Back up help

I know this could go in many forums but picked this one. My sister in law is the director of a child care center. She wants to back up and transfer between two places. Not really against hardware failure more against catastrophic problems (place burns down at night), so wants a medium she can transport between the two places. I have thought of mini HDD, USB stick, External HDD (standard). I think the amount of data would be 1 or 2GB's. What do you guys suggest? I would also take input on software also as right now it would be drag and drop entire file even things that have not changed. Is there also Internet storage options (cheap) for this kind of thing?

 

I haven't used this service, but I hear it advertized a lot.

http://carbonite.com/

Their website says it costs $50 per year and has no limit to the amount of files you can upload. It also claimes to encrypt the files before uploading, which is a cool extra.

Of course you could also set her up with some webspace and FTP data routinely. There are many decent web hosts around that are pretty cheap.

 

Web-based backup is an option if she has a fast internet connection. Encryption is a good idea whatever medium is used for back-up.

Is there a need to keep more than one backup so that it is possible to go back several versions? problems often don't get noticed until some time after they are made. Maybe the right internet storage software could handle incremental backups (ie once an original has been backed up, only storing the changes).

One possible software option is Acronis True Image. This is geared up for complete images of an HDD so it can be restored if there is a major OS or HDD failure. However, it is also possible to make an image of a partition or set of folders and it includes the option for encryption. It is also possible to restore selected files from an image (I've done it). I think it also can do incremental backups, which would save space. Backup media can be whatever the user wants.

John

 

www.box.net ?

 

Thanks Prasad, I looked but did not see the word "free" but will look again tomorrow when I can think more clearly, not signing up for anything now, but thanks.

John, my brother is asking me questions and as he asks them I don't have answers. He is in the tech field I work physical labor. I don't happen to know about this. Until he pointed out the fact that she would want to update the file, 1GB but only 50KB's are changed. I know this is a feature of Windows, I need basic help. I know hardware, and software I use but other than that I know nothing! So help needed. If that has an answer, then back to small HDD or a stick. I thought if you save data in say Word, why do you have to back up word as any computer with word can open all the files? Then again any input would be good.

 

@ powerpack, Box.net IS free! But they don't offer much storage (1GB I think is highest). They DO have paid plans for greater storage though.

 

Thanks kind of thought it might be but wanted time to evaluate. Do you have any opinions on a backup strategy on this, I don't have any. Thanks for the info.

 

I'll just tell you what I do. I have backups on my own server (had), on my iPod, on blank DVDs, and on a separate partition or drive.
Take your pick!

 

If only a small amount of data gets changed then something which offers incremental backup once the basic full backup has been done would be the best choice. The incremental backup only contains what has changed. However, restoration would involve a multi-stage process, so a full backup should be done once every week or two.

I suggest you look at the True Image trial version, if only to get an idea of what this type of software can, and cannot do. Another similar product is Casper, which has some advantages over True Image, but I don't think there is a trial version.

John

 

Thanks, to both of you.