB.


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## Moderator (Feb 24, 2006)

Closed at request of OP.


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