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Poll: What’s your local back-up solution like?

Abe Olandres Editor-in-chief February 2, 2012 · 1 min read

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A reader asked me what my preferred storage medium for local backups. I would have said I always do HDD but the options only mentioned optical disk drives (DVD, CD-R and CD+RW). My choice would be DVD but I really don’t like to use optical disks as back-up.

In any case, I wanted to throw the same question to my readers and do it via a poll.

What’s your preferred back-up solution at home. I know there are a lot of cloud storage options but let’s limit this one to local solutions.

Optical Disk Drives
External HDD
NAS
Others
I don’t do backups

Go hit the comments and share your choices and let me know why.

React to this article:

local backup

Abe Olandres

Editor-in-chief

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and is considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines.

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92 Comments

anonymous · 14 years ago

2 disk synology for quick backup. For archive, i have a separate server running solaris 11 with 4x2TB disks being used by ZFS.

Deer Shisus · 14 years ago

External HDDs ^^

I got this 160gb for around 5 years as of now. Then there’s a bunch of 1TB, 1.5TB for my movies, videos, pictures, documents, and other personal stuff.

I’m planning to get a NAS or a 3TB HDD once I have a budget for it.

duane dizon · 14 years ago

for backup, i use:
1. 1TB seagate for all files
2. windows skydrive for photos and scanned government documents (birth cert,etc.)
3. mediafire.com for the same as #2, so that if one cloud service fails/goes out of business, iv another cloud storage to access my files

psionicd · 14 years ago

I keep a backup of my personal photos, videos and documents on a 16Gb SD card. I use an SD card because it is portable and it has that lock slider on the side. Back then I used to just keep them on the hard drive of my computer, but then, if somehow the computer hdd failed (due to viruses or extreme weather) my files would be lost. I have photos dating back to when I was in second year college.

James H. Tadle · 14 years ago

i usually back-up FLASH drives and DRAFTS on my email, mostly of my files are docs and pics :D

Andre · 14 years ago

had 1 laptop failure recently and 1 hard drive crash, good thing everything is backed up either on Time Machine on another HD and important files in Jungle Disk (Cloud)

Tried backing up all the pictures/movies in the Cloud but it became too expensive.

jgradoc · 14 years ago

1TB HDD for backup
1TB HDD for daily use
and a software for data recovery like Stellar Phoenix

roiji · 14 years ago

optical disks… i don’t trust hdds since they MIGHT get rusted and not run after 30 or so years :D

Rex · 14 years ago

I use the following backup strategies:

1. Cloud for documents (small file size)
2. SDHC for pictures.
3. USB Hard disk drive for everything including #1 and #2 above, personal videos, and binaries like software.

Jeffrey John Imutan · 14 years ago

DVD
External Drives
and
ADrive.com for my work backup

Wui Wui · 14 years ago

I use:
Optical Disk Drives
External HDD

Vekou X Aitenshi · 14 years ago

Floppy disks! Coz I’m so 90’s!!

Personally I use External HDDs, though as an enterprise solution, I prefer NAS. Moving files to the cloud is also a solution though I believe it’s not yet that practical.

LunaTech · 14 years ago

hdd, wala pa po kasing pera for NAS hehehehe

jhiane07 · 14 years ago

DVDs and online through live sync

Ligrev · 14 years ago

I burn my files on DVD-R’s.

The evolution of optical drives has always been backwards-compatible. I don’t see it phasing-out in my lifetime.

Contents burned: my personal folders–monthly (i.e. desktop files, music, pictures, videos, downloads); and downloaded movies/series/albums.

Jerome · 14 years ago

We do use

Optical Disk Drives
External HDD
NAS

Mummy Ninja · 14 years ago

I have 2 3TBs at home for my movies. I only use 1 3TB for my monthly backup of my laptop files and desktop. I can only consume around 100GB or less for backups

jericho · 14 years ago

For work:
Terabyte drives one each for daily, weekly and full monty err.. monthly!

For personal:
USB flash drive, dropbox, home server, I also save some of my files on our corporate linux fileserver just in case.

For offsite backup, burn pictures of your family vacations and other important events on a CD/DVD and send it to your parents or grandparents! That’s simple offsite backup in the cheap!

Gomi · 14 years ago

Multiple Portable HDD + Cloud Storage + USB Flash Drives. I use these three. I still use dvdrw for my older files but they consumed too much space (I already have 8 dvd jackets holding 80discs each with 5 of them already full). Considering the current prices of portable hdds, I now put my investments on them.

romspl · 14 years ago

On a buffalo nas then weekly copied to a bitlocked external drive going to another location…

-Sent via YugaTech Mobile App

Sam · 14 years ago

Before, I backup all my Korean Dramas and movies on DVDs. After purchasing my media player, I switched to external HDD and burn only those good dramas and movies.

Iyan Sommerset · 14 years ago

For downloaded stuff, straight to an external HDD until they get burned onto DVDs. They’re grouped according to category, so movies in a single binder, TV series in another, music, audiobooks, etc.

For personal data, external HDD whenever I feel like it, but with twice-yearly snapshots onto optical media (DVDs these days).

Some important stuff (super-personal stuff) on loose flash media I have stashed all-over my room. (i.e. great way to use old SD/CF cards, etc.)

albert · 14 years ago

I don’t do backups because I can still count on my HDD not failing or think that, if I see signs of failure, I still have time to backup everything I need.

Recently, though, I’ve been contemplating on getting at least a 2-bay NAS with RAID1 so files stay on one location and accessible from my home network.

PS: Can you do a review of affordable NAS solutions for home use? Features that I’m considering: RAID1, fast WiFi speed, customizable folder/file permissions, (optional) cloud sync.

I saw the Buffalo Pro Duo, but think that 19k is too steep for my budget.

Iyan Sommerset · 14 years ago

Dude, you’ve *got* to have at least one backup for just-in-case moments. Like that one time I dropped a book on my laptop, right where the HDD is. That was an almost-disaster if I hadn’t had my files burned to CDRs months back. And even then, I think I lost some stuff I don’t even know about now. Way back in 2004 too so data-recovery wasn’t as ubiquitous as it is now.

web hosting · 14 years ago

I only use USB. DVD is already obsolete.

Roegan · 14 years ago

I used to back up all my school files in my email. :D

Lhan · 14 years ago

HDD

deuts · 14 years ago

My laptop is backed up to an external hard disk. Nothing more. No grandfather-father-son setup, nor offsite backup. For really important files but small-sized, I keep them at my dropbox folder.

I tend to shy away nowadays from keeping an emotional attachment with my digital files, esp. music and pictures. Because if I lose them, that’s emotional disaster. It’s better to accept that they are but just temporary. hehe

neeks · 14 years ago

If you can, follow the Library of Congress’s 3-2-1 Rule:

Keep THREE Copies
Keep in TWO Storage Formats
Never Keep in ONE Location

Also take note of files that need proprietary software/decoders. For instance, make a lossless copy of your camera’s RAW files in a more “open” format like TIFF or DNG. For local back-ups, I personally store my back-ups on HDD and DVDs, and in the near future, NAS.

exe · 14 years ago

a windows server with 10 tb of space…………..

would be nice…..hahahahahah

Ajcalderonmd · 14 years ago

All files are backed up on my external hdd and backed up again on my nasdrive, pero mga important na work related files are on commercial cloud storage like dropbox para anytime e accessible

sylv3rblade · 14 years ago

NAS. It’s an investment but it’s less of a headache to work with.

rotero · 14 years ago

before i use DVD now im using External HDD’s

ace avellana · 14 years ago

i prefer external hard drives for my photo collection. although lately im considering on getting a NAS. that way i all my files are readily accessible without attaching wire clutter!

reader · 14 years ago

DVD
Windows Live
External HDD

bern · 14 years ago

I backup in external HDD and USB flash drive but thinking now to try NAS, if you are familiar with Free NAS ( http://www.freenas.org/) you can build your own NAS server.

Name: IC DeaDPiPoL · 14 years ago

external hdd for tv-ripps, dvd when the bd ripps arrive

for personal files = ext hdd then after 1 year I back it up into dvds

Silverlokk · 14 years ago

For the really important files, i.e., documents that I create myself, multiple backups. USB flash drive, external HDD, Box.net, Google Docs.

JackOfAllTrades · 14 years ago

Personal Files:
DVDs / External HDDs stored in Home Fire Proof Vault.

Business Related Files:
Redundant NAS with HAST and CARP + Automated weekly backups on multiple encrypted External HDDs for critical files and stored offsite.

(Bank’s safety deposit box and 2 other secure locations.)

verns · 14 years ago

External HDDs but I prefer cloud storage for ease of use and security. There are a lot of free cloud storage that offers 2gb or more for free. Spideroak and dropbox are some of them and you can have additional space if you refer them to your friends.

reader · 14 years ago

You can try windows live for 25Gb of free online storage.

verns · 14 years ago

Skydrive is nice too but it didn’t fit my needs of being able to upload a file with a size of more than 100MB. With Spideroak you can upload any file size and also have up to 50GB of free cloud storage just by referrals.

charli3 · 14 years ago

External HDD for all my files and movies.
DVD’s for my TV series. :)

Aries · 14 years ago

I still use DVD to back-up my files… eventhough it consumes more time to burn to a DVD compare to transferring or saving files to a hard disk, kampante ako na meron akong back-up. I still have my photos saved on DVD since 2005.

Lei · 14 years ago

Before I used to backup everything and anything (kahit hindi naman important) using DVDs. But now I use my external HD/USB sticks for backups. For me its more convenient especially now since marami na netbooks & they only have USB ports available. And pinipili ko na lang din ngayon ang kelangan ibackup :)