Re: Computer backups

From: Jason A Banta (jason.banta@louisville.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 13 2005 - 11:03:16 EST


For home backups, there are plenty of alternatives out there. The
prices have come way down in price as of recently also. For example,
you can get a Buffalo TeraStation 1TB NAS HD-H1.0TGL/R5 Terabyte for
under a thousand dollars now.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Buffalo-TeraStation-1TB-NAS-HD-H1-0TGL-R5-Terabyte_W0QQitemZ8720402649QQcategoryZ116258QQssPageNameZWD1VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Jason Banta
Technology Manager
School of Public Health and Information Sciences
University of Louisville
502-852-2489

>>> dakota@billpitz.com 12/13/2005 1:57:26 AM >>>

Jason Bleazard wrote:
> Actually, running backups to another hard drive is a pretty good way
to do it.
> You just have to be careful about how you have it set up and think
of what
> kinds of things can cause data loss, and how likely they are, and
decide
> whether you want to run the risk. For example, you *could* simply
drop a
> second drive in the same machine, which would protect you against
drive
> failure and accidental file deletion. But if you get a virus or
hacker, then
> it can wipe out your backups just as easily as the rest of your
data.

Ok, I'll bite. Hopefully this doesn't jinx me.

At work, when I somehow inherited a large chunk of the IT tasks, we had

an outdated tape backup system that no one really knew how to maintain

anymore. We needed a new backup solution, and one that had more
capacity. I've always hated tapes, so I immediately discounted that
option.

For backups of all important systems, we now have a "file server"
that's
just for backups. It's got a large internal mirrored RAID array that
synchronizes daily to an external USB 2.0 disk. The external USB disk

gets rotated on a regular basis -- with the "out of rotation"
disk/enclosure being stored in a fire safe. This handles all of our
moderately important data. Super important data is also backed up to
an
offsite machine in a colocation facility.

So far, *knock on wood*, it's worked out quite well. We've had one
server disk failure which we recovered from without a hitch. A number

of people have also deleted/lost files which we have also recovered
from. Hard disks are very convenient for backups since 1.) USB 2.0
enclosures are cheap and 2.) Hard disks are SO MUCH FASTER than tapes.

And more reliable. And did I mention faster?



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