ART1070 Fundamentals of Digital Media: Do you know where your backup is?

Do you have all your data backed up? Is it a current backup? Is it a complete backup? Haven't you lost dat at some point in your life? I know you have......

At minimum you should have all the data on your computer backed up. This is to say, you should have a complete copy of all the data on your computer that you care about. There are a variety of ways to do this. You can choose to use an external hard drive hooked up via USB, firewire, or eSATA. You can also back up your data over a network. This can be saved over your local network or remotely on a server. Ideally, you should have an offsite copy of your data. This is to say that it is not on premises. This way, if the worst should happen, a fire or a flood, then your data will still be safe. Online backup has a ton of advantages. It is offsite and if you are using a reputable service, then they are keeping multiple copies of the data at multiple locations. The major drawback of online backup services are that the initial backup of your system can take a very long time. A few of the services offer an initial backup via an external hard drive. Then all subsequent backups are performed online. Mozy.com and a number of other online backup services offer a free 2GB service so that you can back up some data and get a feel for how it works.

Local Backup

Simple device to turn any external hard drive into an automatic backup system

http://www.clickfree.com/

Article on backing up automatically using SyncBack on a PC

http://lifehacker.com/147855/geek-to-live--automatically-back-up-your-hard-drive

Apple Time Capsule

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC343/Time-Capsule-1TB?mco=MTMzNzQ4OTg

Drobo

http://www.drobo.com/

Internal Drives, Network Attached Storage, USB hard drives, firewire, eSata

Introduction to RAID for photographers

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/raid-for-photoshop.html