Best ways to backup
- Thread starter Tengu
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There are a number of factors at play here: Confidentiality, Availability and Integrity.
Confidentiality is the sensitivity of your data, if your storing bank statements then you probably want this to be a primary consideration but if your looking to store 10 years of photos of fires, knives and camping trips this probably isnt a primary concern.
Availability is how accessible your data is. If you store it on an external hard drive it is only available to you when you have that hard drive near by however storing data on cloud would give you a far higher availability but sometimes at the cost of confidentiality.
Integrity is the consistency and accuracy of your data throughout its life. For this we might consider some form of RAID system or multiple backups. The cloud is good here too as often they manage backups in multiple locations making your data always available.
With that said here are my thoughts, it depends on the nature of the content your trying to store, if you want privacy then an external hard drive would be best as it would never be internet connected and you would have control of where it goes and who gets to it. If you want the ability to share within your home network or have automated backups of your devices etc then a NAS on your home network would a good option (Also you can get them quite big now so storage would never be an issue but this comes at a cost). Failing that cloud storage is convenient but riddled with flaws (I've just finished my dissertation in this area) that being said, some companies like SpiderOak and Tresorit are much better than the generic OneDrive/Dropbox etc.
Confidentiality is the sensitivity of your data, if your storing bank statements then you probably want this to be a primary consideration but if your looking to store 10 years of photos of fires, knives and camping trips this probably isnt a primary concern.
Availability is how accessible your data is. If you store it on an external hard drive it is only available to you when you have that hard drive near by however storing data on cloud would give you a far higher availability but sometimes at the cost of confidentiality.
Integrity is the consistency and accuracy of your data throughout its life. For this we might consider some form of RAID system or multiple backups. The cloud is good here too as often they manage backups in multiple locations making your data always available.
With that said here are my thoughts, it depends on the nature of the content your trying to store, if you want privacy then an external hard drive would be best as it would never be internet connected and you would have control of where it goes and who gets to it. If you want the ability to share within your home network or have automated backups of your devices etc then a NAS on your home network would a good option (Also you can get them quite big now so storage would never be an issue but this comes at a cost). Failing that cloud storage is convenient but riddled with flaws (I've just finished my dissertation in this area) that being said, some companies like SpiderOak and Tresorit are much better than the generic OneDrive/Dropbox etc.
I have mine on a "My passport" external drive, learnt the hard way when I lost a lot of the HQ pictures of a holiday in New Zealand when Laptop died and had to have my hard drive scanned to save everything possible. Also have a lot on Flickr
if you have a few weeks of spare time go through the ten years of pictures, and delete the ones you don't want,(and i am sure there will be lots, duplicates, blurred, etc etc), then using Windows Picture manager, or a similar programme, edit the important ones, edit the size( in bytes) and email them to yourself to a address on Google, Microsoft etc, this is what I Find to be the safest, let these big companies look after your pictures for free, you could also make a copy to a DVD, and a memory stick to be sure.
Burn them to single use dvd data 4gb per disc, even 10 years worth will not add up to too much. Music and video add up though. Maybe burn two discs and keep the disc safe and scratchless. Memory sticks and cards corrupt same as your computers,
Yep I imagine that could be problematic.
Yep I imagine that could be problematic.
If you are going to do that, there are far easier/better ways of storing them in the cloud than emailing them all to yourself.
Dropbox, google drive, one drive, iCloud etc....
The problem with a lot of these suggestions is that they assume that the back up is a one time activity - burn to disk, copy to USB stick etc.
Yes, that may secure this lot of photos, but what about the next lot, and the ones after that?
Are you going to remember to keep burning discs/updating the USB?
Are you going to test the discs?
What happens if your primary hard drive fails and then you find your DVD/USB backup is broken.
Backing up shouldn't be a one time activity, it should involve multiple failsafes, most of which can be automated these days, near enough for free.
Yes, that may secure this lot of photos, but what about the next lot, and the ones after that?
Are you going to remember to keep burning discs/updating the USB?
Are you going to test the discs?
What happens if your primary hard drive fails and then you find your DVD/USB backup is broken.
Backing up shouldn't be a one time activity, it should involve multiple failsafes, most of which can be automated these days, near enough for free.
/\ /\ Good points.
Also, I can't see an answer, what file size are you looking at ?
If broadband is an issue I would back up to an external hdd or 2 if they're that important, the likelihood of losing 2 drives at the same time is remote, if internet connection is stable but slow you could 'just' back up to Dropbox or if you want free then create multiple Google accounts and back up to them using them as cloud storage ?
Also, I can't see an answer, what file size are you looking at ?
If broadband is an issue I would back up to an external hdd or 2 if they're that important, the likelihood of losing 2 drives at the same time is remote, if internet connection is stable but slow you could 'just' back up to Dropbox or if you want free then create multiple Google accounts and back up to them using them as cloud storage ?
Google Drive. If Google loses your photos then the world has probably ended anyway.
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Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk
I've already done that , i used to use the Tapatalk , but now i use the Google or Gmail to do it , as you say , they are free and safety place to backup phone pictures and other data for user ,
As well as you can sync Android and computer ,
Printing out all your photos? I suggest you use £5 notes to print on too. Seriously printing 10 years of photos would take a very long time spent feeding paper into the printer and replacing ink cartridges.
Then you have paper to store. As we're on a Bushcraft site I'm pretty certain that most on here know that paper isn't a bad start to light a fire. It burns well. It's biggest drawback in firefighting is it gets wet through easily. Which is another issue. Interestingly where I live near Lancaster floods seem to be a bit of an issue the last few years courtesy of no government in the last 20 years plus funding adequate defences round here.
Seriously it has to be an electronic solution IMHO. There's various forms of drives from simple external hard drives (plug them in, back up and remove to secure location after saving each batch of photographs). Actually get two, back up onto both then store in different places. One in your car, one at aunt Mabel who is always at home and carries a big stick with attitude of anyone tries to break in! Convert stick to firearm if outside Europe (Switzerland excluded, they're as gun friendly as Americans I think judging by the figures for gun ownership).
Seriously though at one of my old places of work we had three external hard drives. One plugged in being backed up to. One locked up on site in a fireproof safe. Not truly safe because it once got robbed and found chucked in the local river and it manager had to wade into the river with the police to identify it. The third was in a managers car waiting to be taken home with him.
End of each day the car drive was put in the safe, safe drive into the server and server drive (latest backups) into the car and straight home with the manager to sit securely inside his house. Strict daily rotation at the end of the day, every working day.
Redundancy was key as was three identical hard drives and a manager who could give a 4x about it (the hardest part of the plan).
Then you have paper to store. As we're on a Bushcraft site I'm pretty certain that most on here know that paper isn't a bad start to light a fire. It burns well. It's biggest drawback in firefighting is it gets wet through easily. Which is another issue. Interestingly where I live near Lancaster floods seem to be a bit of an issue the last few years courtesy of no government in the last 20 years plus funding adequate defences round here.
Seriously it has to be an electronic solution IMHO. There's various forms of drives from simple external hard drives (plug them in, back up and remove to secure location after saving each batch of photographs). Actually get two, back up onto both then store in different places. One in your car, one at aunt Mabel who is always at home and carries a big stick with attitude of anyone tries to break in! Convert stick to firearm if outside Europe (Switzerland excluded, they're as gun friendly as Americans I think judging by the figures for gun ownership).
Seriously though at one of my old places of work we had three external hard drives. One plugged in being backed up to. One locked up on site in a fireproof safe. Not truly safe because it once got robbed and found chucked in the local river and it manager had to wade into the river with the police to identify it. The third was in a managers car waiting to be taken home with him.
End of each day the car drive was put in the safe, safe drive into the server and server drive (latest backups) into the car and straight home with the manager to sit securely inside his house. Strict daily rotation at the end of the day, every working day.
Redundancy was key as was three identical hard drives and a manager who could give a 4x about it (the hardest part of the plan).
An IT Geek friend of mine recommends the rule of three:
1. Back up to CD
2. Back up on an external hard drive (although I did lose a load of music once on a drive that just locked up and stopped working).
3. Back up on an offsite server such as a (reputable) cloud - I did read in Which? magazine that you do have certain rights for loss of data on off site storage and may be worth a search on the web to find the article.
I try to keep all my photos on my PC in the same format and folder storage, that way all I do is drag and drop them across to my external drives and any duplicated can be ignored (when the system asks you what to do).
1. Back up to CD
2. Back up on an external hard drive (although I did lose a load of music once on a drive that just locked up and stopped working).
3. Back up on an offsite server such as a (reputable) cloud - I did read in Which? magazine that you do have certain rights for loss of data on off site storage and may be worth a search on the web to find the article.
I try to keep all my photos on my PC in the same format and folder storage, that way all I do is drag and drop them across to my external drives and any duplicated can be ignored (when the system asks you what to do).
Chaps. Prior to Bassert's post, last post was 2015. Bassert has been banned as a spammer. They posted here just to get their post count up and appear genuine.
Thread start date was 8th May 2017
I think you're looking at Fuchsiashockz's join date
Arrrrgh 
You are so right. DOH!
The new forum format gets me again!
Anyway, still reckon this person was a spammer. There have been a bunch of them recently, all very similar and upon investigation they all haven't checked out in the same way.
You are so right. DOH!The new forum format gets me again!
Anyway, still reckon this person was a spammer. There have been a bunch of them recently, all very similar and upon investigation they all haven't checked out in the same way.
I do something similar but I've also started using smaller SD cards and never wiping the good stuff off them. Depending on how many pictures I take I just replace the card and write the start and end dates on them then just store them some where safe and easily accessible in case of a house fire or something.
