Sign In
Register
Help
I have a retail business and currently back up all my files to an external 1 Trig Hard Drive that is set up as raid 1. I am looking for my best option to synchronize this hard drive over the internet with a second location. I am also open to an internet backup service, but am concened about the cost as I am scanning all of my documents to this hard drive which results in a lot of data and is getting larger all the time. What recomendation would anyone suggest?
Page 1 of 1
Sync Program
MultiQuote
#2
smax013 
- Moderator
-
- Group: Moderators
- Posts: 9,072
- Joined: 28-January 07
- Location:Southeast Michigan
Posted 15 June 2009 - 06:47 PM
Littlec2 said:
I have a retail business and currently back up all my files to an external 1 Trig Hard Drive that is set up as raid 1. I am looking for my best option to synchronize this hard drive over the internet with a second location. I am also open to an internet backup service, but am concened about the cost as I am scanning all of my documents to this hard drive which results in a lot of data and is getting larger all the time. What recomendation would anyone suggest?
I assume when you say "1 Trig", you mean a 1 TB (as in terabyte) drive. If so, then you should realize that copying that amount of data over the Internet will be extremely slow and will take a LONG, LONG time. Generally, speaking a 1 GB (roughly 1/1000th the size of your drive) TV show file take me about an half hour to an hour to download on my connection...and I consistantly get at least 6 Mbps if not 10+ Mbps. In your case, you will be relying on your upload speed, which is usually WAY less than your down load speed (I am lucky if I get 3 Mbps).
Are you really sure you want to go this route?
#3
Littlec2
- Newbie
-
- Group: Members
- Posts: 3
- Joined: 24-September 07
Posted 16 June 2009 - 06:08 AM
Thanks, That is the reason I posted this question. I am trying to figure out what would make the best sense. I realize Raid 1 is a good step in the right direction, but would like to add an additional layer of security. Do you have a suggestion?
#4
smax013
- Moderator
-
- Group: Moderators
- Posts: 9,072
- Joined: 28-January 07
- Location:Southeast Michigan
Posted 16 June 2009 - 07:12 AM
Online backup is a good option in general...but one of its disadvantages is speed. If you have LOT of data to backup, then online backup/storage becomes less desirable.
If you are using RAID 1, then that is your first line of defense. In general, it will handle "drive failure" type things (unless the drive enclosure fails...but that likely will not "kill" your data...just make it inaccessable for a short period of time until you get a new enclosure). But, it may not completely handle all things. To some degree, ideally a RAID 1 solution would potentially be better as your primary data storage with just a normal external drive as your backup drive...having the RAID 1 drive as the backup drive is kind a little "backwards", but it works too.
As a result, it is a good idea to have a second line of defense, which would basically be seperate backup to another media of some sort. The easiest thing for large amounts of data would be just copying/backing up to another "regular" external drive. You could do this less frequently than the primary backup. For example, assuming you do your primary backup once a day, you could do a secondary backup once a week or two weeks. And it would likely be a good idea to keep this drive stored at another location (i.e. home rather than at the business).
And if you are REALLY paranoid about your data, then you could backup to optical media once every couple of months or so (since it is a kind of pain in the rear)...and then store the optical media in your safe deposit box or something like that.
And if the computer is a mission critical computer you might consider creating clones of the boot drive. This would allow you to be backup and running on your computer in a matter of minutes (basically the amount of time it takes to swap out the bad drive for the clone drive).
To help, I can note what I do. First, I do not put ANY data on my boot drives. I have a separate drive just for the OS and programs. On my current computer, these are typically 160 GB drives. I clone these boot drives so that if I have a drive failure or something really screws up my installation, then I can dig out the clone drive and either install it and use it or clone it back to a new drive. For my data, I keep that stored on a NAS (network attached storage) drive that has RAID 1. Thus, my main data storage has kind of the first level of backup/redundancy built right into it with the RAID 1 array. I then backup that data to a regular external drive. I will also be backing it up to another NAS drive (no RAID 1 on this one) just because I am a bit paranoid. I will likely add in a second regular external backup drive...and alternate between the two. And I plan on doing occasional "catastrophic" backups to optical media.
If you are using RAID 1, then that is your first line of defense. In general, it will handle "drive failure" type things (unless the drive enclosure fails...but that likely will not "kill" your data...just make it inaccessable for a short period of time until you get a new enclosure). But, it may not completely handle all things. To some degree, ideally a RAID 1 solution would potentially be better as your primary data storage with just a normal external drive as your backup drive...having the RAID 1 drive as the backup drive is kind a little "backwards", but it works too.
As a result, it is a good idea to have a second line of defense, which would basically be seperate backup to another media of some sort. The easiest thing for large amounts of data would be just copying/backing up to another "regular" external drive. You could do this less frequently than the primary backup. For example, assuming you do your primary backup once a day, you could do a secondary backup once a week or two weeks. And it would likely be a good idea to keep this drive stored at another location (i.e. home rather than at the business).
And if you are REALLY paranoid about your data, then you could backup to optical media once every couple of months or so (since it is a kind of pain in the rear)...and then store the optical media in your safe deposit box or something like that.
And if the computer is a mission critical computer you might consider creating clones of the boot drive. This would allow you to be backup and running on your computer in a matter of minutes (basically the amount of time it takes to swap out the bad drive for the clone drive).
To help, I can note what I do. First, I do not put ANY data on my boot drives. I have a separate drive just for the OS and programs. On my current computer, these are typically 160 GB drives. I clone these boot drives so that if I have a drive failure or something really screws up my installation, then I can dig out the clone drive and either install it and use it or clone it back to a new drive. For my data, I keep that stored on a NAS (network attached storage) drive that has RAID 1. Thus, my main data storage has kind of the first level of backup/redundancy built right into it with the RAID 1 array. I then backup that data to a regular external drive. I will also be backing it up to another NAS drive (no RAID 1 on this one) just because I am a bit paranoid. I will likely add in a second regular external backup drive...and alternate between the two. And I plan on doing occasional "catastrophic" backups to optical media.
Page 1 of 1
