Help to understand backups and where to save to.

Chillse

Cloud storage is not a reliable solution, it is better to keep using hard drives. To keep your data safe, you'd better make backups to multiple media. If you have any failures and data loss, then you can use special software in order to recover them. For example, Partition Recovery diskinternals.com/partition-recovery is a good solution. But if you make several backups and monitor the health of the disk, then you will not need this software.

[Deleted User]

Chillse said:

Cloud storage is not a reliable solution, it is better to keep using hard drives.

That's a rather sweeping statement, care to elaborate?

[Deleted User]

Cloud storage is very useful as part of a larger backup plan. Don’t rely on a single method.
of course cloud storage comes in many flavours. I use iCloud as a convenience and something else for the serious backup.

Uxb1

Deleted_User said:

Chillse said:

Cloud storage is not a reliable solution, it is better to keep using hard drives.

That's a rather sweeping statement, care to elaborate?

The saga of the cloud provider Megaupload a while back might prove a salutory one.
As well as the legit stuff stored on it there was some decidedly dodgy stuff as well.
Along one day came the USA's FBI and confiscated all the servers just like that - the WHOLE lot and not just the dodgy stuff
and everyone who had their backups stored on them found they no longer had any access, their backups had vanished and so far as I'm aware they never got them back.

Personally i used multiple copies of WD elements portable USB drives with the data simply copied and updated to each one by rotation on a regular basis. Karen's Replicator is used to do the updating.
The backup drives are only connected for the purpose of the backup, then removed and stored elsewhere. They are treated carefully, not dropped and always closed off prior to the cable being removed from the computer.

[Deleted User]

Had to look up Megaupload. Bit shonky was it?

[Deleted User]

Uxb1 said:

H tallmansix said:

Chillse said:

Cloud storage is not a reliable solution, it is better to keep using hard drives.

That's a rather sweeping statement, care to elaborate?

The saga of the cloud provider Megaupload a while back might prove a salutory one.
As well as the legit stuff stored on it there was some decidedly dodgy stuff as well.
Along one day came the USA's FBI and confiscated all the servers just like that - the WHOLE lot and not just the dodgy stuff
and everyone who had their backups stored on them found they no longer had any access, their backups had vanished and so far as I'm aware they never got them back.

Personally i used multiple copies of WD elements portable USB drives with the data simply copied and updated to each one by rotation on a regular basis. Karen's Replicator is used to do the updating.
The backup drives are only connected for the purpose of the backup, then removed and stored elsewhere. They are treated carefully, not dropped and always closed off prior to the cable being removed from the computer.

And that’s why the 3-2-1 backup strategy is still recommended as a bare minimum  - 3 copies, 2 different media, 1 offsite or cloud.

A backup drive can fail just like a cloud provider, that shouldn’t affect a proper backup regime and wouldn’t phase me. 

I think a little due diligence would have flagged Megaupload as a risk well before its demise, it was a file sharing site funded by adverts so I wouldn’t have taken them seriously as a backup provider. 

What I do worry more about is what people deem as a backup, for example you said you simply copy files and rotate disks. 

What happens if a file has become corrupted on your original copy without you noticing? Each time you do a backup with your simple copy routine your are overwriting a previously good version on the backup and now have effectively lost a good copy of the file. 

Version history with backups is so important - it could be years later when you next open a precious file and realise it is corrupted along with all the backup copies and the previous version is no longer available. 

The other thing often missing is verification of backups. People rarely test the integrity of their backups and the process of restoring the data, unless the backup has been 100% read and checked against the original files it is not guaranteed to be a good backup. 

At least 1 offsite copy is important for the rare but devastating event that your house burns down / gets flooded etc. 

Probably overkill given that most people don’t even bother with a backup but I don’t leave it to chance with the data really matters. 

googler

immy1 said:

I'm not sure but it sounds too complex for me to try.

I'm going to assume this is in response to my suggestion of fitting one or more internal drives to the (desktop?) PC. 

It's not difficult or complex. 

If you can plug things in and can use a screwdriver ....

[Deleted User]

I use an external powered USB3 7 port hub and plug into that (most my drives are powered).

Single USB3 lead then from the hub to the computer, it means I can hide the hub and drives out the way.

a

Chillse said:

If you have any failures and data loss, then you can use special software in order to recover them. For example, Partition Recovery diskinternals.com/partition-recovery is a good solution. 

I would not agree, and it is often not just as easy as glib advertising, especially for ANY data loss. Data recovery is expensive