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General discussion

Are memory cards a good media to back up your data on?

Jun 15, 2012 8:32AM PDT
Question:
Are memory cards a good media to back up your data on?

A question about "backup media"...I've been pretty diligent about
making regular backups of all data files on my computers for
years. Years ago, I used tape, then zip drives, and for quite
awhile now I've been backing up onto DVDs. Lately I've begun a new
trend (at least new for me). Since the price of SDHC memory cards
seems to be reasonable and both my computers have slots for these
cards, I've been backing up onto them for a while now. A 16G card
can hold a lot more data than the DVDs.

My question is this: are these memory cards more vulnerable to
damage or data loss than DVDs? Is there anything I've missed, or
is this an OK process? Also are there any pros and cons to using
memory cards as backup media? Your advice will be greatly
appreciated. Thanks.

--Submitted by: Cecil B.

Discussion is locked

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MTBF?
Jun 22, 2012 2:19PM PDT

My first choice to back up a whole hard drive is another one just like it. For backing up user created files, if it fits in your pocket, it's good. If two fit it's better. Yes, those with purses, briefcases and backpacks have more options. But, I've never left my pocket in a taxi. Ordinarily, my life is pretty ordinary.
I've found CDR's are good for great for backing up CDR's, punch cards are good back-ups for punch cards, etc. If I could get my hands on it, I tired it. Full disclosure here, I haven't used blue-ray or multi layer anything. My biggest disappointment was a set of system restore DVD's that could not be read on the same laptop that made them.
But dear, oh dear. How can a hard drive have a MTBF of a million hours, which is 114 years and 56 days plus almost 16 hours? Could it be in the marketing department's virtual reality, maybe? In your world or mine, no I don't thnk so. Since the time between failures implies more than one failure, I have to ask if anyone has ever had their dead HD heal itself or gone out and had it fixed? Now maybe that explains why MTBF is soooo long. I don't understand why anyone cares if MTBF is 14 or 114 years. For me, it's mean time to first failure that counts. I think that's more like 3-4 years and that's why you better be backing up often unless you can afford to loose it all every 3-4 years, on average.
Does anybody out there have a drive that's lasted 14 years? Have you upgraded it to Windows 98 yet or is it still running DOS 6.22? The former question could be a Topic of the Week for future newsletters. The latter could be an appropriate topic around the first of April.
As some of you have already guessed, I've been retired for a few years. But I'm still curious, and I'm seriously curious about what type of data is out there, data that could be restored to a hard drive, data that might become invalid if part of it is transferred from the source at one speed and part of it at another? Please post a response here. I'll check back after the weather.

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MTBF and long term storage
Jun 22, 2012 11:10PM PDT

MBTF numbers are arrived at by a complex series of calculations that quantify the reliability of each part in a system. Anything that moves is less reliable then a passive component, a motor has higher failure rates then a transistor or IC providing nothing gets overly hot or gets hit by a voltage spike. I will warn you that these numbers can and are gamed to put the very best face on a product.

Last year I lost the combination to my safe and the backup copy was missing as well. the safe contained some papers, backup disks and a small amount of cash. Getting someone to crack a 1908 safe would cost well over a grand so I was in a pickle. After some brain racking I remembered i had a text file on a computer file from 1988, that computer was long gone but I had backed up all the data to a Micropolis 1GB ($989 in 1992) scsi disk. i had that disk but it's SCSI controller card was ISA based and none of my machines had ISA slots in them. i bought a used Adaptec PCI SCSI controller card on ebay for $30 and had that 23 year old disk up and running in about 30 minutes. I retrieved the file and was able to open the safe.

This brings up the problem with archiving data in this age. With technology ever changing, the standards we use for interfacing these devices changes rapidly. Over time finding a way to connect a device can be difficult. I have three backup disks that use PATA IDE disks in them, replacing a disk in them will be difficult in just a few years. the current SATA interface disks looks like it is less reliable long term than the PATA disks were. I suspect the quality of materials just isn't as good, after all if they are selling 2TB disks for $100 how good can the bearings, motors, and capacitors be? Accountants control corporations these days and all they care about is cutting costs, long term reliability is not factored in anymore because they assume it will all be replaced in a few years.

My advise would be to do multiple backups using whatever medium meets your needs and try and keep one of them off site. The run time of backup media is very low compared to the same media being used daily inside a computer, just buy a decent brand, this is not the place to buy something cheap. That will protect you against any single failure. Be prepared to discard those devices and replace them as technology moves forward.

If you have a few documents that are essential, print out a few copies because NOTHING outlasts words printed on a page. No digital storage will outlast a paper copy.

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mtbf and long term strorage
Jun 23, 2012 1:23PM PDT

yes, i agree that also goes for photos too... i have back'd up on just about everything known to man. one thing i have learn'd. what ever you do, don't do it fast. as you pointed out, in a word "obsolete" but after 30 + years i still use WD harddrives and RAM and DVD-RAM. without a single failure ever! and yes i do exercise the harddrives, as they do in the movie industry. all of my hardware is converted to the usb standard 1.,2,and 3 for foward and backward compatability. in short for me..i'm covered.

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MTBF vs Main Board
Jun 24, 2012 3:41AM PDT

I back up to SanDisk stick drives, to HP SimpleSave external drives and to an external HD in an enclosure and connected via USB. I have never had a problem except that photos can be erased on an SD card in a camera. With that said, I have never had a hard drive fail in twenty years of computing...one old SCSI (an IBM server HD) is perhaps close to its first (and last) failure, or perhaps not; but, has been replaced (it whines when it starts up as it always has; techs without exception say, "That drive is failing". Not! On the other hand, I have had two main boards fail: one residing in an HP laptop 3+ years old (now repaired by HP) and the other in a custom built desktop currently under repair in Houston. Yes, I use an uninterruptable power supply. And, yes, I could toss out both and buy new machines --- this solution is what many tech/sales folks advise. But, those same folks don't consider the cost of periphials and tried-and-true software. Both of these boards have IEEE Firewire connections built onto the respective boards (better than an add-on card) required by legacy hardware (i.e., a Nikon CoolScan scanner). And then there is the large format photo printer... . As to the original question: back up often and on several media, then store that media, or at least some of it, in a safe place, preferably off site (e.g., a safe deposit box).

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Off-site storage
Jun 24, 2012 6:52AM PDT

Lots of folk suggesting off-site storage but surely if you're constantly altering/adding or whatever, retrieving it to update files has got to be a pain, methinks. Wonder if people have got friends with spare hard drive space that could be used, or even install dedicated drives at both locations and back up each other's stuff. Might need a bit of encryption, depending on how much you trust the "friend"!

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HD backups is the way
Jun 23, 2012 12:43AM PDT

I am a big beliver in Hard Drive backups but I go a step further. I say put the drive in as a second drive and CLONE your hard drive onto it. Now you have a real backup!!!! If yoru hard drive ever dies, you just switch in the clone drive backup abnd you dont even mioss a beat. And after you clone it, all you have to do is add in new information as it comes up.

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@ ajtrek Disagree
Jun 23, 2012 1:44AM PDT

I dropped a portable hard drive and it broke, and became unusable.
I know I should have had it in a better case, but then I never figured it would break when dropped. The power cord got tangled and it fell off the desk. That was all she wrote. Sure, the data is still on the discs, but having that recovered would cost more than just buying another one and backing up again.
My point: Sure, use a portable hard drive, if you want. Make sure you don't drop it!
ALSO use an SD card. They're much cheaper, and will probably never wear out! Get an SD card sleeve to hold it in, or several of them. Very handy, if your camera uses the same card. Just label them!

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Alternate between disks
Jun 23, 2012 2:32AM PDT

I have two external HDDs. One of them is kept offsite. Every month I put the latest backup on the other one and swap them. I suppose over the years I can change those out, but they get only a few hours a month of operation, so they should last quite a while in this rotation.

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SD sleeve
Jun 24, 2012 6:28AM PDT

A small (11g) Altoid peppermint can holds 10 SD cards like a glove. Put some anti-static bubble wrap in the top and bottom so the cards don't rattle around.

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I'm not sure about that...
Jul 1, 2012 2:49PM PDT

your statement that HD will not have embedded DRM - may be true most of the time, but to get external drives to work with cable set top boxes, media center PCs, and satellite DVRs - you must certainly buy one rated for such use. Without it, it will simply not work.

On Amazon for example, you may see some external drives with detailed features listed in the product area, where most drives don't have such descriptions. They will most certainly list this desirable feature there.

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Not a good idea, not at all

Dear oh dear. No offense, but you've not read the specs on those cards. They are designed for a very limited number of writes, and there really isn't a guarantee as to the data retention, these things are manufactured by the millions. Writable DVDs have a similar story, they're not reliable, and especially if you're going to use a different drive to read data back, you may come a cropper.

Like other professionals, I used hard disks only, for backing up. Every file or file system I have is backed up twice, on different devices, and those can use standard USB ports, as well as eSata, so I can retrieve the data onto practically any device. My preferred devices are large RAID1 capable drives, although I have experienced one instance when a damaged data packet resulted in the loss of data on both redundant drives. Not to get too technical, hard drives have superb error correction and -intervention technology, and will very rarely give you problems. By them in bulk, they're not that expensive, and rotate them all the time.

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Not fully convinced they are the best practice.
Jun 22, 2012 11:08AM PDT

I am just one person in the midst of millions, so take my experience with a grain of salt.

I too have had the same question.

Currently I only use Flash Cards for temporary storage of photos taken be cameras in the family.

But I have had 4 occasions in the last 5 years where the data became corrupt on these name brand cards. On one there were over 400 pictures and was able to recover all with utility software, except a couple. For that reason I do not have a lot of faith in them for long term storage. I have no idea what caused the corruption.

Now my practice is to offload the data/photos to a Hard Drive as soon as possible.

On the other hand, I have been using Hard Drives since mid 1980's and have performed regular backups to different types of media. I have yet had a major HDD failure. Or a failure of a Floppy, CD or DVD.

Currently, data from the PC's are backed up to a USB Hard Drive through a Backup Program. I also back up Data to sites like Drop Box. Important Documents [in Word, Excel, etc.] and Photos and other misc. stuff is also burned to a DVD on a regular basis.

hth, ymmv

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my way to keep data safe
Jun 22, 2012 11:18AM PDT

1. I have dedicated system drive and separate data drive in my pc (data drive is configured as a mirror)
2. any data is kept on data drive
3. I have 2 external usb drive (1 at home, one at off site location; drives are rotated)
4. I make a backup to usb at home once a week (or when anything important is copy to the data drive)
5. I switch usb drives between off site and home from time to time
6. usb drives are connected and powered during backup ONLY

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Memory cards can get lost!
Jun 22, 2012 11:29AM PDT

Nearly any media will work but those little chips can get lost at the time I need them most. So yes, if you want to take the risk.
For my part, I take a triple route. I back up on an external terabyte on site. Next, on site and in a special made teak wood box my nephew made for me I store data on Blue Ray. Lastly, I backup on Blue Ray and store them in my brother's professional fireproof four drawer tall safe. My stuff is going to be around a long time.
I just don't believe in taking chances.
Jim

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Redundancy is everything
Jun 22, 2012 12:10PM PDT

I would not rely on any one medium for backing up important files. I have two external hard drives I swap out, every couple of weeks I back up some stuff to flash drives, SD cards and dual layer DVDs that hold over 8GB. I'm also looking at SSDs now that the prices have come down.

Everything can or will fail, eventually. Something else will always come along and make whatever you're using obsolete. Remember floppies? Zip drives? Try reading those now. All things must pass and so will most of your files. I would back them up in several places on different media. And if it's stuff you can't possibly live without I'd store some copies offsite and consider using cloud storage for things you can never get back, like photos.

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No!
Jun 22, 2012 12:18PM PDT

Besides data you'd want to make a "System Image" and save it on an external hard drive in case of hardware failure,OS corruption or a nasty virus. With Windows 7 you now have the option of creating a "System Image" and saving it to an external hard drive.
Try and save a "Sytem Image" to a memory card. Not cost effective to use memory cards.

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Do You Care If 1 Data Bit Gets Flipped?
Jun 22, 2012 12:19PM PDT

I have an unusual setup on a laptop at work. The laptop operates without a hard drive, that is, the hard drive that came with the laptop was removed and now the laptop operates off a USB flash drive. When this laptop was first brought into service several years ago, the only large capacity USB flash drives were extremely expensive (over $100 per GB). As flash drive prices dropped, larger capacity devices were used. Something that was not considered in the transition was the type of memory media in the flash drives. The original flash drives used SLC (Single Level Cell) memory and the newer ones use MLC (Multi Level Cell). I'll leave it to you to research the differences and discover how an amazing array of technologies have evolved to make the the MLC memory devices sufficiently reliable for consumer use.

As we gradually replaced the older flash drives (SLC) with the newer, higher capacity drives (MLC), we started to experience bootup failures. Sometimes, a power down and restart did the trick. It was a minor annoyance at first but then the failures would sometimes turn into a hard failure, so the USB flash drive would be permanently retired and a backup flash drive would be brought online. Since we always had backups, the workaround was adequate. Then came the day when a duplicate laptop needed to be created and sent to a work location several hundred miles away. The folks using the second laptop were not amused with the steady diet of failed flash drives and our engineers-mentality workaround.

I was given the task to investigate the problem and to make recommendations to make the laptop startups more reliable. That's how I learned about the unintended consequence of transitioning from SLC to MLC memory for mission-critical software.

So back to my question. Do you care if 1 data bit gets flipped? If you're archiving photos, music, or files that are tolerant of a missing bit or two, then using flash memory for archiving could be acceptable. Why "could be"? The memory cells of SLC and MLC media degrade over time and one of the amazing technologies that runs in the background when you plug in a flash drive controller will auto-magically refresh stale cells -- move data from one part of the memory real estate to another. So if you use flash media to archive, be sure to plug it in every now and then so the controller can do it's housekeeping.

And when would you care if a bit gets flipped? Maybe storing your tax records on it is not the best thing to do. Having a number change here or there could really ruin an audit with the IRS.

In my research, I discovered NASA did studies and published papers on the viability of using flash media in space. One of their recommendations to increase the reliability of storing program code and being able to retrieve and use it intact was to store it twice. That way if the error-correction algorithm failed with the first copy, there was a way to recover when you're a zillion miles from home.

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Don't use flash memory
Jun 22, 2012 1:07PM PDT

Use hard drives and cloud storage like Carbonite. Memory flash cards are not reliable for long term storage. SSD solid state drives are more like hard drives but expensive for big sizes.

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picture backup
Jun 22, 2012 1:13PM PDT

Be sides backing up on external hard drives .I have several gmail accounts that i send all important pictures to..in case my house burns down...

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Are Memory Card good?
Jun 22, 2012 1:24PM PDT

Answer is, Yes they are. Are they the better choice for back up's? Answer is, I don't believe so in the long run.
My financial data I have backups on two usb flash drives. This is the procedure I use myself:

My financial data is backed up on two flash drives alternating each time. This is the only data I do this way.

My normal backup is done on multiple external USB Hard Drives. I have my main computer for everyday
work and a lot of testing. I have a computer I use just for Video work, plus odd things. I have an older
computer that has some programs I use for doing sound work on and the programs wont work on the later
windows, ie., XP, Vista etc. and wont work on a hard drive larger than 40 gig. I keep this computer just for
the use of these programs.

Long story short, each computer is backed up at least two times on the external hard drives. I use a program
called Macrium Reflex to do these backups. What I do is: perform a complete disk image each time which
allows me to restore my whole disk in case of a failure. The Macrium program will also let me copy any
portion of that backup if I need to. This is done by mounting the backup via the macrium program. Works
great for me and I have no plans to change.

The only draw back to this procedure is the necessity for the extra external drive capacity to do the multiple
computer backups (disk imaging). However, as someone already mentioned, the external hard drives out
there now have great capacity for it really shouldn't be a problem. I currently use about 4 TB as I also do
backups for my children.

Try the Macrium program, it's great. does get a little slow if you do a system restore though. My Video
machine can take two hours to restore, but, it's a 3 gig Intel with only 2 gig ram

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Memory cards ar enot reliable enough
Jun 22, 2012 1:39PM PDT

I use 2 hard drives to back up my important data on a regular basis. I also use DVDs or BluRay discs for long term storage becuase they are not magnetic and as long as they don't scratch or melt the data stays on them very well.

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Back Up Ideas
Jun 22, 2012 1:58PM PDT

I see no point in backing up a bunch of programs I either downloaded or bought, so in Windows I keep everything (data only) in folders and subfolders under <Documents>.
I back up weekly to an 8GB flashdrive, and monthly to a DVD disk, which I keep away from the house.
I figure I might lose up to a week of data, or maybe even a month if the house burns down, and that's as motivated as I am.
I have lots of still pictures, but when my movies start filling up the flashdrive, I offload them to DVDs.
My worry is that I'll leave all those old DVDs around for years, and when I go to look at them I'll discover that MP4 is no longer used by anyone. I try to work my way through doc and spreadsheet files and "Save As" any time I go to a new Word Proc or spreadsheet (I currently love OpenOffice).
But by far the most common error I've seen is failure to back up! You're doing a good.

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Multiple backups
Jun 22, 2012 2:46PM PDT

Really... with the thousands of hours of you work at risk of being lost, multiple backups are essential. I'm talking about mostly my Docs, Pics, Movie, data files etc. Years ago I had a usb HDD drive fail. I immediately backed up to new one. Now I backup daily to a usb HDD and that is backed up every fortnight to a second usb HDD which is kept in at different location.

I don't know how confident I would feel about my files in the cloud which might disappear for whatever reason. I lost files in Google Sites when they decided to change the site policy.

BTW my backup program is a DOS batch file using XCOPY commands! Yep.. you heard me right, good 'ol
DOS. I feel I have better control of what it does - and it's fast! - no crap. The batch file is only 21 lines and 1133 bytes in size..yes BYTES not kilobytes or megabytes. Have no time for pretentious megabyte-guzzling applications that do no more than a one-kilobyte batch file will do.

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Media life
Jun 22, 2012 6:21PM PDT

Surely this also begs the question to what is actually the ultimate storage medium? Hard drives fail (eventually). CD and DVD discs deteriorate and become unreadable. Anything that is solid-state wears out, so what is the best course of action for archiving data? Everybody seems to be touting so-called cloud storage but that seems impractical to me with that amount of data. I have recently switched to fibre-to-the-cabinet with vastly improved download speed of around 25 megs (as distinct from the lousy 1-ish I used to get on the old copper but the upload never varies from around 1.6 megs (why the difference, I wonder?) and to upload to cloud storage would not only take for ever but would drive a horse and carriage through my ISP's data limit.
I have an absurd number of external hard drives (spread over three machines on my small network), backing up around 150 gigs of data and music. Not saying how many, as it's pretty laughable and totally OTT (or is it?) but only recently, two failed in fairly rapid succession and they weren't exactly long in the tooth. What is the commercial solution? What do the big boys use? How can we ensure that our data is still intact in years to come? Seems to me that it's just one continuous slog to keep copying data over to new drives or another medium to ensure continuity

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Consider the cloud - but pros and cons
Jun 22, 2012 6:22PM PDT

Last year I took up a well-priced offer to back my data to the cloud. (I'd previously had very bad experiences with MS SkyDrive but it may well have improved since). I'm still using this service, but now realise it is not a complete solution but can only be part of a data security strategy. Here are some of the problems and my conclusions.

I have a PC running Windows 7 PC. All software is installed on my 'C' drive which is SSD device. All data to back up is on a conventional hard drive as 'D' - currently about 130GB to secure.

The cloud service works by constantly syncing any changed files.

First problem - to upload 130GB over home broadband/ASDSL takes weeks, particularly if you try and restrict it too midnight-8AM to avoid daytime over usage charges. But I persevered as I thought it would be worthwhile.
Then my SSD device failed (second time returned under warranty, but that's another story).

New SSD, reinstalled all the programs. No data to recover as hard disk was unaffected. But the cloud backup service saw my PC as a new machine, even though set up with same name, motherboard unchanged etc. Their 'help' department gave me wrong information then stopped replying. So another month or so to sync it all again.

After that all seemed well, I checked files were being backed up and could be restored. It seemed proof against any disaster that could befall me.

Until the service provider said they were going out of business.... But at the last minute they found a buyer so stayed in business - though help department seems unimproved, still not replying (so I can't recommend Lush backup but I'm writing about the principle).

Now the crunch. One of my applications uses an Access database holding thousands of important records that are very important to me. Somehow it became corrupted. No problem, I'll restore it from the cloud. Except the corrupted version has already sync'ed and I realise that the cloud backup has no versioning feature.
I'd got lazy about running physical backups to local disks as cloud seemed to be the solution. My last was 2 months ago. Not good.

I should say that my main backup locally uses WesternDigital's MyBoook and WD SmartWare software and is set to keep 5 versions of every file, so if I had been running it regularly, I;'d have had a good version of my file even if I'd backed up the corrupted one.

So the lesson is that you must consider solutions that will allow you to recover your data even if a fire burned down your home or your hard disk is wrecked, but also strategies that will allow recovery of previous versions of files. This could be a versioning backup or the simpler traditional method of taking daily (or weekly etc as you require) backups on a rotating cycle of devices with maybe one put aside every month....

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Corruption in low places
Jun 23, 2012 1:38AM PDT

I often wonder about this sync. idea if something is already corrupt and it just duplicates the corrupt file, or part of it. I use a free program to also back up my documents only in real time to yet another of my multiple drives. I have never had any problems, as it works seamlessly for me, chugging away in the background (I obviously check the back-up from time to time) but a friend of mine was also using it and had trouble with an MS Works database becoming unreadable. Seems the program had already duplicated the file in the same unreadable form in real time on his external drive and we couldn't recover it. Luckily, in one of those quirks of fate, he had only just started the database for his year in January, so only had to repeat comparatively few entries. Needless to say, that has put him off that particular program and method of back-up.

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Cloud backup
Jun 23, 2012 12:58PM PDT

Actually most cloud backup, at least the paid ones, has versioning.

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Are memory cards a good media to back up your data on?
Jun 22, 2012 9:42PM PDT

I have also tried several types of media to back up with, i have had DVD.s SD cards Hard Drives all have gone bad on me. i believe multipal back ups are a must i used hard drives. I keep a 500 gig back up drive in my main PC and a 1 terrabyte USB drive i can grab quickly. the USB drive are dropping in price regulary so i replace it every couple years now.
as for most backup programs i personally do not like because they often require a full restore to get a few files that may have been corrupted. I like FREE if free works, i use a program called replicator from Karensware it copies duplicate files or basicly an exact copy of files. once you set up the program i just start and run it before i shut down the computer and let it run in the background.

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Replicator
Jun 23, 2012 2:39AM PDT

Just for info; the developer of Karen's Replicator, Karen Kenworthy, sadly passed away in April 2011. It looks like the website is still up and programs still available but I would guess that support is no longer available, unless, of course, someone else has taken over the task. The last update to Replicator was November 2009.

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Cloud storage an option
Jun 22, 2012 11:53PM PDT

All media is vulnerable to damage which results in loss of data. I am a proponent of backing up via physical media(DVD,memory card,external drives) as well as cloud based sites. Microsoft offers its SkyDrive, Apple has iCloud, and there are others. There is a free site that offers 50gb free data storage-ADrive.com. The features are adequate and other paid options are available. I've used it for a few years and find it good for backing up my data, although all backups are done manually by copy and paste. I forgot to mention Carbonite, a low cost paid service that has automatic backup. Good luck.