Back It Up

Since I've delivered my lecture about backing up computer data, I may as well show my system. My home computer network consists of six computers or more. I have a main computer and one for experimenting. Then there's the MythTV setup, a laptop, an FTP server, and one doing some specialized tasks for which I haven't updated the software, so I need a Win-Me computer.

Although I don't do real important stuff, I don't like loosing work I have done. Pictures from the camera and scans of film are a couple of examples. A lot of times it's hard to recapture things with the camera, and the scanning is a long and sometimes detailed procedure that takes a lot of time. Combine that with the web site, blog and old emails and other things I've done, makes for a lot of data stored—way to much to not have backups.

The picture shows most of my strategy. The first item on the left is a USB switch so I can attach a USB stick, usually 1 GB, to either main computer for short term backup. Next is AirNAS1, an AirLink Office NAS with a 60 GB hard drive and a single yellow stripe. It provides short term storage and a file server for things I may use on more than one computer. It's also setup as a FTP server and will replace one of the computers.

Next is AirNAS2, another Airlink unit with a 280 GB hard drive and two yellow stripes. That is longer term backup of things that change or are accessed regularly, like pictures and video captures. Next is a USB drive with a 250 GB hard drive. It holds Ghost images and other system backups and can be attached to either AirNAS or to a computer. When things are going into deep storage, they get burned onto CD or DVD. You can see the color coding so I can keep track of what kind of data is on the CDs/DVDs.

Do I need to mention that most of the data on the backup drives is duplicated on one of the computers and most of the CD/DVD backups are burned twice.

I don't like to loose computer data.

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