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Ask Slashdot: What's The Best Way To Backup Large Amounts Of Personal Data? (foxdeploy.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader has "approximately two terabytes of photos, currently sitting on two 4-terabyte 'Intel Rapid Storage' RAID 1 disks." But now they're considering three alternatives after moving to a new PC:
a) Keep these exactly as they are... The current configuration is OK, but it's a pain if a RAID re-sync is needed as it takes a long time to check four terabytes.
b) Move to "Storage Spaces". I've not used Storage Spaces before, but reports seem to show it's good... It's a Good Thing that the disks are 100% identical and removable and readable separately. Downside? Unknown territory.
c) Break the RAID, and set up the second disk as a file-copied backup... [This] would lose a (small) amount of resilience, but wouldn't suffer from the RAID-sync issues, ideally a Mac-like "TimeMachine" backup would handle file histories.
Any recommendations?
This is also a good time to share your experiences with Storage Spaces, so leave your answers in the comments. What's the best way to backup large amounts of personal data?
b) Move to "Storage Spaces". I've not used Storage Spaces before, but reports seem to show it's good... It's a Good Thing that the disks are 100% identical and removable and readable separately. Downside? Unknown territory.
c) Break the RAID, and set up the second disk as a file-copied backup... [This] would lose a (small) amount of resilience, but wouldn't suffer from the RAID-sync issues, ideally a Mac-like "TimeMachine" backup would handle file histories.
Any recommendations?
This is also a good time to share your experiences with Storage Spaces, so leave your answers in the comments. What's the best way to backup large amounts of personal data?
Memorize it! Just don't take any head injuries or you won't remember anything.
More seriously, back up to hard drives is the only viable option. Then make sure you have more than one backup drive and store one at some other site. Relative maybe?
Cloud options with that kind of storage would take forever to upload. And I've heard of people having stuff randomly go missing on their cloud service, not the entire contents, but a file here and there. I'm not so sure that's a good option.
For storing on-site you can get a fire rated media safe, but they can be quite a bit more expensive than a regular safe.
https://www.backblaze.com/clou...
$5/month unlimited data size (writes).
You can sync files back over or they will actually ship you a HD with your data; if you return the drive you get a refund of the drive cost but you're also free to keep it.
The cost for individual file reads is reasonable too.
No muss no fuss
I have over 10TB on Backblaze for $5/mo. Works great and recovery is easy.
I would add though that if you want more control and more flexibility I've started using Backblaze's B2 API and SyncBack, Cloud Berry or whatever software backup solution you prefer. That costs about $5/month per TB but has the advantage of control over hash checks and retention.