PSA: 3 TB external hard drive $80

[KSRBEvans]

Newegg.com via Ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-D3-Station-3TB-USB-3-0-3-5-Desktop-External-Hard-Drive-STSHX-D301TDB-BI/381043291273?rmvSB=true

If I'm reading that right, that's an incredible amount of storage for the money. We live in amazing times.

[Darrell KSR]

If you had a bunch of photos, would you trust dumping your only digital copy to something like this?

What do you guys do with digital photos?

[KSRBEvans]

I've heard folks like Leo Laporte (who probably got it from someone else) recommend a 3-2-1 method (http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/world-backup-day-the-3-2-1-rule/) of backing up: 3 copies, in 2 different formats, with at least 1 copy offsite.

I have a copy on my computer, a copy on a USB drive I keep at work and then a copy saved as a Time Machine backup on an external hard drive. I'm not sure if that meets the 3-2-1 criteria, but I feel pretty good that I would have a serviceable backup if my computer went down.

[Darrell KSR]

Thanks.

I really need a summer project to organize stuff that is on different computers. It's not planned redundancy; in fact, I'm sure I have things that are not duplicated at all. It's just scattered disorganization.

Can you explain the "Time Machine backup" thing? Is that software built into the external drive that works when you plug a laptop into it or something? (Remember my level of [in]competence...)


I've heard folks like Leo Laporte (who probably got it from someone else) recommend a 3-2-1 method of backing up: 3 copies, in 2 different formats, with at least 1 copy offsite.

I have a copy on my computer, a copy on a USB drive I keep at work and then a copy saved as a Time Machine backup on an external hard drive. I'm not sure if that meets the 3-2-1 criteria, but I feel pretty good that I would have a serviceable backup if my computer went down.

[KSRBEvans]

Time Machine is just the backup program that comes with a Mac. If you have a PC running Windows 7 or 8, you have backup software that came with the computer, although it may not be obvious.

You could also use other software like Acronis TrueImage (http://www.amazon.com/Acronis-True-Image-2015-PC/dp/B00O66G2UQ) or sign up with an online service like Carbonite (http://www.carbonite.com/).

For photos specifically, lots of sites like Flickr, Facebook or Shutterfly let you upload photos. You could probably use other types of cloud backup like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. Or you could just drag and drop to a USB drive, but you may lose metadata you have with the photos (tags, location, etc.).

And like you, I need to go through my computers and have everything backed up. I feel pretty good about the Mac we use most often, but we have 3 other computers and I'm pretty sure I have stuff on there that's not backed up.

[PedroDaGr8]

I've heard folks like Leo Laporte (who probably got it from someone else) recommend a 3-2-1 method (http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/world-backup-day-the-3-2-1-rule/) of backing up: 3 copies, in 2 different formats, with at least 1 copy offsite.

I have a copy on my computer, a copy on a USB drive I keep at work and then a copy saved as a Time Machine backup on an external hard drive. I'm not sure if that meets the 3-2-1 criteria, but I feel pretty good that I would have a serviceable backup if my computer went down.

This is VERY good advice for anyone backing up business data or irreplaceable personal data. I set my parents dental office up on a similar system. Being a dental office, they create a large amount of patient data (billing, medical records, etc.). This data is critical to their business, if it is lost, then the business could go under. Creating a good backup is a multipart system. Starting with the computer, which is an enterprise grade rackmount server (which is so ridiculously overkill its not even funny, but the price was $400 and is by far the best value for their needs) which has a RAID array to minimize downtime and mitigate the affects of a single hard drive failure. Then there is an onsite daily backup to a hard drive. This hard drive gets rotated weekly with one in a safety deposit box at the bank across the street. There is also an online backup that constantly maintains a backup in the background.

The logic is as follows:


Never ever ever ever have only a single copy of something you would hate to lose. Having a single copy of means that you don't care if you lose it. The question is no longer if you will lose it but when.
An external platter-based hard drive is just about the WORST thing you can use to have a single backup. They are great for backing up large volumes of data but reliability is not their strong point.
More than one backup because backups fail and often (see the point before). Sometimes the media is fine but the backup itself fails silently and you have no clue that your daily backup is corrupted and useless.
A separate physical location for at least one copy because fires and things like this happen. When they happen, you don't want to lose your main copy AND your backup copy in one swoop.
Online backup is wise because natural disasters happen, the best idea is a separate geographic location. Online backups are slow (requiring days at minimum to recover a backup copy) so a local and/or semi-local backup is still necessary.

[Darrell KSR]

Great advice, guys.