[SOLVED] What size back up drive should I buy?

[Shadow0201]

I am going to build a PC and I want to have two HDD drives. One is going to be 4 TB for large file storage for music, content creation (Youtube/Twitch) and non demanding games possibly very few AAA games. The other drive is going to be a backup drive which will store the latest drive image as a compressed file in case it fails but I do not want to spend more than than necessary for its capacity. What size should I buy?

 

[USAFRet]

What is the OS drive going to be?


For backup drive size, it depends a lot on how much is stored on the actual drive, and your backup scenario.

For instance, my system:
7 individual drives, approx 4.5TB total space. Approx 2TB actual consumed space.
My backup of a Full image and a series of Incrementals, 30 days worth...consumes about 2.4TB.

But, you need to plan for future growth.
An 8TB external is not a lot more than a 4TB.

 

[Shadow0201]

Its going to be my first build so I dont really plan to do anything big yet. The os drive will be a 2TB nvme m.2, ill store mostly games and videos for editing temporarily and then move to my hdd. The hdd will be an nas, idk if thats ok or if i should use a different type. Im limited to a budget but i may add/change things to the desktop in the future depending on my needs.

 

[USAFRet]

Its going to be my first build so I dont really plan to do anything big yet. The os drive will be a 2TB nvme m.2, ill store mostly games and videos for editing temporarily and then move to my hdd. The hdd will be an nas, idk if thats ok or if i should use a different type. Im limited to a budget but i may add/change things to the desktop in the future depending on my needs.

What are you referring to by "nas"?

 

[Shadow0201]

nas = Network attached storage.

The type of hard drive

 

[USAFRet]

nas = Network attached storage.

The type of hard drive

I know what the acronym stands for.
Do you mean an actual NAS box appliance, like a Qnap or Synology?
Or do you mean an external drive connected to your router?
Or just a model of hard drive, like WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf?

 

[Shadow0201]

Wd red, sorry.

 

[USAFRet]

As a drive model, sure. But you don't want your backup images on a drive IN the same system. You want it physically isolated.

This is my current procedure (mostly. Has been tweaked over the last couple of years)
This is on my QNAP NAS, but could easily be done on a simple USB external drive.

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

 

[Shadow0201]

Ok, and can I configure the external drive so that it is only used when backing up data? And will having an external hdd affect the performance of my pc while it is physically on?

 

[USAFRet]

Ok, and can I configure the external drive so that it is only used when backing up data? And will having an external hdd affect the performance of my pc while it is physically on?

You can Unmount when not needed. And no, it doesn't affect performance.