Back Up - Internal Drive or External

[Ed Cordes]

After getting 2 new high MP cameras I now find I am filling up my back up drives. I am in need of new ones and have a question.

My work flow is to have a back up at home and one off site at work. I have wondered if keeing one drive as an internal is just as safe? Part of me says that if it is an external it is not subject to bad stuff that may happen to the system. Another part of me says that it is really nice to not clutter up the desk with yet another drive. I would, of course, keep a copy off site as always.

What do you all think? A fast 1 TB internal for primary BU and one USB 3.0 for off site BU - or two USB 3.0 externals one at home and one off site?

Thanks for your advice.

[Alfred Forns]

Hi Ed I have four internal drives, one for the OS/programs and the other three set up in raid five (with raid card). Also use Drobo for backups !! Don't think it will make much difference as long as you have several !!

[Ed Cordes]

Thanks Al for your response. I have decided to go with 2 externals. One at home and one for off site. I plan to get eSATA enclosures and put a WD Blue 1TB drive in each. The more I thought about it the more I questioned the wisdom of keeping a back up on the main system. Too much chance for virus or other glitch to be automatically copied into what should be a secure back up.

[Alfred Forns]

Ed with the current price of drives might go for 2 TB?

[Ed Cordes]

Ed with the current price of drives might go for 2 TB?

Al, in the past I have heard about reliability issues with the 2 TB units. Has the QC improved enough to trust them for the long haul??

[Craig Johnson]

I have read that internal drives are a bit better quality than the external drives.
You can buy an external case to hold multiple internal drives so its an external drive with internal drives. lol.

[David Stephens]

If you've got a PC, then get a Firewire card to speed up the transfers.

[Ed Cordes]

If you've got a PC, then get a Firewire card to speed up the transfers.

Thanks for the suggestion David. I have 2 Firewire ports on my new computer. However eSATA and USB 3.0 are significantly faster.

[Nancy A Elwood]

I have had great luck with Addonics enclosures. http://www.addonics.com/products/mobile_rack/zebra_snap.asp

[Brent Stephenson]

Hopefully related to this query, Ed, do you use software for backing up, and if so do you recommend it? I have back-ups on external drives (one stored at home and one off-site like yourself) but how do you manage them and conduct backups? I currently just use the Windows copy and paste, then manually check the properties of the files/folders copied to make sure the transfer has resulted in the same number of files/folders. But, this may not account for corrupted files.
Checking online for back-up software opens a plethora of options - but what is best? I'm thinking rather than back-up it might be best to use a sync software?
Interested to hear what you and others use...back-up or sync software...or perhaps both?
Cheers,

[Ed Cordes]

Brent, I do not use any back up software. I have considered it many times, but have never felt totally confident in it. I just make a back up of the original files which may or may not have been modified with the original file name intact. This is why I am not totally confident in the software management. I am never sure if the file name stays the same if the changes I made are updated.

It takes a bit more time for the BU to run, but I know it is accurate. This is why I am anxious to implement eSATA - it is MUCH faster.

I, too, would be interested to hear feed back from those who have been using BU SW to hear if it really is accurate.

[Brent Stephenson]

Thanks Ed,
Yeah I'd be keen to hear other users comments on back-up software (and sync software). I just worry that with the normal old copy and paste there is no verification stage. Thus, you could unknowingly corrupt files and would only find out when a hardrive goes down and you need to recover files.
From some internet searching this morning it would seem that GoodSync has good reviews for sync-ing data on multiple drives/computers (includes verification stage) and Genie Backup Manager Pro is one of the better back-up softwares. However, the latter has had some negatives on websites about bugs and errors...just the sort of thing you need in critical back-ups!
Keen to hear comments from others,
Cheers,

[Tony Whitehead]

On the Mac side Carbon Copy Cloner and Super Duper work brilliantly to clone entire disks or directories. Mine are set to automatically run each evening to copy my image files and entire HDD before automatically putting the computer to sleep for the night. I run these in addition to Time machine which backs up more frequently. Not sure of the state of play on Windows but use Iomega Backup software at work (non image files) for a similar process each night in addition to copy and paste on portable HDD for daily off site storage.