How do I back up info on my PC - inc Music?

[morrisminordriver]

Happy New Year to all UKW'rs...not much time for WWing these days thanks to child care duties - hence no posting but Im still a regular "lurker".

A non WW query....
I have quite a lot of info on my PC (mainly music - over 3000 tracks) which I am now concerned about backing up in case the PC goes Kapput and I lose the lot.

My query is how do I go about this?, is it an additional bit of hardware that I need, or some sort of disk or other recorder?.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Cheers, MMD.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi MMD,
Nice to see you again.
Try investigating external USB hard drives (I mean proper hard drives, not Flash).
Like these
You can just plug'em in and copy your drive. Job done.
Cheers
Steve

 

[chiba]

A decent DVD writer can be had for 30 quid. I have 2000+ tracks in my iTunes library, which is still only about 15GB. That means only four (single layer) DVDs for a full backup, which is only a quid or so.

 

[RogerS]

There's also this thread https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7200&highlight=backup

Roger

 

[matt]

You could install a second hard-drive inside your PC.

I've networked 2 PC's together and backup one to the other.

Both options are staightforward.

 

[gidon]

MMD,
I just bought a 300GB external drive to backup my PC's including music photos and videos. They tend to come with backup software which will do automatic incremental backups which saves you having to think about it. You can get them much cheaper than this one - depending on what size you need. And on Firewire they are very quick.
Cheers
Gidon

 

[morrisminordriver]

Thank you all for your suggestions, I will follow these up and let you know what I end up with.
Thanks again.
Regards, MMD

 

[ikd]

Working in the IT industry (I sell not install), I can recommend the following:-

External Iomega USB hard drive (any size you want). Comes with a niffty bit of software for backing up.

and

Pioneer internal DVD-/+RW drive. The Pioneers tend to last the longest, however, you do pay a little more for them.

 

[Anonymous]

MMD

I have all of mine backed up on a 20GB USB2 hard disk. Fits in my shirt pocket and cost less than £70 from www.dabs.com

 

[martyn2]

if you put them on dvd you can at least play on a laptop or any protable dvd player

martyn

 

[dedee]

Just out of interest what is deemed to be most secure, ie less likely to go wrong or fail, the DVD/CD or external hard disc?


Andy

 

[ikd]

Just out of interest what is deemed to be most secure, ie less likely to go wrong or fail, the DVD/CD or external hard disc?


Andy

A DVD, provided you look after it. However, you dont have the capacity with a DVD that you do with an external hard drive.

 

[dedee]

Ian, that's what I thought.

If I take Tony's example above I can buy an awful lot of DVDs for £70 and would I really need to back up more than the DVDs capacity in one go?

I am sure that there is a convenience or usability factor here and some would have far more data to back up than I.

When I can sort a strategy for doing so ( I am new to having a PC at home ) and I have worked out how to burn and append to a DVD I will be sticking to this method rather then having still more gadgets and cables on my desk.

Andy

 

[gidon]

Andy - if one was being really careful you could have a backup on an external HDD (which would normally be done daily or weekly or monthly) and use DVD to archive the data every month or so. That's what I try and do with my photos now. But DVD's are too small for day to day backup's unless you don't have much to back up. And as for reliability that's another story but I would be very concerned having only DVD backup. I've been caught out using CD's for storage before - gone back to them a few years later and they've been unreadable. And they were stored in a cupboard with no direct light. On the other hand I've been using PC's since the early days and only ever had one HDD failure - and I had lots of early warning signs for that plus it was on a well used (and abused) work laptop. It all depends what the data is worth to you and how much you're willing to spend protecting it.
Cheers
Gidon

 

[Steve Maskery]

I've been using PC's since the early days and only ever had one HDD failure

Wow! I'm impressed!
S

 

[ikd]

I think its worth mentioning that the only thing you cant replace when your PC goes wrong is the data. Therefore a good back up proceedure is vital. My own method is as follows:-

I keep all my created data in folders under My Documents. I back up My documents to an external hard drive. I am also a keen Photographer and have in excess of 15Gb of Digi photos. I also use Picasa to back these up separately to DVD's.

The Ipod music directory runs at about 11Gb. Most of this has been copied from my own CD's, however, I do have albums ive downloaded from the Apple Store. As and when I do this I burn the album onto a normal CD - its the same as having the original, but lacks the pretty CD case :wink:

So ultimately my two most valuble areas of data are photos and music and these are backed up twice - external hard drive and DVD/CD. I dont have anyreally important docs or spreadsheets so they are not an issue.

Hope this helps

 

[Anonymous]

On the other hand I've been using PC's since the early days and only ever had one HDD failure -Gidon

Seriously lucky gidon

I have used (and built) PCs since 1989 and have had 4 hard disks die in that time, one whilst still in warranty. Lost a lot of data over the years due to poor backup practices.

I currently back up to the external HD every friday using SyncbackSE.

I occasionally burn a DVD backup too but find these inconvenient when I need to find info from the backup such as one single document on one of those DVDs - somewhere.

 

[RogerS]

But DVD's are too small for day to day backup's unless you don't have much to back up. And as for reliability that's another story but I would be very concerned having only DVD backup. I've been caught out using CD's for storage before - gone back to them a few years later and they've been unreadable.
Gidon

Are we talking archiving or backup here? I agree that for archiving longevity of digital media is debatable but for backup purposes (accepting capacity constraints) if there is a regular backup regime in place then longevity isn't an issue.

 

[gidon]

What are you lot doing to your PC's!
Cheers
Gidon

 

[RogerS]

What are you lot doing to your PC's!
Cheers
Gidon

Oh..usual stuff..fighting viruses, fighting spyware and adware, updating all the stuff from Microsoft, installing patches :wink:

Now, on the other hand, my Mac ...........