Best Backup Method(s) for Archiving Data

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Posted by ExileonMain, 07-20-2008, 05:29 PM
Well, I was hesitant to even post this because I've been on the net for so long, that and I know just about every method out there. However, large corporations obviously can't live with loosing data so I figured I'd see what everybody else is doing out and figure out my next battle plan for archiving data. Here's what happened. I had triple backups of some data. I burned them twice on DVD (yes, two DVD's of each archive) as well as had them on a WD hard drive. ALL are dead or unreadable. I had the discs in a DVD binder and they were never touched for a good 5 years. I put them in a player (multiple players) and only particular parts were read. Other parts came up with errors. (Yes, I'm aware there are companies that offer recovery for both CD/DVD and Hard drives, but they always charge a fortune and in some cases, aren't worth it). This was Memorex media btw which might of had something to do with it, but at the time I thought it was the best. Next I went to the hard drive. This was stored in a room temp house over a good 5 years and when I plugged it in to a computer's IDE port, nothing. Not sure exactly what's wrong with the drive and I'm sure it could be fixed and recovered, but once again, that's not my question. My Question: What methods are you using to store your archives over long periods of time? Any recommendations on hardware? I'm thinking of DLT Tape backups and of course doing RAID next but don't want to run into the same problem in 5 years. How can I sleep at night (which is already impossible) knowing that in 5 or 10 years when I'm ready to get into my backups that they will be there? What are you doing and what do you recommend? Better yet, what the hell is Hollywood doing to keep all their music and movies safe?
Posted by CodyRo, 07-20-2008, 05:58 PM
I've personally been a fan of tapes .. large and decent shelf life. Beyond that I always recommend another point of backup, possible a remote "backup machine" which has a RAID setup so there's redundancy - though I'm sure its debatable it's always worked for me (I've yet to lose any data that wasn't recoverable.. knock on wood). There's commercial solutions you can try - but do you have a specific budget?
Posted by ExileonMain, 07-20-2008, 06:05 PM
Interesting. Yeah, I might go with tape backups. I've had the backup machines before as well but in the long run, I would prefer to just keep some type of tape, media or drive that's 99% safe. Sometimes it's just some scripts that I'm not using anymore but of course want a copy of for future use. As in my original post, that's something I lost that I'm upset about. They didn't cost a fortune but there was a lot of time invested in them. Budget? Well, the lower the better but I am interested to hear what your commercial solution would be for a high budget or no budget just so I know my future options.
Posted by zuborg, 07-21-2008, 06:23 AM
I prefer HDD as backup storage over tapes and CD/DVD. HDD is rewritable, reliable, random access, fully customizable solution. I'm using 'hardlink' FS feature to avoid space loss for unchanged files - each backup copy contain only updated files, while not changed ones are hardliked from older copies. And I have full file tree in each copy - no need for separate L0,L1,L2.. levels of backups.

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