Question Best Practices for Backup

[sticktwig]

I'm about to upgrade my computer and was planning to use a new external drive enclosure for storage and backups. Originally, I planned for a four bay enclosure supporting a single RAID-1 setup. (Three drives: Disk 1 and 2 RAID, disk 3 for Time Machine.) After research, I'm under the impression the RAID system is overkill since I use Backblaze for off-site backup.

Is there any benefit to the extra drive? Aside from not having to download all the files from Backblaze if my projects file fails. I'm a bit torn at this point given some dual-drive files get great reviews, but nearly all four-bay drives appear to be less stable. But an extra $100 to make life easier in case of failure is money well spent.

Interested in what others are doing and why one choice is better than the other.

Thanks

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

I have four external hard drives, they are all made by WD, all contain the same data, and when one fails I replace it ASAP ---- none have failed so far after at least 10 years use.
Some might say it's overkill but it's a case of "once bitten, twice shy" ----- I used to keep only one backup when I was a PC novice and I lost years of digital family photos. Never again.

 

[sticktwig]

I lost quite a few files when moving from an old files drive to a NAS. Checked at first, as I moved them, but somewhere along the line they started writing but not filling in with data. Lost anything more than two folders deep. I was so pissed.

We're alike in this, but I also don't want the headaches associated with an iffy enclosure. I guess another option is a dual-bay RAID enclosure and put the Time Machine drive in another enclosure. Would prefer all of my photos on SSDs, but dang those things are still expensive. Figure one more generation of spinners and SSD should be cheap enough.

 

[USAFRet]

Have a read through here. My personal setup is the first post:

What is your backup situation at home? What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong... forums.tomshardware.com

 

[sticktwig]

Have you switched to an automated off site backup? If not, why do you prefer the manual backup and moving a drive off site rather than using cloud backup?

 

[USAFRet]

Have you switched to an automated off site backup? If not, why do you prefer the manual backup and moving a drive off site rather than using cloud backup?

Cloud is susceptible to their policies.

My internal backups are proof against anything except fire/flood. Virus, ransomware, dead drive...no problem.
( I recently had to recover from a totally dead 1TB SSD)

The manual offsite is for that life changing stuff. Scans of personal docs (drivers license/passport/etc), pics of the kids. Install files of critical applications...stuff like that.
And that hard drive requires no internet access.
With a USB dock, I can access that from any PC.

 

[sticktwig]

Cloud is susceptible to their policies.

My internal backups are proof against anything except fire/flood. Virus, ransomware, dead drive...no problem.
( I recently had to recover from a totally dead 1TB SSD)

The manual offsite is for that life changing stuff. Scans of personal docs (drivers license/passport/etc), pics of the kids. Install files of critical applications...stuff like that.
And that hard drive requires no internet access.
With a USB dock, I can access that from any PC.

I used to do the same when I had an off site office, but would have to move the content back and forth to our bank safe now. A bit much with small children, so I'm rolling the dice on other locations. Yes, the services have their own rules we have to play by, but the key seems to be building a system that keeps a backup. I could go the off site route, but weeks may pass and then a fire loses a lot.

 

[USAFRet]

I used to do the same when I had an off site office, but would have to move the content back and forth to our bank safe now. A bit much with small children, so I'm rolling the dice on other locations. Yes, the services have their own rules we have to play by, but the key seems to be building a system that keeps a backup. I could go the off site route, but weeks may pass and then a fire loses a lot.

Everyone has individual issues and requirements.
Mine works for me. YMMV.

That link/post was mainly just a starting point for others to see what people do, or don't do.

Basic tenets of backups...
Automated, scheduled, tested.

All the procedures in the world are no good if you do not know how to recover.

 

[popatim]

...

All the procedures in the world are no good if you do not know how to recover.

or if you never tested the restore process only to find out it , or the backup, doesn't actually work; or still work. So test more then once esp after major updates. I ran into this decades ago when Windows Backups could not restore data backed up by a previous version of Windows Backup... this is also why my backups aren't encrypted, compressed... just the files as-is.

Another tid-bit that may be useful. Plan recovery for whomever might have to do this when you aren't around or can be contacted. I'm old enough where I have to plan for my passing and having one of the kids or grandkids to do this.