Back-up Storage Options

mgfvvc

grumpycrab said:

arciere said:

The best option is to have a mirrored drive

I have not read all posts...but mirror is BAD for a backup for obvious reasons (e.g. what happens if you mirror a bad source?).

That makes no sense whatsoever. If the bad source is your original, then if that's bad any backup you take is bad. If you mean the backup that you are mirroring then having 2 bad backups is no worse then one bad backup, but 2 good backups is clearly safer than one.
In practice I think mirrored solutions write to both disks at the same time. There isn't a first copy and a second copy. I'd have to do some research to figure out whether they have integrity checking and would automatically reject a bad copy and serve up the good copy. In the end the solution for that is file versioning, so you can go back and find an earlier version that isn't corrupted.

debitcardmayhem

mgfvvc said:

grumpycrab said:

arciere said:

The best option is to have a mirrored drive

I have not read all posts...but mirror is BAD for a backup for obvious reasons (e.g. what happens if you mirror a bad source?).

That makes no sense whatsoever. If the bad source is your original, then if that's bad any backup you take is bad. If you mean the backup that you are mirroring then having 2 bad backups is no worse then one bad backup, but 2 good backups is clearly safer than one.
In practice I think mirrored solutions write to both disks at the same time. There isn't a first copy and a second copy. I'd have to do some research to figure out whether they have integrity checking and would automatically reject a bad copy and serve up the good copy. In the end the solution for that is file versioning, so you can go back and find an earlier version that isn't corrupted.

The only good backup is one that can be used and has been tested, and I concur with @mgfvvc says about bad backups. It takes a lot of time and resources to ensure that you are confident of your backups and  that your strategy is sound. It would far too long to expand on what is a good strategy and there will be many different opinions on what is good for the home user.

renegadefm

For me its simply using high quality dvds.  Simple to use and store. 

Johnmcl7

mgfvvc said:

grumpycrab said:

arciere said:

The best option is to have a mirrored drive

I have not read all posts...but mirror is BAD for a backup for obvious reasons (e.g. what happens if you mirror a bad source?).

That makes no sense whatsoever. If the bad source is your original, then if that's bad any backup you take is bad. If you mean the backup that you are mirroring then having 2 bad backups is no worse then one bad backup, but 2 good backups is clearly safer than one.
In practice I think mirrored solutions write to both disks at the same time. There isn't a first copy and a second copy. I'd have to do some research to figure out whether they have integrity checking and would automatically reject a bad copy and serve up the good copy. In the end the solution for that is file versioning, so you can go back and find an earlier version that isn't corrupted.

The person you've quoted is correct, mirroring is not a backup solution it's a method to maintain uptime whena drive fails but unfortunately it's a very common mistake to make to believe it's a suitable backup system.  Mirrored solutions do write to both drives at the same time which means what happens to one drive, happens to the other so if you have cryptographic malware which encrypts the data, you lose both copies, if there's file corruption both drives are corrupted, if there's a hardware failure and it blows out the hard drive, it can take both out at the same time.  It's not unusual to to use a pair of the same model of drives which if they've been running together doing exactly the same work can fail within a matter of days of each other taking out the entire array.  One particular problem I've seen a few times is a hard drive has failed silently but the system hasn't realised it and still shows the array as healthy (particularly on consumer units which are nowhere near as good at reporting disk issues) so when the second drive fails, the array goes down and you find the data is gone.

File versioning is not a solution to these problems, a proper backup keeps the data separate so regardless of what happens to the original data doesn't in any way affect the backup and it's available to restore from.  The situations I've mentioned above are all ones I've dealt with and it's awful telling people their data is all gone and the only option they have is expensive data recovery.  Hence why I always make it clear to people that mirroring is not a backup a solution and if only using a pair of drives then they should be kept separate, mirroring is still a useful technology but for different purposes.

Undervalued

renegadefm said:

For me its simply using high quality dvds.  Simple to use and store. 

I did that the found that but some of the so called "high quality" DVDs were unreadable a few years down the line. Others made at the same time were fine. And yes, they had all been tested when they were first created!

mgfvvc

Johnmcl7 said:

The person you've quoted is correct, mirroring is not a backup solution it's a method to maintain uptime whena drive fails but unfortunately it's a very common mistake to make to believe it's a suitable backup system. 

...

Hence why I always make it clear to people that mirroring is not a backup a solution and if only using a pair of drives then they should be kept separate, mirroring is still a useful technology but for different purposes.

No he was wrong. He said mirroring is a bad idea and mirroring is not, in itself, a bad idea.

You are right to say that it is not a complete solution, but nobody said it was.

arciere

grumpycrab said:

arciere said:

The best option is to have a mirrored drive

I have not read all posts...but mirror is BAD for a backup for obvious reasons (e.g. what happens if you mirror a bad source?).   If data is important need 1. backup locally. hard disk is fine ( buy a new one if you have too.).  2. cloud gives you that important 2nd copy.

Ehm...no.
RAID 1 (mirror), is not a backup solution. In general, RAID is never a backup.
A backup is achieved by having the same data on a second device (device, not drive), for example one copy on the computer, one copy on a NAS.
What RAID 1 does, it gives you the flexibility to keep your data 'running' in case one drive fails. That's why having a RAID 1 (or RAID 10) is the best option in terms of having a backup. What constitutes the 'backup' is not the second drive in the RAID, but the NAS as a whole.
PS. you can't 'mirror a bad source', if you know how RAID works.
EDIT: I replied to your post without reading further comments, I see that part of this has already been explained.

RussellR

And don't forget that a copy of your files on another drive (whether internal or external) which is close to the PC is not a proper backup - you only need a burglary or a fire and your 'backup' is lost along with the originals

You really need to have at least one copy stored offsite - whether in the cloud, or at another property.

wongataa

londonman81 said:

So I'm looking at other back-up storage options.

Options I'm considering are:

1. SSD external drive, which I hear are more reliable (I don't know how long they're expected to last..?)

1. Cloud storage, which seems more permanent but also seems to need a
   fast upload speed and an on-going subscription

1. Large capacity USB drive.
   I don't know what the difference is between a 1TB USB drive and a 1TB SSD other than cost, unless I'm missing something...?

What is the best option for backing up family photos and videos?

Are there any other options once I've not mentioned, that should be considered?

Thanks!

You need several backup solutions - some of them off site so if your house goes up in flames you don't lose the backups with the originals.

A couple of normal hard disks are good.  They are cheaper then SSD drives for the same capacity.  A cloud solution is worth exploring too.  Any backup disk of whatever type should be periodically check to make sure it is still OK and be replaced if it is found to be failing.

I use external hard disks and Backblaze for backup.  Backblaze is an online backup provider.  The initial upload takes a while (dependant in you internet upload speed and how much data you want to backup) but after that only new/changed files are synced so it is quicker then.

Undervalued

wongataa said:

londonman81 said:

So I'm looking at other back-up storage options.

Options I'm considering are:

1. SSD external drive, which I hear are more reliable (I don't know how long they're expected to last..?)

1. Cloud storage, which seems more permanent but also seems to need a
   fast upload speed and an on-going subscription

1. Large capacity USB drive.
   I don't know what the difference is between a 1TB USB drive and a 1TB SSD other than cost, unless I'm missing something...?

What is the best option for backing up family photos and videos?

Are there any other options once I've not mentioned, that should be considered?

Thanks!

You need several backup solutions - some of them off site so if your house goes up in flames you don't lose the backups with the originals.

A couple of normal hard disks are good.  They are cheaper then SSD drives for the same capacity.  A cloud solution is worth exploring too.  Any backup disk of whatever type should be periodically check to make sure it is still OK and be replaced if it is found to be failing.

I use external hard disks and Backblaze for backup.  Backblaze is an online backup provider.  The initial upload takes a while (dependant in you internet upload speed and how much data you want to backup) but after that only new/changed files are synced so it is quicker then.

Need! Really?

Obviously it is up to the individual how many belts and braces they want to put on. If there is to be no possibility at all of your trousers falling down then maybe five of each will do it. Although it may make getting around a bit slow!

Seriously though, in the pre computer days we all managed with an album of photos in a draw. The really diligent might have kept the negatives in a different place. Both were vulnerable to fire and water damage. Not many people had second copies due to the expense.

I sometimes think people get carried away with excessive computer backups plus, more seriously, I have seen plenty of examples of diligently made backups that have proved unreadable when needed.