# Computer Question - Back uo storage



## malexthekid (Jan 13, 2017)

Ok all you knife geeks that are also computer geeks...

So I have an impending littl'un coming in a few months and in condensing my wife and my stuff from a 3 bedrooms to 2 for our nursery its looking like I will need to condense my cd collection (at 400+ cds).

This doesn't bother me as I can't remember the last time i listened to one of my cds. I have them all ripped, however if I get rid of the hard copies I would like to make sure I have sufficient backups of them. 

So was just after some suggestions on reasonably priced external storage to keep a back up, or two, of my music.

Thanks in advance for any help.


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## Marek07 (Jan 13, 2017)

You could always store in the cloud. Portable 2Tb WD Elements HDD AUD$119?


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 13, 2017)

Condensing CDs? Unless you want to sell them, keep the inlays and actual CDs and throw out all the standard plastic boxes 

...


For making a backup of all the existing stuff, nothing is cheaper than an external HDD (or an internal one temporarily wired up to a USB-SATA adapter  ). If paranoid, make two copies on HDDs made by different brands, and store one of the out of the house (Friend? Bank safe? At work?).

...

To backup stuff that is added later ... even if ripped in lossless FLAC, a standard DVD-DL should easily store 20-30 CDs worth each


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## strumke (Jan 13, 2017)

The original CDs are the best form of storage, all digital media is at risk of crapping out at some point. The cloud is safer, but at a perpetual cost. Making more than one backup would be an option too (get 2 external HDs and make two copies, stored in different places in case of fire/theft).


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## TheCaptain (Jan 13, 2017)

We had a catastrophic failure of our external backup HD and I lost 6 months worth of data/updates. We now use Idrive to backup all home computers, cell phones, tablets etc. You can set the backups to run at a certain each done (yes it get's a little buggy sometimes but normally runs without a hitch) so no worries about missing anything.
 
I'm cheap as **** about most things (except knives, stones, and wine) and the cost doesn't even come to mind so it can't be that much.


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 13, 2017)

@strumke a CD is a digital medium, albeit one that doesn't fail quite as all-or-nothing (unless broken in pieces). And they do deteriorate too (google disc rot). 

My recommendation of "use two different harddrives made by two different brands - make sure that the harddrive INSIDE an external* one is of a different maker!" is there for a reason: Long-term failure modes with new hard drive models potentially are not even known when they haven't been on the market long enough  Eggs, basket etc...

*an external HDD is always made of an internal-type drive and a case and adapter kit. Sometimes used to market off-spec seconds of internal-type drives


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## strumke (Jan 13, 2017)

LifeByA1000Cuts said:


> @strumke a CD is a digital medium, albeit one that doesn't fail quite as all-or-nothing (unless broken in pieces). And they do deteriorate too (google disc rot).
> 
> My recommendation of "use two different harddrives made by two different brands - make sure that the harddrive INSIDE an external* one is of a different maker!" is there for a reason: Long-term failure modes with new hard drive models potentially are not even known when they haven't been on the market long enough  Eggs, basket etc...
> 
> *an external HDD is always made of an internal-type drive and a case and adapter kit. Sometimes used to market off-spec seconds of internal-type drives



Agreed on the digital piece, but I was more distinguishing between magnetic/flash media and the catastrophic failure perspective. As well as original pressed CDs being way more stable long term than any sort of the CD-R DVD-R, home burned copies. Everything dies in some way at some point, contingencies are your friend.


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## TurboScooter (Jan 17, 2017)

You should have, at minimum, 3 copies of the data - 2 local copies and 1 off site. Depending on the size of the data this is not super practical for some people, so it should be done at least for the irreplaceable/important stuff.

As mentioned earlier, if you just dump the jewel cases the collection takes up a lot less physical space. I had a box full of jewel cases - pulled all the liners out and tossed the cases and now they're all in a Ziploc bag taking up almost no space. The CDs are all in a wallet.



TheCaptain said:


> We had a catastrophic failure of our external backup HD and I lost 6 months worth of data/updates. We now use Idrive to backup all home computers, cell phones, tablets etc. You can set the backups to run at a certain each done (yes it get's a little buggy sometimes but normally runs without a hitch) so no worries about missing anything.
> 
> I'm cheap as **** about most things (except knives, stones, and wine) and the cost doesn't even come to mind so it can't be that much.



If your backup drive died, why can't you just make a new backup from your primary copy of the data?

If you've now started to put your only backup on the cloud... good luck with that.


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## Matus (Jan 17, 2017)

Some sort of RAID system would be a good start.


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## LifeByA1000Cuts (Jan 17, 2017)

Some say a RAID system replaces a backup. Some say a RAID system does not replace a backup.

The clueful say it insures against most but not all cases of data loss due to hardware failures (unprovoked head crash* - but not a power supply failing and burning everything out), it does not protect against most software failures (filesystem corruption or malware activity), does not protect against external disaster (fire, flood, vandalism or dropping the whole RAID on a cement floor), does not protect against user error ("reformatting the unit did not help fit it into that shelf, and where is the data anyway?").... so it does some but not all jobs of a backup solution.

*Knock ONE particle off a hard drive surface, and it will knock more particles loose... not unlike stone slurry  And you would have problems reading with your head abraded too.


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## Evilsports (Jan 17, 2017)

I've had a home server that I paid upwards of $800 for, but never actuall backed anything up to. It was too convoluted and slow.

In the end I went to Costco and bought a couple WD 1-2TB hard drives and used them. I backed up all of our devices to one hard drive, then I made a copy of that and put it on a second hard drive. 

We keep one copy in our safe and the other copy lives in my in-laws safe, just in case our house burns down or is robbed.


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## zetieum (Jan 17, 2017)

your options are:
-a could backup (of a company not likely to go bankroute)
- external hard drive (minimum two): one at home, on off-site (like at work).


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## spoiledbroth (Jan 17, 2017)

Get a two bay network attached storage drive, Synology or something cheap.

You can mirror the first drive if there is a hardware failure. Put it on a good quality warrantied surge protector. Prepay for Google storage equivalent to the size of your important stuff (music, photos, no personal data) and set the NAS to sync to google. 

Quite inexpensive, requires only the NAS vendor's software. Can be used for "home media" purposes as well.


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## Evilsports (Jan 17, 2017)

Even if you ripped the disks in lossless format, you don't even have 500 GB of data to store. I say spend $60 on Amazon and pick up a couple 500 GB external drives, copy everything to them redundantly and call it a day.


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## krx927 (Jan 18, 2017)

Matus said:


> Some sort of RAID system would be a good start.





spoiledbroth said:


> Get a two bay network attached storage drive, Synology or something cheap.
> 
> You can mirror the first drive if there is a hardware failure. Put it on a good quality warrantied surge protector. Prepay for Google storage equivalent to the size of your important stuff (music, photos, no personal data) and set the NAS to sync to google.
> 
> Quite inexpensive, requires only the NAS vendor's software. Can be used for "home media" purposes as well.





zetieum said:


> your options are:
> -a could backup (of a company not likely to go bankroute)
> - external hard drive (minimum two): one at home, on off-site (like at work).



That is definitely the best option (at least for me). I have everything stored on my PC that is backed up to Synology that has RAID for 2 discs -> everything I put on this external HD get copied to the second one automatically.
The final piece of security is the third HD that is stored 1200km away to prevent disastrous situations. Unfortunately this one receives backup only 3 times a year but is still nice safe guard.

I think this is the way to go as cloud solutions are way to expensive! I only use cloud (Google drive) for the back up of relatively small amount of data with which I work daily. This is well below 10gb so it's for free.


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## evilgawd (Feb 7, 2017)

Just want to a add a few bits here since this is my area of expertise 

Raid
*Raid ISNT a backup* , I always loved that simple picture of the different types of RAID available . 








Since this is a complex topic I wont go too deep but most popular RAID types are Raid 5 ( cheap man raid , not reliable and slow) and RAID 1 ( basically it replicate whatever is on the first disk unto the second one) 

In either case, if you modify/delete data from the raid, its automagically replicated and data is gone 

Cloud 
-Recurrent cost as someone mentioned 
-Data is spread across the world ( could raise a security concern to some ) 
-Can be encrypted 
-Most vendors support versioning ( lets say you have a text document and edit it over time, you could restore the version from X days ago) 

What I use : 

My computer got 0 data on it , its connected to a RAID 10 device ( you could go for raid 1 or 5 or even one cheap huge costco/amazon portable drive) . My computer run crashplan . For 60$ / year I can backup unlimited amount of data .

So in the event that : 

My computer dies ---> I buy a new one , reconnect portable drive/raid , DONE
My portable drive/raid dies --> I buy a new one , resync from cloud , DONE 
My computer and/or harddrive get stolen or my house is burned down ---> buy new computer + raid device/portable hard drive , sync from cloud , DONE 

If you care about your data , always have it at 2 distinct places ( home, work, family or cloud) 
If you store sensitive info , encrypt your data 


There are 2 type of persons , those who have lost data and those who will


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## Jovidah (Feb 7, 2017)

Just my two cents.... knowing a bit about it as well:

If you didn't already know what RAID is before asking this... don't bother. RAID stands for Redundancy Array of Inexpensive Drives and is just what it says; a way to create some redundancy in a system so you can turn multiple crappy drives into a somewhat less unreliable storage solution. There's a lot you can do wrong and it's far from fool proof - especially when you don't know what you're doing. Some modes like RAID 5 only offer a false sense of security (in fact there's a very high likelihood you will lose data when using RAID 5).

Second, as mentioned before, it's not a backup. If something happens in / to your house, you're still screwed. Putting a backup next to your PC saves you from data loss due to hardware failure, but it doesn't save you from a myriad of other potential problems (user error, fires, floods, electrical issues, viruses, etc).

Probably one of the easiest options is to go with a cloud provider. Give them some money every year and let them worry about the details and the redundancy setups. There are loads so you might want to google that....but it doesn't have to be expensive. A place like backblaze offers unlimited storage for just 5 bucks a month. 
I get away with just using a free 10 GB dropbox but that's because I only put the most critical stuff in there and 'sacrifice' the rest (movies and games can be downloaded again....your music collection probably cannot be).

Sure you can do all this stuff yourself and make it foolproof... but if you have to ask here on a forum what to do, chances are this isn't your best option.

And once again: any storage solutions that are in the same place as the original data _are not a backup_.


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## DaveInMesa (Feb 7, 2017)

Here's the problem with all the usual backup options; hard drives are magnetic media. Magnetic media fades over time until the signal is too weak to read reliably. The solution is to periodically overwrite the media with new copies of the same data, thus renewing the magnetic charge. The problem is, no one wants, or remembers, to do that. 

The cloud theoretically eliminates that problem, but at a significant cost over time. Any home system also incurs significant cost, mostly up front, but also ongoing.

Keep the CDs, recycle the jewel boxes and inserts, and worry about disc rot if and when it happens. Odds are, it won't happen to anything you care about while you still care about it (tastes change over time). 400 CDs without cases take up roughly two shoe boxes of storage space. I'm sure you can handle that, and there is no cost associated with this option. Unless you need to buy shoe boxes for storage.


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## malexthekid (Feb 7, 2017)

Thanks for the advice guys. 

I went with the toss the cases, keep the cd option. I'm still doing some reading on cloud stuff for photos but I'm not that concerned on that front, and apart from that i don't really store any critical data on pc.

I'm not a technophobe but this ain't my strong point so I really appreciate the advice.


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