Back up Hard drive

[cargo]

Hi just bought a Toshiba back up hard drive.A plug in powered one.
I plugged it in earlier and installed the back up software that came with it.
The drive then backed up all my files folders pictures. It also had the option to do a complete system back up /restore, which it as done.
By default the software is set to back up my files and folders hourly and the system back up weekly. Hourly is way over kill as I am only hobby photographer so no need to back anything up really. So will change that to weekly.
This may be a simple question but here goes.Can I unplug the drive and use it as and when I need to back up. Seems daft to have it switched on when i'm out at work all day and most the time just surfing the net when in.
What do you lot do ?

Gaz

 

[Rapidrat]

Heya! I have 3 harddrives currently buzzing away. One is a time capsule dedicated HDD which is solely used to backup, another is a manual HDD that I used to move stuff onto as and when I want control, and the third is a shared NAS drive which me and my partner use. Now other than the NAS drive which is totally different to a normal harddrive the other two turn-off automatically (some weird sensor thing that they have) to save energy, so on that note I guess there's no point having your drives manually turned on if you're not using them or not home because as you say, it is daft and there's no point to it

 

[Jan K.]

Yes, you can unplug, as you desire.

I use one of these docking stations...

Mine is an USB3, very fast and a great way to get new use of the "old" HDDs.

For backup program, I use Acronis. Nothing on automatic, I only start it, when I want it to.

 

[valb]

Yes you can unplug but DO NOT unplug whilst the drive is reading or writing. This is a sure way to get corrupt files. There is an option in Windows to safely unplug external devices - well worth using.

 

[cargo]

Cheers everyone. Unplugged it is. I will just use it as and when.

Gaz

 

[hollis_f]

Yes, you can unplug, as you desire.

I use one of these docking stations...

I have one of these (except that it's eSATA). Every few weeks I plug it in, stick a 1TB drive and back up both internal drives. Very fast and it means I don't rely on the NAS. I keep two such drives in a separate building at home and a third, which get rotated every few months, in a friend's friresafe in her office.

 

[Trev4]

I find it odd to only back up once a week, I would have thought at least daily. Depending on when you download files/pictures to your computer it could be up to 6 days before you do a backup which puts the new files at risk.
I have always run a backup but with the attitude that 'it wont happen to me'. However, I had an external hard drive fail, and 2 days later my internal one followed suit. Its got to be rare for something like that to happen, but happen it did. Luckily the engineers were able to recover by data from the internal HDD.
So far I have had a total of 2 out of 3 external drives fail, and they were all Toshiba. I have replaced the last Toshiba to fail with a WD one, and as I now run 2 external drives, I am going to buy another WD to replace the Toshiba that's still working but that I have lost all faith in as a brand, the 2 that failed were 15 and 18 months old respectively. The third one is 18 months old now so I am not taking any risks.
I'm saying all this to stress the importance of a regular backup routine no matter how little you use your computer.

 

[Jan K.]

I find it odd to only back up once a week, I would have thought at least daily...

One's backup strategi should clearly reflect the workload and importance/value of files.

I have three internal hard drives, one Samsung 120GB SSD for system and programs, one 1TB WD Black Caviar

for documents and data and a 2 TB WD Black Caviar backup disc.

Once home from a shoot, the card will be uploaded to a RAW folder on datadrive as well as to a similar RAW folder on the internal backup disc.
This way the shots will be on two seperate drives already.
Depending on what other stuff I've "created"/downloaded, I make a backup to one or two external drives, as I feel for it... probably once or twice a month.

Back in my drawing office days, I created multiple, daily backups of course.


Btw. it's a great idea to make a system drive backup, once it's been installed with OS, updates, tweaks, programs and what not.

Also a big help is to separate datadrive from systemdrive.

We all know, how long and tedious task this system install is!

One or two evenings quickly wasted...
But with a system backup, should anything happen, a system restore can be made in less than 10 minutes...
And with a separate datadrive, there's no need for any special attention to this. Just wipe the sys-drive and re-install backup.


Never lost any data since that day in 1994...

 

[cargo]

Thanks all to whom have posted. To me only backing up as and when needed seems right. Considering I have had a pc for 10 years and never backed up anything apart from files when we bought a new pc. ( lucky I guess)
Like I say I am very interested in photography but it is just for my pleasure taking photos of this and that (typical Flickr user see in sig or images posted on here). So I don't shoot everyday it would be silly to back up every day there would seldom be any change.
I totally get where you people are coming from whom make a living from this and use your PC's for your businesses.


Gaz

 

[Goody13]

As a leisure shooter like yourself, I shoot RAW, upload to computer and then sort out which ones I intend to keep etc. I then process them all and, to avoid having to back up my whole collection every time, I keep them in a folder labelled as photos not yet backed up.

Once processed and converted to JPEG, I will then back up those photos. That could take several weeks to do but as a safeguard, until I have backed up the photos to my external drives (I have two), I do not delete them from the memory card. That is only done once I have at least one back-up, in addition to the files on my computer.

Hope this idea helps.