Backing up files?

[stiggygonzalez]

What is the best way to back up laptop & PS3 files?
I was thinking of using blank discs,SD cards and USB sticks.
What's the best way in general and why?

 

[Grayfox]

Best way to back up a PS3
Use the data export function with a USB flash drive.
Why: Because it is the fastest and easiest way.

Best way to back up a PC
Many ways to do this.
1: Using a External HDD you back up C:\users\<user profile> folder as this has all settings for your profile and has all documents, videos, pictures and emails.
2: Use a dedicated back up tool to do this for you, windows has one, many internet security programs have one
3: Back up the whole HDD.

 

[stiggygonzalez]

Best way to back up a PS3
Use the data export function with a USB flash drive.
Why: Because it is the fastest and easiest way.

Best way to back up a PC
Many ways to do this.
1: Using a External HDD you back up C:\users\<user profile> folder as this has all settings for your profile and has all documents, videos, pictures and emails.
2: Use a dedicated back up tool to do this for you, windows has one, many internet security programs have one
3: Back up the whole HDD.

I was also thinking if I was travelling abroad and took both pieces of harware,maybe I could remove both HDD's and keep it safe in my luggage?
Or use an external HDD say 750GB for both aswell?

 

[Grayfox]

I would not trust a HDD on a plane.

X-Ray scanners and other things in the name of security may wipe data off.

 

[Infinital-NG]

If your on Win7/8 don't use their backup program...it sucks.

Use something else like cobian backup.

 

[stiggygonzalez]

I would not trust a HDD on a plane.

X-Ray scanners and other things in the name of security may wipe data off.

Ok I guess the same with CD's SD cards and USB's then?

 

[F1GTR]

I would not trust a HDD on a plane.

X-Ray scanners and other things in the name of security may wipe data off.

It's likely they won't though, otherwise people wouldn't be flying with laptops and music players.

 

[BobK]

I've never heard of X-rays corrupting a hard drive. Magnetism, yes; X-rays, no.

 

[stiggygonzalez]

I read up on the HDD thing.
X ray scanners don't damage HDD's it's metal detectors that can wipe data and laptops etc don't go through that anyway so I should be ok.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Back up to the cloud. Sign up for a provider like Crashplan or Mozy. Use the flash drive to back up the PS3 to the PC, then back up the PC to the cloud.

Backup should be a "fire and forget" thing. It should just happen, so that when you experience data loss, you just log on to some portal somewhere and download the lost data. Decent cloud backup does versioning and holds on to deleted files for a month. None of these things are available with manual backups. And if I had a quid for every time my MacBook has moaned about the state of its TimeMachine backup I could have paid for a new MacBook.

And if you're going to moan about the cost of online backup, then I'm guessing your data doesn't have a great deal of value to you.

For me, my image server dropped a folder last week. No biggie. Just every single photo I'd taken of my daughter in 2012.

All 600 recovered from online storage within 2hrs.

 

[BobK]

Personally I have a big mistrust of the cloud. You don't know if your cloud provider is going to be in business tomorrow. Or if they're going to suddenly jack up the rates to exorbitant levels. Or if their server gets hacked. Or if they're secretly turning over copies of everything to the government. Or the highest bidder.

Just out of curiosity, does the fine print absolve them of any and all responsibility if anything goes wrong? I'd be shocked and amazed if it didn't.

 

[Joel]

whynothaveboth.mov

 

[Samus]

Personally I have a big mistrust of the cloud. You don't know if your cloud provider is going to be in business tomorrow. Or if they're going to suddenly jack up the rates to exorbitant levels. Or if their server gets hacked. Or if they're secretly turning over copies of everything to the government. Or the highest bidder.

Just out of curiosity, does the fine print absolve them of any and all responsibility if anything goes wrong? I'd be shocked and amazed if it didn't.

If you're concerned you can upload everything in password protected zips and only use huge companies you know won't go out of business. Google or Amazon for instance.

 

[Jump_Ace]

There are so many options when it comes to data backup.

First you need to answer a few questions:

1. How much data do I need to backup? - If it's less than 7GB, you can use Microsoft's SkyDrive to backup to their cloud for free. Samus' suggestion about zipping and password protecting your data is a great idea too!

2. How many computers need to be backed up? - Just yours, you and your wife/gf? Etc.

3. Does this data need to be portable, or can it be stationary? - If it needs to be portable, for business travelers for example, then perhaps a smaller 2.5" external USB drive would suffice.

If it can be stationary, then you need to ask if you want a local backup device, or if a Network Attached Storage (NAS - note for the unit I linked, you will need to buy two internal 3.5" HDDs) unit may come in handy if you answered 2 or more to question 2.

3. Do I know the difference between a backup and an archive? - An archive is a single storage device. Like, on your computer's hard drive. A true data backup is one where the data is stored on two or more storage devices. A basic example is having data saved on a computer AND an external USB hard drive. If you have your data saved just to an external usb drive, then it has a single point of failure, it is NOT A BACKUP, IT'S An Archive.

4. Do I need a RAID (Redundant Array Of Independent/Inexpensive Disks) device? - That depends, RAID devices to provide a hedge against hard drive failures, but they aren't an end-all solution. Why? Because something could happen to the unit that houses the drives that causes all the drives in the array to fail at the same time. Sad Panda RAID is only an viable option if you can have a stationary backup scheme.

RAID has many options/modes for data storage. RAID 0 is for speed (usually videographers use this option) and the drives inside are treated as one large volume as the data gets written to both drives at the same time. So if I had a unit with Two 500GB drives, my computer would see just a single 1TB drive.

RAID 1 is a popular option for data storage as it 'mirrors' both drives, so what gets written to the first drive, also gets written to the second one. If I had a unit with two 500GB drives, my computer would see a single 500GB volume.

The most popular RAID option is probably RAID 5 and this is mostly used in businesses with 3+ drives. Let's say I have a unit with 4 500GB HDDs. In a RAID 5 setup, I will see an overall capacity of 1.5TB. As one drive's worth of storage space is used for redundancy. Redundancy is a mathmatical equation (simple algebra really) that if one hard drive fails and you reinsert an identical, working replacement into the unit, it can rebuild the data back to just before the drive failed.

Here's a basic example formula, 1+2+3=6. Let's say the hard drive with the value of 1 failed, we are left with X+2+3=6. It's obvious that 2+3=5, so X must = 1. That's what the RAID controller is calculating when it's rebuilding the array. But you must keep in mind that even this scenario isn't fool proof and the data should be on another unit because two drives may fail at the same time, and the unit won't be able to rebuild the array. Or, like the other RAID units, the enclosure may malfunction somehow, causing all the drives to fail.

At home, I have a RAID 1 unit with an identical 3rd spare. I manually backup whatever I need, when I need it to both the RAID and the spare. I used to make an image of my computer and save it to a NAS RAID unit, but I only needed to use it once in 4 years so I stopped. Now I just backup important files like pictures, etc. when needed, which is only once or twice a month and it takes 2 mins.

As for backing up the PS3, just get a cheap-0 8GB USB stick and copy your game saves over. The rest of the stuff can be re-downloaded. I'd also recommend copying the contents of the USB stick to your computer/backup unit in case the USB stick decides to give up the ghost.

Hope that helps!

Jerome

 

[stiggygonzalez]

Thanks for help everyone!

 

[BobK]

If you're concerned you can upload everything in password protected zips and only use huge companies you know won't go out of business. Google or Amazon for instance.

That really addresses only one of my concerns. While it's true that Google or Amazon aren't likely to go out of business tomorrow, they could at any time start charging any fee they desire and hold your data hostage until you pony up. As for password protection, I think the old aphorism "locks are for honest people" is appropriate; if the NSA wants to see what's in your files, they will find out.

There are so many options when it comes to data backup.

First you need to answer a few questions:

1. How much data do I need to backup? - If it's less than 7GB, you can use Microsoft's SkyDrive to backup to their cloud for free. Samus' suggestion about zipping and password protecting your data is a great idea too!

If it's anything under a few gigabytes then there are a number of alternatives, such as burning to a cdrom/DVD, USB stick, SD card, etc, etc. As for cloud backups, see my previous comments. I wouldn't trust anything mission-critical to the cloud, and for me at least backups fall in that arena.

2. How many computers need to be backed up? - Just yours, you and your wife/gf? Etc.

3. Does this data need to be portable, or can it be stationary? - If it needs to be portable, for business travelers for example, then perhaps a smaller 2.5" external USB drive would suffice.

If it can be stationary, then you need to ask if you want a local backup device, or if a Network Attached Storage (NAS - note for the unit I linked, you will need to buy two internal 3.5" HDDs) unit may come in handy if you answered 2 or more to question 2.

No real argument here, but if you need a portable backup then USB sticks may fit the bill here as well. Actually backing up "on the road" is pretty much the only time I'd consider using cloud storage.

As for local USB drive vs nas boxes, if you're backing up a single computer there is little reason to choose nas over USB drive or vice versa other than considerations of reliability (nas boxes generally being more reliable). If you do use a nas box, you would be well advised to back up the nas box itself occasionally; I have a USB drive which I use to back mine up.

3. Do I know the difference between a backup and an archive?

No disrespect intended here, but I don't think you understand the difference between archives and backups.

- An archive is a single storage device. Like, on your computer's hard drive. A true data backup is one where the data is stored on two or more storage devices. A basic example is having data saved on a computer AND an external USB hard drive. If you have your data saved just to an external usb drive, then it has a single point of failure, it is NOT A BACKUP, IT'S An Archive.

No. An archive is a single file, not device, which is constructed by catenating together the files to be archived, along with sufficient metadata to allow extraction of the individual files again. Archives are also usually but not always compressed as well.

There is considerable overlap between the terms "archive" and "backup". Archives are used for two main purposes, distribution of collections of related files, and for backup. A backup may consist entirely of a single tarball/zipfile.

You can make a backup of a file or files simply by copying it/them to a different directory on the same drive. However corruption or failure of the drive could result in the loss of both your original files and the backup. For this reason it is more common to copy/archive the files to a separate location. This location may be on USB sticks, a USB drive, CD/DVD media, or external storage such as a nas box or the cloud.

4. Do I need a RAID (Redundant Array Of Independent/Inexpensive Disks) device? - That depends, RAID devices to provide a hedge against hard drive failures, but they aren't an end-all solution. Why? Because something could happen to the unit that houses the drives that causes all the drives in the array to fail at the same time. Sad Panda RAID is only an viable option if you can have a stationary backup scheme.

RAID has many options/modes for data storage. RAID 0 is for speed (usually videographers use this option) and the drives inside are treated as one large volume as the data gets written to both drives at the same time. So if I had a unit with Two 500GB drives, my computer would see just a single 1TB drive.

RAID 1 is a popular option for data storage as it 'mirrors' both drives, so what gets written to the first drive, also gets written to the second one. If I had a unit with two 500GB drives, my computer would see a single 500GB volume.

The most popular RAID option is probably RAID 5 and this is mostly used in businesses with 3+ drives. Let's say I have a unit with 4 500GB HDDs. In a RAID 5 setup, I will see an overall capacity of 1.5TB. As one drive's worth of storage space is used for redundancy. Redundancy is a mathmatical equation (simple algebra really) that if one hard drive fails and you reinsert an identical, working replacement into the unit, it can rebuild the data back to just before the drive failed.

Here's a basic example formula, 1+2+3=6. Let's say the hard drive with the value of 1 failed, we are left with X+2+3=6. It's obvious that 2+3=5, so X must = 1. That's what the RAID controller is calculating when it's rebuilding the array. But you must keep in mind that even this scenario isn't fool proof and the data should be on another unit because two drives may fail at the same time, and the unit won't be able to rebuild the array. Or, like the other RAID units, the enclosure may malfunction somehow, causing all the drives to fail.

Actually the extended dissertation on RAID is wandering a bit off-topic.

The tl;dr is "RAID drives are more reliable than single drives".

There is an exception however, RAID 0 drives are actually less reliable than single drives although they are faster. This is because if either of two drives fails you have lost data. Consequently RAID 0 is a poor choice for backups.

RAID 5 drives don't work quite that way either; actually they xor the contents of two or more drives onto an additional drive. The nature of xor is such that if a single drive is defunct, its contents can be reconstructed by xoring together the other drives in the array. A RAID 5 array can be constructed from any dumber of drives greater than two, but generally four or five drives are used because as you increase the number of drives, the chances of multiple drive failure increase. As noted, a four-drive RAID 5 array has the capacity of the sum of three of the individual drives, and a five-drive array has the capacity of four of the individual drives.

At home, I have a RAID 1 unit with an identical 3rd spare. I manually backup whatever I need, when I need it to both the RAID and the spare. I used to make an image of my computer and save it to a NAS RAID unit, but I only needed to use it once in 4 years so I stopped. Now I just backup important files like pictures, etc. when needed, which is only once or twice a month and it takes 2 mins.

As for backing up the PS3, just get a cheap-0 8GB USB stick and copy your game saves over. The rest of the stuff can be re-downloaded. I'd also recommend copying the contents of the USB stick to your computer/backup unit in case the USB stick decides to give up the ghost.

Hope that helps!

Jerome

Another thing that should be mentioned is the desireability of off-site backups. If you back up to a nas box on your home network, and then back up the nas box to an external drive, this will not help if they're all in the same location which is subject to flood, fire, burglary, or other catastrophe.

 

[Samus]

That really addresses only one of my concerns. While it's true that Google or Amazon aren't likely to go out of business tomorrow, they could at any time start charging any fee they desire and hold your data hostage until you pony up.

All of these services are done on a rolling contract, either 30 days or a year, similar to a mobile/cell phone data plan. IF they were to increase prices they couldn't do it until the start of your next billing date, leaving you time to download all of your data if you didn't want to pay the increased cost.

Legally they would never get away with what you're suggesting.

As for password protection, I think the old aphorism "locks are for honest people" is appropriate; if the NSA wants to see what's in your files, they will find out.

Well yes but you would have to be paranoid enough to think the NSA want to do that and that Google/Amazon will allow them.

 

[BobK]

Well yes but you would have to be paranoid enough to think the NSA want to do that and that Google/Amazon will allow them.

I guess you haven't been keeping up with what the NSA's been up to lately then. Including cooperation from Google, Microsoft et al.

 

[Jump_Ace]

No disrespect intended here, but I don't think you understand the difference between archives and backups.

Actually, yes, I do know the difference, you are mistaken. Let me explain. An archive can be a file like a zip, rar, etc like you mentioned, but the differing factor (the fact that its a file has nothing to do with it) is if that file/folder/data is on another device or not. If that file/folder/data is also on another device then it is backed up.

I included some info about RAID because they are an option some people may want to have. And why do I have the feeling that if I didn't include something about RAID, you would have said something like 'no disrespect here, but you didn't mention anything about RAID'....


Jerome

 

[BobK]

Actually, yes, I do know the difference, you are mistaken. Let me explain. An archive can be a file like a zip, rar, etc like you mentioned, but the differing factor (the fact that its a file has nothing to do with it) is if that file/folder/data is on another device or not. If that file/folder/data is also on another device then it is backed up.

And yet you had said:

If you have your data saved just to an external usb drive, then it has a single point of failure, it is NOT A BACKUP, IT'S An Archive.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but an "external usb drive" qualifies as "another device", no?

Actually I'm taking exception to the implication that something is either a backup or an archive when in fact there is considerable overlap and an archive is often a backup and vice versa. Like when my boss used to tell me to make a backup of my current project and put it in the archive.

I included some info about RAID because they are an option some people may want to have.

Fair enough, but note that I wasn't objecting to the mention of RAID, more to the fact that you devoted almost 60% of your post to it.

And why do I have the feeling that if I didn't include something about RAID, you would have said something like 'no disrespect here, but you didn't mention anything about RAID'....

I assure you that I was not critiquing for the sake of critiquing, just trying to set things straight on parts of an otherwise pretty good post. What on earth did I do/say that would give you that feeling?