Noob looking for advice

[Chairborne]

Upfront - I know beer but not much bout PCs.

I want to find a good way to backup files on my harddrive.
"good" for me means easy, fast and cheap.

My wife has a ton of songs (she actually paid for) on our hard drive. Plus we have all the photos taken in last 5+ years, some work files, etc. etc.

With all this stuff on here and I'm riding bareback.

I've got a cd and dvd burner. I've seen flash drives and external hard drives, etc. People have told me about programs to try. But I've done nuttin'


Anyway... any advice on something I can buy that I can plug in, hit go, and be done? Thanks in advance (of a hard drive crash)

[Ninja]

Pick up an external hard drive. Then if you're using Win2000, XP Home, or XP Pro you can use the Backup feature built into Windows. That's the cheap way of doing it. Ideally, you can get a network storage box (NAS) with a RAID 5 configuration for extra reliability but they're expensive. As far as software, Window's built in Backup is pretty easy to use but I've never had to use it to recover any lost data yet. I'm using Acronis True Image 10 but here again I've never had to use it to recover lost data. True Image can make images of your drives onto another drive and you can literally copy that image over in case of drive failure. There are lots of options out there but the easiest is to just get an external drive and go the built in Windows Backup route. The only drawback is that if you lose both the computer and the external drive your out. Not to mention if there was a fire or theft either. If it's REALLY critical data, you'll want to rotate your backups and keep one "off site".

[PiLL-Doc]

Good one Chair, trying to convince us that it's only family pictures and love songs that you and your wife listen to. I know the real Chair, you have so much PORN downloaded (some free and some paid for) that you want to make sure you never lose those pics and videos. The things that you will do to try and save your PORN...hmmm. Now tell us what you really meant by "easy, fast and cheap".

[Parasitic]

I think the CEO of Seagate said it best ....

http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/30/magazines/fortune/obrienseagate.fortune/

[Ninja]

I think the CEO of Seagate said it best ....

http://money.cnn.com/2006/11/30/magazines/fortune/obrienseagate.fortune/
I heard about this awhile ago but never read it. Pretty funny stuff. :D

[Chairborne]

Ahh Pill - you too remember my good friend - the old Chair.

Old Chair is gone and will be missed by many. I am the new Chair. Nearly forty, I now groan when my wife wants some ass.

Ninja - thanks for giving the advice. I was leaning towards the external hard drive. Doesn't look like there are any other recommendations.

Any advice on a brand or model?

Thanks in advance (of a porn binge)

[Parasitic]

Well you could as a cheaper option get a internal drive and buy a $30+ external case.

[Roo]

That's what I did...yeah, I know...believe it or not....I bought an internal drive and put in one of those cases. Works good....just turn it off or unplug it whenever you want...

ok, about this porn.....

[Ninja]

Well you could as a cheaper option get a internal drive and buy a $30+ external case.I was going to mention this as one of the external drive solutions. Thanks for posting it up Parasite.

You can either get a drive already in an enclosure with either USB, network interface, or both. Or you can do as Parasite mentioned and just get a large drive and an enclosure and do it yourself which is probably the cheapest route. I run a 160GB external drive connected to my LAN. All the pc's in the house and laptops save their weekly backups on that drive. I then take the contents of that drive, copy it to one of two external USB drives and store that off site. I just rotate the USB drives (take one to location, pick other one up).

[SniperDoug]

Pick up an external hard drive. Then if you're using Win2000, XP Home, or XP Pro you can use the Backup feature built into Windows. That's the cheap way of doing it. Ideally, you can get a network storage box (NAS) with a RAID 5 configuration for extra reliability but they're expensive. As far as software, Window's built in Backup is pretty easy to use but I've never had to use it to recover any lost data yet. I'm using Acronis True Image 10 but here again I've never had to use it to recover lost data. True Image can make images of your drives onto another drive and you can literally copy that image over in case of drive failure. There are lots of options out there but the easiest is to just get an external drive and go the built in Windows Backup route. The only drawback is that if you lose both the computer and the external drive your out. Not to mention if there was a fire or theft either. If it's REALLY critical data, you'll want to rotate your backups and keep one "off site".

The Windows Backup feature really works. I had to use it to recover some of my company's files. It almost like "copy/pasting" and I feel this would be the easiest method for Chair to backup and recover his family pictures, music, and his extensive library of porn. You can store your stuff on CD's or any other storage media. CD's would be the cheapest since most PC's nowadays have read/write CD ROM Drives. You can store up to 700 MB on one CD. You can write on them to help you know what is on them. In your case, you would probably want to color code your CD's. You know, pink for porn, and green for other.....lololololol.... If you want or need help in using Windows backup, shoot me an email and I will get on T.S. and I will talk ya thru it. Also, those exernal drives are great. This also solves the problem of how to use Windows backup. If you map this drive correctly, you can copy all the stuff you want by copy/pasting it to the external drive. You would still need to use Windows backup to back up the external drive if you ever wanted to back that up.

[SaskNewfie]

Has anyone ever tried the HP Personal Media Drive (http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10069261&catid=)? Just curious because my computer is an HP Media Center and I'm considering one of those drives.

[EnsignPulver]

Ahh Pill - you too remember my good friend - the old Chair.

Old Chair is gone and will be missed by many. I am the new Chair. Nearly forty, I now groan when my wife wants some ass.

Ninja - thanks for giving the advice. I was leaning towards the external hard drive. Doesn't look like there are any other recommendations.

Any advice on a brand or model?

Thanks in advance (of a porn binge)

Captain Stabbin

[Ninja]

The Windows Backup feature really works. I had to use it to recover some of my company's files. It almost like "copy/pasting" and I feel this would be the easiest method for Chair to backup and recover his family pictures, music, and his extensive library of porn. You can store your stuff on CD's or any other storage media. CD's would be the cheapest since most PC's nowadays have read/write CD ROM Drives. You can store up to 700 MB on one CD. You can write on them to help you know what is on them. In your case, you would probably want to color code your CD's. You know, pink for porn, and green for other.....lololololol.... If you want or need help in using Windows backup, shoot me an email and I will get on T.S. and I will talk ya thru it. Also, those exernal drives are great. This also solves the problem of how to use Windows backup. If you map this drive correctly, you can copy all the stuff you want by copy/pasting it to the external drive. You would still need to use Windows backup to back up the external drive if you ever wanted to back that up.
That's good to hear. I've always used the built in backup of Windows but as I mentioned, I've never had to use it to recover from an "emergency". I bought Acronis for the imaging feature and to try it out. After installing Windows and all updates I made an image. Now when it's time to re-install, all I have to do is move the image over and I'm all set. The backup on Acronis is fast too. Much faster in full backup mode than Windows backup. So far it seems to be a good program. We'll see if it's any good if disaster ever strikes though.

[SniperDoug]

That's good to hear. I've always used the built in backup of Windows but as I mentioned, I've never had to use it to recover from an "emergency". I bought Acronis for the imaging feature and to try it out. After installing Windows and all updates I made an image. Now when it's time to re-install, all I have to do is move the image over and I'm all set. The backup on Acronis is fast too. Much faster in full backup mode than Windows backup. So far it seems to be a good program. We'll see if it's any good if disaster ever strikes though.

Keep in mind that if your windows operating system goes down, you still have to reinstall it. Once you get it reinstalled you can then use Windows backup to restore everything you have lost provided you have backed them up and saved them on a removable media such as a CD or other means. Me being a Network Admin, I have "borrowed" a tape drive that is used to backup massive amounts of data. I do my backups late night when I know me and my wife is not using the computer.

[McFeely]

Poor Chairporne he is getting information overload. Everyones suggestions are on target. I lean towards imaging more than Windows Backup. When I upgrade a hard drive I usually create an image of the old and just put it on the new drive. No messing with re-installing Windows and re-activating. You just need to do a removal prep of the old drive real good with anti-virus and spyware. I have used it for personal backups of my laptop drive. You can find a copy of Norton Ghost on most DOS boot repair cd's along with Acronis or Imagecenter. I prefer Norton for the interface and the ability to image over a closed network using tftpd32, but it really is what someone gets comfortable doing. (read: NO FEAR)


The HP external drive is nice but any one will do. As far as a good deal on a external drive, http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1261777&Sku=I21-5498 I ordered 2 this week for customers. Iomega has been around for years and make a good product. I still have a few working Jazz and Zip drives laying around the garage.

If I have time today I will upload some of these programs and Boot CD's to my Filecloud FTP account. I wanted to upload to the team FTP but I don't have permission. Just PM if you have any questions about the stuff.