Choosing External Hard Drive !!

[CornishConnectPhotography]

Hi everyone, Im doing a lot more work now, I am on the hunt for a half decent back up solution, my network is not good enough for a NAS system, so what shall I go for ? Im a Mac user and ideally something that has at least one back-up, yet can be wired to the iMac! oitherwise another option would be two external drives! also can anyone recommend a good cloud system too, again everything in one unit would be good, seeing the lat time I bought an external drive the options were to buy one or not! haha.

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[rob-nikon]

For backing up have a look at Carbon Copy Cloner, it's excellent Mac software for setting up your own back up configuration. It can start up and then switch off the Mac to complete a scheduled backup. It can even send you an email to say if it was successful or not. It's nice to wake up to an email saying the backup was successful. Automating it makes sure it's done too. I keep things simple using WD portable hard drives. I have one for time machine, one for CCC backup of hard drive and currently one that I use as an off site backup. I keep meaning to replace the off site backup with two larger drives so I can always have one off site. My 'cloud' backup is storage off all hi-res jpegs on my website. They are downloadable but so it would be a pain to download them all individually. I don't want to pay out again for cloud storage and my internet would take ages to download TB's of data.

 

[Major Eazy]

NAS system is really for two things:

1. For everyone in your house who wants to access the same files on a NAS hard drive, which is always on, rather than transferring the same file around via USB or the main computer have to be turned on for them to access the file via home network.
2. For you to go out, and use the Internet to access your own NAS which is left at home. Think of those NAS as kind of your own personal cloud storage, that only you can access when you are away from home.

Unless either or both of those points is something you want, then there's no point in using a NAS.

I would recommend that you do buy two external drives.

One should be left attached to your computer, but if possible one of those kind of external drives that comes with its own power supply, something like the MyBook series. Make this your main back up, where you always back up to regularly.

The second should be very more portable, and powered via the USB, something like the My Passport series, which you could then plug into the computer, and make a weekly or monthly (depends on how much changes you made to your data) backup. You just remove that external drive and leave it somewhere else far away from your home. (ie: with other family members, in your office,) For the purpose of a second back up in case your main back up fails or the house gets burned down.

By the way, it do not have to be USB, it is up to you which system you like, ie: Firewire or whatever. And it do not have to be the actual series, just whatever is similar to the series. ie: When I said MyBook, it do not have to be MyBook, just whatever other manufacturers got that is similar to the MyBook.

 

[dejongj]

A NAS can also be very useful if you don't fancy connecting and disconnecting cables all the time and want a nice and neat solution. Mines connected to my network and I can access it from anywhere in my house and my backups happen fully automatic.

I only use local hard drives for cloning and to circulate offsite backups from my NAS.

 

[terrific]

Agree my NAS is great, just a cheap(ish) synology, but it's always available and i've automated backups for a few local machines to ensure they get done! I stream music, films etc and much more power efficient that leaving a PC or server on. The Synology interface is great and very easy to use.