CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

^^^Me too. :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

AndyCE Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

I'm the same way. Something I just don't trust about it. HD's are cheap these days, can't go wrong, IMHO!
Andy

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I'm somewhat similar. I have 3 local backups of everything I shoot digitally and everything I scan. However, backblaze does provide an inexpensive off site plan, which I hope I never have to use for anything more than storage.
--Bob

Wrangler Loc: North Texas

Office Depot offers a WD 2.5 inch 1TB external hard drive for $59.99. The prices are going down. I remember when I bought a 128 mb flash drive for more than that. Best Buy has some for $54.99.

EdM Loc: FN30JS

There seems to be a lot of resistance against just using an external hard drive for data security. Why one would want to send your data over the internet where it can be “observed” is sumpin I don’t understand,.... or have to watch advertisements to use a “freebee”. Freebees, ain’t. “Safe” storage locations sometimes just go away, or become “un-freebees” as we have seen.

Perhaps the following may help:
1. Using your word processsor, or “edit” construct and save a batch file as below:

rem file edmbkup.bat
xcopy C:\29mar14data\*.* h:\29mar14data\/m
pause
exit

all my data, ALL, I store in a folder called “29mar14data” on my c: drive, but you can use “documents”, or several folders for data storage.

H: is the location of my USB hard drive.
“Pause” keeps the filenames of the “copied filenames” on the screen, then “hit any key” to continue and close.

2. Set “edmbkup” on your desktop

depending on your circumstances, you can include more than one folder in the batch file, and of coarse, more than one hard drive. Just add more “xcopy” lines.

The first time you run it, ‘twill take a bit, after that ONLY the CHANGED or NEWLY created files will be written or overwritten to your external hard drive.

What looks like a V is a backslash & forward slash..

After a file is copied by xcopy, its "archive" bit is set (or cleared, never was sure abt that), so trying to multiple xcopy wont work, it will only copy once, to copy to two locations, you have to xcopy from the first location to the second... you will figure it out...
I cannot remember whether I have been using Xcopy batch for CPM, but I have been using it for about the last 20 years... works!

Have fun, Ed

Wrangler Loc: North Texas

I lost one of my favorite pictures on cloud. Never again. I just go into windows explorer and drag and drop to external HD. It is faster than cloud, holds more and seems more secure. The only problem I could see would be that the external hard drive went belly up. If I wanted to be very secure, I would have a back up external hard drive. Chances of both failing seem slim and none and slim just saddled up and left town.

James Slick Loc: Pittsburgh,PA

I only use "the cloud" for temporary storage and to move files from device to device. I understand that HDD,SSD and DVDs can fail or not last forever. But trusting my stock to persons unknown is worse (to me). Even if trustworthy, no company is "too big to fail" even if they dominate now. Kodak,GM and Westinghouse were once so big as to seem invincible...now.. I'll stick to my phyiscal copies kept in at least two phyisical locations!

rocketride Loc: Upstate NY

Mushroom Cloud computing at its finest.

rocketride Loc: Upstate NY

There's also the issue that despite your data not being particularly valuable to thieves, putting it in with a bunch of other peoples' and corporations' data may make the aggregate worth a thief's effort, and your data may become 'collateral damage'.

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

Mike, that's the way to go.

But eventually those drives WILL fail... especially if you ride them hard.

But external drives are cheap... and you can copy your copies. Burn the older stuff to DVD and you are REALLY secure. :thumbup:

Big Bill Loc: Phoenix, AZ

Carbonite and the like are good for convenient backup of data, but do nothing to help if you lose your C: drive when it comes to rebuilding it.
Think: hard drives fail. It's in their nature. Putting the onus on someone else to do the redundant backups is easy, but you lose control over that data when you do so. It's like putting your valuable in a storage place; Sure, it seems safe, right up until you discover someone broke in and stole your stuff (and, yes, it happens.)
Then think about this: let's say your C: drive does fail. Sure, you've been a good person, and have all your CDs/DVDs of your OS and apps, but you now have to go through all the mind-numbing drudgery of re-installing them, and updating them. Many hours lost. Then you have to download all your data; even if you have a fast connection, this can take days.

Instead, there's a solution that takes the drudgery out of the equation. Yes, it costs a little (very little, taking into account how valuable your time is worth); an imaging application.
I use Acronis TrueImage. With redundant backups, if I lose my C: drive, I can be back up and running in a few hours, without the hassle of loading disks and updates. Add to that the fact that I have control of the security of my own data, and it's really hard to beat. And security is something that's important. How many of us have financial data on our systems? A lot. How secure is Carbonite? I have no idea. And neither do you. The vast majority of hacks are never reported. Include the security of your data transmission (or, rather, the insecurity), and I get scared. The NSA is just one three-letter agency regularly scanning our data transmissions.

External drives are cheap, considering the costs of using a third party. Their services may be cheap, or even free, but server farms cost a lot to keep up, and they need to make money somewhere. Do they tell you where?
Using your own drives for redundant backup becomes downright cheap real quickly.

CHOLLY Loc: THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE!

Mirrored drives and RAID storage systems. :thumbup:

travelwp Loc: New Jersey

[quote=Singing Swan]I'm a big proponent of terabyte hard drives. [quote]

Yep, me too. I back up on 4TB Western Digital USB drives.

rocketride Loc: Upstate NY

Can still be taken out by a lightning bolt that overwhelms the surge protector.

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

When ever I see "the cloud" I run.