Backup storage recommendations please

[Paul K]

I'm thinking of buying some kind of back-up storage, and I've been looking at Iomega drives in John Lewis. They have a number of models, 500 Gb and even one 1 Tb size, USB and Firewire compatible. I intend it purely for backup of important files, so reliability is the priority, with data transfer rate a secondary consideration.


These are the sort of things I've been looking at:

http://www.iomega-europe.com/section?SI ... ecid=40360

http://www.iomega-europe.com/section?SI ... ecid=39293


Anyone bought something like this recently, or got any opinions in general ?

[Chris Sykes]

best advise is to do a full back up onto DVD first thing, then keep them safe, then back up to any storage off the PC, whether that is USB HDD, or NAT Storage or Home Server. Me personally im looking at getting a home server which does it automatically but currently i have a NAT storage...

[TSR2]

Hi Chap,

I'm using a home server and I'm very happy with it... but it doesn't give you the hardware fault tollerance you might think. Great for streaming media to PC and xbox though. I now keep all my MP3's and pictures etc on the WHS and can play them from any of my devices or access them from anywhere on the net over SSL.

Sorry, back on track. Iomega don't make drives, they are a storage company without a product. Years ago they had the iomega zip and Jazz drives, which where excellent, but they are trying to jump on a train that is being driven by several other companies, and they are the ones who do it much better.

If its purely a backup device (and you won't be using it fpr streaming media) Something like the Netgear ready NAS duo. Cheap and cheerful and easy to use, with 2 drives you have the resiliency should one fail.

Western Digital also have a similar thing. And they make drives, so they should know a thing or two about storage.

Don't be impressed with firewire, its not impressive anymore. If your looking for performance eSATA is the way to go, but obviously you need an eSATA connector on your PC for that. USB2 will be fine for this sort of thing.

In short, don't bother with Iomega, they are dead. Get one from one of the big drive manufactures, or a Belkin / Netgear. And get one that has 2 drives which can be mirrored if you want that extra resiliency.

[SkippyBing]

SyncToy from MS is supposed to be quite handy for synchronising / backing up folders, I haven't tried it yet as I'm using a batch file but when I have a spare five minutes I plan to set it up. My backups are done across my home network between machines, I have a media centre I made from spare parts and then put as many spare drives in there as I could and use it for bulk storage / back up as well, I say network I just got a £5 fast Ethernet switch from dabs.co.uk which lets you connect up to five machines together, one connection I use for the broadband box so anything else plugged into it can reach the web.
SyncToy 2 is here:-
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

[speedbird591]

Being a simple sort of person, I use a fairly simple solution. I have a 250Gb USB external hard drive and have Vista backup do an auto backup to it once a week. It's not a full system back up but all my files and FS can be restored easily.

Limitation: cyberbrat has a similar (but 500Gb) USB HDD for his laptop. This conversation from last week. 'HDD don't work.' 'What's wrong with it?' 'Computer won't recognise it.' I spend some time trying it on my laptop ... 'Mine doesn't recognise it either ... and it's making a funny noise.' 'Oh yeah, it's been doing that since it accidentally fell on the floor.' 'Aaaaargh!'

Solution: Back up important stuff to DVD or a third drive as well. And if you spend all your spare time in bed, don't leave the backup drive on the edge of the duvet.

Ian ;-)

[Paul K]

Chris, Ben, Skip, Ian...thanks for all the info, gents; I can make a better choice now. Ben, I suppose I gravitate towards Iomega because I have one of their old Zip 100s, and I get their emailed news letter, so their name always catches my attention. Clearly its time to look at something new.

I'm looking at Netgears webpage, and thanks for the Synctoy link, Skip.

Cheers chaps ! CHEERS