Do you backup your home system?

[road-runner]

I dont have anything on the windows drive but windows, important stuff is on a 1.5Tb secondary drive, then there is a copy of that drive on a 2TB drive. Windows can die anytime it wants, I just format and reinstall and back in business...

[CAINuKe]

I am sad to say I dont back up, even thought I should.

I do however store my downloads on a 200gb IDE drive I "garbage" picked. =)

[Compxpert]

Windows can die anytime it wants, I just format and reinstall and back in business...

I couldn't have said it better.

[IVIYTH0S]

I picked "other"

 

I just manually back up important data to a 500GB in a USB dual enclosure and at the same time to the 500GB I keep in my pocket.

I never back up any media I have because although it sucks losing, it's something I can always reacquire if I absolutely need to!

[Bizzlenitch]

Use my oldest 160 GB Hitachi Deskstar as a backup drive. Load it with the latest images and then put it in the desk drawer in case I ever need it, which I haven't so far...

[Timmy94]

I just backup to the external on my desk.

[Waco]

I chose "Other."

 

I run a RAID 1 array in both my desktop and my HTPC. Important data goes on my OS drive, the RAID 1 array in my desktop, and both RAID 1 arrays in my HTPC. If it's really important it gets uploaded to GMail as well in the form of attachments to myself.

 

I'd say that having my data in 5 places counts as backed up, right?

[Nerm]

Years ago I lost lots of data in a HDD crash including proof of a world record OC. ...Since then I utilize a multi-backup plan. At home I have a DC/file server that all computers in the house are backed up to daily. Then that server is backed up to a remote "off-site" data storage weekly as well as backed up to an external HDD monthly that is stored "off-site".

[Great_Gig]

OCD here as well..... Working in IT and having a large disk array attached to a SAN, I was shocked at how often hard drives can die without warning (some brands more than others!).

 

So at home I have an OS drive with only the OS and programs installed, like Roadrunner I have Windows just die too, especially during a risky OC. I also test a lot of software, so this can sometimes take the OS down. I keep a 3 staged backup of the OS drive using Acronis True Image.

 

1. Baseline image - fresh install of Windows that is activated and nothing else.

2. Interim image - Windows plus all tried and tested proprietry software.

3. Working image - same as interim, but with everything else on.

 

All my other data is on a 1.5TB drive, which includes the Acronis Images. This is backed up weekly to a second 1.5TB drive that sits on my desk and only goes into the machine to perform a backup. A further 1.5TB, which is a clone of the backup drive and lives 'off site', getting backed up monthly.

 

If Windows dies I am back in business in minutes, with a recovery of one of the Acronis Images. If the data drive dies I can slot the desktop one in and if that dies, I have the 'off site' drive.

 

So far since adopting this regime, I have never had a home system failure that I could not recover from in minutes, so nothing ever stops me from working for very long. I have never had a complete and sudden drive failure either ...... yet! But then I never use the brands that seem to fail the most at work (Seagate!). The only failures I do get are of the OS drive, mainly if I am testing. And a failure to me is any type of glitch or annoying occurrence in Windows. I also have all my software on the data drive in a folder called 'Software Store'. This has everything - ISO images of bought software and archives of all programs I use or have downloaded. I reinstall everything from here, so I don't ever need to put a disk into the optical drive, apart from games or to create an ISO image for storage, or rip a CD.

 

Al this means I am only a few mouse clicks away from anything.

 

(I said I was OCD!!!! )

Edited January 22, 2010 by Great_Gig

[Kash]

But then I never use the brands that seem to fail the most at work (Seagate!).

 

Interesting, I find Seagate to be one of the more reliable brands. Though to be honest, lately Western Digital has been getting the top spot in reliability for me.

 

As for my backup plan, I started a long time ago, back in the Windows 98 days when I first lost data. Back then I would backup important documents, music, and pictures on CDs. As time went on, I did the whole Windows on one drive and everything important on a second internal drive, in addition to backing up on CDs and DVDs, of course. Then I started backing up on external hard drives, so I had like three layers of protection. However, I filled up all the internal slots for hard drives, which meant I had to start storing stuff on external drives with no backup of those files. So right now I'm only backing up important documents and pictures while all of my movies and TV shows are sitting relatively exposed (except my music, which is backed up onto DVDs).

 

My plan is to put together a four bay NAS drive and fill it up with 6TB to 8TB and place all of my media onto there. I can then use the remaining external drives as backups in case anything goes wrong with the NAS. In addition, if there was ever a fire or something like that, I could easily just grab the NAS on the way out instead of trying to pick and choose which drive(s) I should take.

[Great_Gig]

Interesting, I find Seagate to be one of the more reliable brands. Though to be honest, lately Western Digital has been getting the top spot in reliability for me.

In the last 12 months we have had 3 Seagate 1TB drives fail. 2 were total failures without any warning whatsoever - 1 of those was a real headache, as it was in a Workstation without any backup, as it had only been in under a month. That made me pretty mad with Seagate <_<, which is probably why I have a dim view of them now. However to be fair, before the last 12 months they had proved to be a reliable brand and they have had a lot of problems with their first generation 1TB drives. We use Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung.

 

I now use Western Digital exclusively at home and I cannot remember the last time we had a Western Digital fail at work (so I will most likely go into work on Monday now to find one has died..... lol!).

[IVIYTH0S]

In the last 12 months we have had 3 Seagate 1TB drives fail. 2 were total failures without any warning whatsoever - 1 of those was a real headache, as it was in a Workstation without any backup, as it had only been in under a month. That made me pretty mad with Seagate <_<, which is probably why I have a dim view of them now. However to be fair, before the last 12 months they had proved to be a reliable brand and they have had a lot of problems with their first generation 1TB drives. We use Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung.

 

I now use Western Digital exclusively at home and I cannot remember the last time we had a Western Digital fail at work (so I will most likely go into work on Monday now to find one has died..... lol!).

I've replaced 2 500GB scorpio's so far, the only seagate I had to turn in was m 7200.11 which had a known firmware issue that I didn't take care of, so I deserve the loss of my data.