Hey Everyone, So I have a large amount of data I would like to archive. I would say around 300gb to 600gb worth. What would be the best way to keep copies of this data in case of drive failure or other issues? I have been considering some kind of tape backup, but it seems rather expensive to do and HDD prices are just getting cheaper and cheaper. Perhaps if I just got a bunch of HDD's and used RAID it would be good enough for data reliability? Or just got a spare 2TB drive and backed up to that once in a while? For that matter, how long can a drive last in storage without being used? Probably not as long as tape? The one thing I was hoping tape could provided was a cheap way to backup lots of data. Such that in exchange for speed, I could just buy a pack of tapes and backup away. Unfortunately it seems tape cartridges are almost as expensive as HDD's which contain almost 8x more space?
I bought a 2TB hdd for backups and extra storage. For cost a tape drive can't be beat but it all boils down to your backup policy. If you're dead serious about it you keep 1 backup on site and another backup off site away from any potential natural disaster that would destroy both copies at the same time.
Tape is still cheaper? A 2TB drive costs like $90 where I am. A tape which can hold 300gb or 600gb (I have no idea why they list 2 numbers. Double sides?) costs about the same. I thought tape would be cheaper to be honest, but ebay prices for superdlt tapes don't seem to indicate it (For cost per GB).
USB hard drive is easiest and cheaper, no question. Modern tape drives are still hundreds of dollars.
For your most critical data *USB-powered* hard drives are the awesomest. I got a 120gb on sale for $25 this summer and it has been in operation since. The speed seems on par with my internal 5400 rpm drive, it's completely silent, fits in a pocket (and small safe deposit box) and seems pretty robust so it's literally the best hard drive purchase I can remember making. Obviously it's not the best choice as a workhorse or huge amounts of data, but it will be more than enough for my most important data for many years to come and getting a second drive will be really affordable. My plan for large only semi-critical data will be to be a RAID5 NAS arrangement some day. When the time comes I will be sure to buy IDENTICAL drives; something that has irritated me in the past is that a drive just fails and I can't recover them myself because I can't find a suitable drive for parts.
Buy a NAS & 2x 2TB and set it to RAID 1. If one drive dies, the other will contain a live mirror of the other. Or skip the NAS and set it up on your PC if you have RAID support already. The problem with going for external HDD or tapes is you will get a schedualed backup instead of a live one. And if you really want to be on the save side, go both + online backup
I'm probably going to just stick with USB powered HDD devices. The form factor for laptop drives is pretty small as it is, and with falling HDD prices the temptation is too great to ignore (^_^);
Last time i bought me an cheap old Buffalo Linkstation and upgrade it with an 2TB HDD. Big storage and great speed over Wlan for small money. Perfekt for notebook usage. For me the best solution, no cables and no slow usb. When you have money, i agree with port187 buy a NAS .
My needs: Linux box w/ RAID1 (NFS/Samba). Incremental backups to BluRay. Not good long term solution, but they are a good cure for butter fingers.
