[clug] RE: Hard drive wanted [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Neil Pickford]

NEVER rely on a single backup!

My strategy is multiple rotated HDDs
I have a number of HDD that sit on the shelf or offsite.
I backup alternately to each one so if there is a double failure I only 
loose a little bit.

Also test your backups.  I do this with the the Linux server by swapping 
the backup with the real volume after it is copied.  That way all drives 
are exercised and I really have confidence in the backup because it is 
running or was the previous running disk.

Once u have a backup strategy that works it's amazing how little pain 
disk failures cause.

Neil Pickford

fiddleheadfern wrote:
> 
> David Lloyd wrote:
>>  On 21/09/2007, at 16:45 , David Lloyd wrote:
>>> BACKUPS!
> 
> Alex wrote:
>>  It's amazing how many people suddenly start thinking about a backup  
>> strategy *after* they've lost some critical data.
> 
> Actually, I've been really good about following a regular & detailed backup
> protocol. Unfortunately though, the Seagate external drive was my PRIMARY
> backup location, meaning that it was where I'd stored all of the most recent
> & _complete_ images/wizards AND the recovery files (bad!) for my local
> drive. To make matters worse, I'd JUST moved a TON of files (all my photos,
> installation files, etc) onto it _temporarily_ while I was replacing a
> faulty HD in my laptop. And yes, like a good little techie, I saved other
> copies/images of my files elsewhere - but since I didn't have any other
> large empty storage drives & didn't want to use up dozens of dvd's, I was
> only able to make duplicate copies of _some_ of My Docs & of only the most
> critical installation/settings files... meaning that, now that the Seagate
> doesn't work, I don't have any accessible copies of every program, of my
> large (mostly media) folders, and certainly not of the 175gb of research
> data+results I'd saved to the dead drive.
> 
> So the take-home message here folks, isn't that it's important to have (&
> actually follow) a backup strategy, it's that you have a BACKUP backup
> strategy!! From now on I'm saving an image of my install+settings on one cd
> & a rescue disk on another; I'll copy a primary (& complete) backup to one
> external daily and a secondary (complete!) one on another external weekly;
> I'll stash copies of as much as possible on another network comp, make
> better use of my gmail 'drive', and maybe update my most crucial thesis
> files to a flash drive every day too, just to be sure. 
> Sigh.