WARNING: Large scale cyber attack will hit in 2 weeks, be prepared!!!

[Sue]

I use Carbonite, which automatically backs up both my laptop and my external hard drive (permanently connected to the laptop). You can get a free trial before committing to it.

http://www.carbonite.com/online-backup/free-trial?catid=200200&mkwid=svffKeNjk|dc&adnumber=38157719581&cm_mmc=ppc-_-google-_-38157719581-_-svffKeNjk&c3apimn=vffKeNjk&gclid=CjkKEQjwqsCcBRDt7_Gts5a91YYBEiQAm-wYEZ3RN3Ncd1k1JBU5DU_tsMnigZutPvqG4pzV1UDntunw_wcB

But there are many similar services.

It's worth it just for peace of mind in my opinion.

[El Pibe]

Storage costs are constantly plummeting, but if it's literally backups you'd be daft to use external hard drives, when something like blu-ray will be a fraction of the cost, physical size and will be much safer.

You could avoid all those moving pieces by using SS drives, but again...for backup...really?

[Sue]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> Storage costs are constantly plummeting, but if

> it's literally backups you'd be daft to use

> external hard drives, when something like blu-ray

> will be a fraction of the cost, physical size and

> will be much safer.

>

> You could avoid all those moving pieces by using

> SS drives, but again...for backup...really?

xxxxxxx

My external hard drive is not for back-up - I don't need back-up as I'm using Carbonite, and in any case I wouldn't want to rely for back-up solely on something which could fail or be damaged.

It's for additional storage, because my ancient laptop only has an 80gb hard drive, and as I've had the external hard drive for some years, I don't particularly want to shell out money on something else when it is doing the job perfectly well.

[Loz]

El Pibe Wrote:

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> Storage costs are constantly plummeting, but if it's literally backups you'd be daft to use

> external hard drives, when something like blu-ray will be a fraction of the cost, physical size and

> will be much safer.

Blu-ray holds max 50GB per disk, so I'd have to chop my half-TB into a whole bunch of disks, which is a time consuming task. Alternately, I can pick up a 2TB external drive for ?50 and cycle multiple backups on it.

Plus, as I don't have a blu-ray writer, so I'd have to buy one.

[El Pibe]

Of course i have a couple of external harddrives, but for all my old photos and backups of music, some discs you can tuck quietly away is just easier.

The odd hour once every few months is really all it takes.

But i get the barrier to entry thing.

[PokerTime]

Yeah, 50gb disks don't do it for me either, but that may change in the future. DVDs and other optical discs eventually succumb to disk rot. That's why I never use them for back-ups or storage anymore. They just don't last forever.

So I use high quality drives and seek to transfer the data to a new drive every five years. And would consider using an online storage option as a backup to that.