Seeking Backup Options

[Brian K]

I have a P-III 450, Windows 98 system. I used to backup using an IDE
Internal Tape Drive. I could run Full, Incremental and Focused backups
on removable media overnight or concurrently with computer use. The
drive has died and the mfr company has gone Ch 7 Bankrupt. With the
drive a pile and ADR cartridges un usable, I have come to accept that I
am screwed. So it's time to start over again.

I am an artist who does lots of digital photography. I am lucky that I
saved most of my best work to Photo Disks (CD). Mainly I'd be doing a
Full backup for disaster recovery, and then Incremental or backups of my
daily artwork.

I've been looking at Maxtor OneTouch 120 GB 7200 RPM USB 2.0. My old
tape drive's backup software is specifically designed for that tape
drive. So I'm looking at an external drive that comes with flexible
backup software or buying a drive without and then obtaining compatible
backup software.

I know I am somewhat limited by still using Windows 98 in a Pentium -
III based machine. But at this point I can't afford the time, funds and
learning curve to migrate to a P4 XP based platform.

I'd appreciate some feedback about backup options. Is the Maxtor
OneTouch 120 GB the way to go? Or are there other options to fit my
artist's budget?

--
________
To email me, Edit "xt" from my email address.
Brian M. Kochera
"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have a P-III 450, Windows 98 system. I used to backup using an IDE
Internal Tape Drive. I could run Full, Incremental and Focused backups
on removable media overnight or concurrently with computer use. The
drive has died and the mfr company has gone Ch 7 Bankrupt. With the
drive a pile and ADR cartridges un usable, I have come to accept that I
am screwed. So it's time to start over again.

I am an artist who does lots of digital photography. I am lucky that I
saved most of my best work to Photo Disks (CD). Mainly I'd be doing a
Full backup for disaster recovery, and then Incremental or backups of my
daily artwork.

I've been looking at Maxtor OneTouch 120 GB 7200 RPM USB 2.0. My old
tape drive's backup software is specifically designed for that tape
drive. So I'm looking at an external drive that comes with flexible
backup software or buying a drive without and then obtaining compatible
backup software.

I know I am somewhat limited by still using Windows 98 in a Pentium -
III based machine. But at this point I can't afford the time, funds and
learning curve to migrate to a P4 XP based platform.

I'd appreciate some feedback about backup options. Is the Maxtor
OneTouch 120 GB the way to go? Or are there other options to fit my
artist's budget?

I think external storage is a good idea. However Maxtor external
storage seems to have heat problems. Maybe better go for
Seagate. And maybe better have at least two independent external
backup drives to be used in rotation. That way you still have
one intact backup if something goes wrong during backup operation.

Also keep in mind that CD-R has a lifetime between minutes and
years, but usually not decades and that the media lifetime is
pretty unpredictable.

Arno

 

[Irwin]

I have one of those drives, and it seems fine. It does get hot, but
runs a little cooler when positioned upright. I don't like the software
it comes with, though it will probably work.

Why not upgrade? For $500, you can buy a machine that is 20 times
faster. Or $250 for a motherboard and processor. Or less. I got a
barebones case and motherboard from Tiger for peanuts, picked up a P4
2.66 on Ebay for 99 bucks, and voila, new machine and so much faster.
Don't you spend a lot of time just waiting for your apps to process
your images? Just think about how much more work you can get done and
all the money you would make.

Irwin

 

[J. Clarke]

I think external storage is a good idea. However Maxtor external
storage seems to have heat problems. Maybe better go for
Seagate. And maybe better have at least two independent external
backup drives to be used in rotation. That way you still have
one intact backup if something goes wrong during backup operation.

Also keep in mind that CD-R has a lifetime between minutes and
years, but usually not decades and that the media lifetime is
pretty unpredictable.

Personally rather than an external drive I'd put in an SATA host adapter
that supports hot-plug and an SATA drive cage--Kingwin has some nice ones
with fans and shock-mounting for the drives. Adding storage at that point
becomes a matter of the price of the drive plus 14 bucks for an additional
tray, and you're getting the full performance of the drive, not being
limited by the USB-to-ATA bridge, which is still a bottleneck (note to USB
advocates, I didn't say that USB was the bottleneck, I said that the bridge
chip was the bottleneck--I don't know why nobody has managed to come up
with a decent bridge chip but so far they haven't).

 

[Brian K]

I have one of those drives, and it seems fine. It does get hot, but
runs a little cooler when positioned upright. I don't like the software
it comes with, though it will probably work.

Why not upgrade? For $500, you can buy a machine that is 20 times
faster. Or $250 for a motherboard and processor. Or less. I got a
barebones case and motherboard from Tiger for peanuts, picked up a P4
2.66 on Ebay for 99 bucks, and voila, new machine and so much faster.
Don't you spend a lot of time just waiting for your apps to process
your images?

No. I do very little manipulation OOC (outside of camera).

Just think about how much more work you can get done and
all the money you would make.

The Productivity = Money equation doesn't always work with fine art.
Last year I sold a B&W Film Print I shot and printed 20 years ago.
Gallery sponsorship and the interests of the viewing public have more
impact.

Irwin

Thank you Irwin. Please try to remember that I am an Artist. Currently
I do not have the sponsorship of a major art gallery. Most of my extra
cash is already earmarked for bills. I nether have the time or the
inclination to do a bare bones machine. I have a BX P-III machine.
Just about everything I have, including memory would be incompatible.
I have to make do with the system I have until I sell a major work. My
budget is around $200.00 absolute max for now. SATA conversion and
drive is completely over budget, besides I don't have any free expansion
slots. I thank you again for your suggestions. If you have any more
backup suggestions that are a closer fit to my budget I'm all ears.

--
________
To email me, Edit "xt" from my email address.
Brian M. Kochera
"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951

 

[Neil Maxwell]

I'd appreciate some feedback about backup options. Is the Maxtor
OneTouch 120 GB the way to go? Or are there other options to fit my
artist's budget?

I never used the software that came with my Maxtor OneTouch. The
drive works fine, and I use it with Acronis True Image 8, which is
very user friendly, reliable (so far), and relatively robust. It's
saved my bacon a number of times now.

I do a full backup once a week and incrementals daily, and once a week
I also do an alternative version with no incrementals in case one
backup gets corrupted or damaged.

Every now and then (once a quarter, say) I write the alternative
backup to DVDRs and stick them away somewhere. Optical media lifetime
is pretty unpredictable, so this keeps a steady stream of updates, and
there are always older versions.

Ideally, I'd like another disk on my network that the backups would
also go to, which would give another level of protection in a
different location from the main PC.

Really, you have to ask how much you're willing to lose, how likely it
is, and how much you can spend. Daily backups to an external drive
means it takes loss of both drives to lose everything, but that can
happen from fire, burglary, power spike, or screwing up the backup
disk while trying to recover from a main drive failure.

Having the DVD backups means you've got a separate set that are prone
to entirely different failures, but they're not as up-to-date as the
HD based backups. Each layer you can add makes your data a good bit
safer.

I figure an external drive, TI8, and a DVD burner will set you back
$250; maybe an extra $20 for a USB2 card. It's a good bit if your
budget is tight, but would be worth it if you ever needed it. You
could always add a DVD burner later to help spread the cost.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Arno Wagner wrote:

Personally rather than an external drive I'd put in an SATA host adapter
that supports hot-plug and an SATA drive cage--Kingwin has some nice ones
with fans and shock-mounting for the drives. Adding storage at that point
becomes a matter of the price of the drive plus 14 bucks for an additional
tray, and you're getting the full performance of the drive, not being
limited by the USB-to-ATA bridge, which is still a bottleneck (note to USB
advocates, I didn't say that USB was the bottleneck, I said that the bridge
chip was the bottleneck--I don't know why nobody has managed to come up
with a decent bridge chip but so far they haven't).

I agree on the speed and bridge issues. One advantage is that with
USB hotplugging actually works. Does not in Linux for SATA. Does
it in Windows?

Arno

 

[J. Clarke]

I agree on the speed and bridge issues. One advantage is that with
USB hotplugging actually works. Does not in Linux for SATA. Does
it in Windows?

It works fine _if_ the SATA host adapter drivers support it. You have to be
careful about that and may have to get a RAID board to get the right
drivers. Some of the first-generation SATA chips did not support hot-swap
for some reason.

It's kind of annoying--I have a cheap Cardbus adapter in my laptop that
hot-plugs both the drives and the adapter, but the cheapest PCI board that
I can find that supports hot-swap costs about four times as much.

 

[Curious George]

My
budget is around $200.00 absolute max for now.

If you have any more
backup suggestions that are a closer fit to my budget I'm all ears.

In that budget you are looking at USB HDD, cd-r, or DVD-r.

A HDD is very convenient. Personally I'm a little gunshy with Maxtor
products so my bias is to lean towards a Seagate, Western Digital, or
perhaps Samsung disk in the best enclosure you can find (i.e. metal w'
a fan pref w' some rubber protection).

CD/DVDr would yield a more robust backup & archival solution (i.e.
easy & cheap to make copies of copies & offsite copies, etc.). There
are pitfalls with media and file systems you need to look into though.
If you have a lot to backup this just won't work well.

At this price don't even think about tape. Well OK, you might want to
look into a *used* DLT7000 and DLT IV tapes. If you have no scsi (a
$20 adapter) & no free slots you will have to scrap this idea though.
You may also have an aversion to used HW for backup or with a tight
budget when there are no guarantees or support.

Don't forget about backup software. alt.backup-software is a good
place to ask questions & read. There are quite a few free & cheap
programs that should do the job & are mentioned often.


Since this is your life/livelihood I would look closely at either at
least 2 HDDs or the removeable media mentioned. You need offsite
copies and a basic archival & media rotation system. Make sure you
encrypt the backups & properly destroy retired backup media to protect
your intellectual property. Just buying a single HDD & keeping it on
the same desk as your computer is a bad idea. What if someone breaks
in and steals all your computer equiptment. What about a fire?
Virus? Angry ex-lover? Crap happens & your art shouldn't be lost
forever because of 'proximity' or bad media.

 

[Matthew Martin]

Brian,

You may want to take a look at Argentum Backup 2.5:

http://www.argentuma.com/backup.html
http://www.argentuma.com/ab.exe (1 MB)

It's very cheap. Only $ 25 for a licensed copy. Free to try.
Works with my OneTouch drive just fine.

Best of luck.