Hard Drive Back-Up

I was wondering what backup software people used and what the inpact on PC performance was?

Good backup software is key I think. I use and extranal Harddrive and double layer DVDs. I also partition my main drive to ensure that I can reformat the Cdrive if required without loosing other data.

Partitioning the drive is a really easy thing to do that I've seen almost no one I know do. PCWorld and Windows would happily have all of your personal data in My Documents :S I save everything personal to a seperate partition, and I might lose a few random files, but could reformat C: at any point in theory.

For backup I use Norton Safe and Restore, I've got a 500gig drive in one of the PCs, and all the others backup over the network to it every week. You can set it to compress the data if needed, but to keep it relatively quick I choose not to.

I use Acronis True Image. It's simple and reliable, in my experience so far. You have the choice of running it with high or low priority, and various compression options - to maximise speed or minimise affect on PC performance.

I also use a DOS batch program I wrote myself to simply copy changed and new files to my external drive very quickly.

Dual-layer DVDs may save space, but single-layer discs cost less than half as much.

I agree it's handy to have your system and data on different partitions.

Different partitions is good, different drives is better and faster, especially so if they are on different controllers. Even then, if the drive electronics fails on either one, you'll probably lose everything that's on that drive.
External drives are sooooo cheap, why not use one to keep a copy of your valuable data, then lock the drive away.

My son told me yesterday that he's got a Western Digital 1Tb (Tb = Terabyte = 1024Gb) external drive for about £120.00 (+ delivery + VAT).

The more drives the more heat generated so you need to ensure that there is more efficient cooling in your system. Most PCs come with reasonably basic cooling - servers on the other hand are designed for RAID5 and have fully steapable cooling. As we know, the more heat generated in a PC, the more likely it is to fail!

One rule of thumb I have is to replace my hard drive about every three years, even if I don't need the extra space. I will also employ the same rule with any external drive I have. I also scruibe tto the thought that only one external drive is needed, more USB/Firewire devices that are powered through USB etc put a greater strain on the PCs power unit (PSU) and raise the heat generated by the system.

I would also advise investing in a good surge protection power brick (set of sockets) and voltage spikes can cause disk failure and data loss.

Using external USB/Firewire drives increases heat by a negligable (if any) amount.
Use Seagate drives, they are guaranteed for 5 years.
Useless if the power fails. A good UPS is much preferred.

On a recent holiday to Brazil we met a proffesional photographer ( lecturer ) who always carried a portable storage device when on a shoot.

He said Vosonic, Jobi or Epson were good brands to look at.

Has anyone any experience of such a device ? :

I use a Jobo (not Jobi) Giga One 40Gb device. It can't be used for photo viewing, but it's handy to have a second copy of images until I can get back to my PC. I have enough memory cards for my purposes and I rarely use them all on any particular project or trip.

Battery drain might be an issue though, it'll copy about 10 Gb on one charge, more than enough for me in one day.

having recently suffered a hard disc drive death on my PC - with a fair few photos held on it (I used to produce a back up disc monthly - but this was part way through the month)

I bought a Maxtor 750g ext hard drive from PC World for £90

saves your sanity - honestly it does.

I now keep minimal info/pics/music etc on my PC - its all on the ext hard drive

But what happens if the external hard drive fails?

http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/

let's see...
one aperture library on your hd. one aperture vault on an external drive.
one copy of your complete system, (including your aperture library) in time capsule...
that's triple redundancy with no effort, set it and forget it.

And when (not if) that drive fails or is stolen, what then ?

Been waitin' for the keynote too eh...?!!

Hah, I simply don't back up.
Actually, thats a lie.
I copy my music and photos to dvds every once in a while.
My CDs would take too much time to copy again, and obviously photos are lost if the HD fails.
Everything else, I don't care about.

I still have my work backed up on disc - so why two systems? because I have instant access on the ex HD, either via my PC or laptop

but so far - the only problem I have had in 10 years of owning various PCs is with the PCs themselves

touch wood - my external drive - and those used by friends and family havent caused any problems so far