How Do You Back Up Your Files

[Nikolai]

I use a NAS disc.

[Krill]

University Server, Gmail, External HD, Internal HD, and for the real important stuff, Hard copy.

[Cort Haus]

I back up my flies by carefully removing their wings and sewing them on backwards.

This makes them fly in reverse.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Asher

It's trivial to transfer and expand/upgrade external HDDs every ~5 years.

5 years is more than the safe lifetime of a HDD, unfortunately... a CD is still by far the safest, because once verified as properly written (which is the largest failure point), a CD will be very secure in its functionality for 8 to 10 years; probably less than 1% failure rate over that period of time. There were some interesting articles about that I read a while back, probably on the fora somewhere (about the 50 year lifetime and how it was being tested now by the LoC and others). Can't recall where, though.

HDDs have a (relatively) high short-term failure rate - I'd estimate 10% within 2 years, if I had to guess (sure there are stats out there somewhere). Obviously a RAID array is (much) safer, though i'm not sure if it becomes as safe as a CD; but it is twice as expensive.

I'd still recommend a HDD for any non-critical backup, don't get me wrong, but for critical backups HDD is not good enough.

[Asher]

I've never in my life had a HDD die. My "new" PC still has a 40GB drive from my 1998 PC...

Add in the fact that external backup HDDs are rarely used and I'd say you are fearmongering...

On the contrary I've lost files I'd backed up less than 5 years ago on CD. Quite a few CDs, actually. Some just rotted, some got scratched, etc. CD-Rs are probably the worst way to store data.

Pressed CDs are a different beast...

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I use a NAS w/ RAID 1 for local storage and mozy for remote.