Lost 10+years of work, Need advice on next back up plan

Willie wrote in post #10167524
What internet provider do you have? I backed up at least that much to Mozy through Comcast and then the Comcast ****s called and said I exceeded my 250 GB/month limit. They said if it happens again they will suspend services for 1 year.

The only way IMHO to get reasonable service from Comcast is to pony up a few extra bucks for business class service. I've been on a $89/mo plan that delivered 16-20/3 or so, just recontracted for $99/mo with the old rate for the first year, 20/5. No limits.

That's a function of what you put it into. Why didn't you just spend the extra couple of bucks for a 2TB unit?

anthony11 wrote in post #10167496
Example of a bare 2TB SATA drive for $125.99 US

http://www.amazon.com …_53930_15326500​_pe_vfe_t1

I'm sorely tempted to get a couple and one of the Synology units mentioned earlier in this thread.

That is staggering! Incremental improvements in processor speed and memory capacity seem to have slowed down in recent years. In the case of processors, the manufactures have attempted to maintain the performance curve by adding additional cores to the chips, which, depending on the software doesn't always help. But hard disk capacity has just kept growing.

There really is no excuse for not backing up with these kinds of drives available.

Try www.dropbox.com -- works with PC, mac and iPhone.

anthony11 wrote in post #10167576
The only way IMHO to get reasonable service from Comcast is to pony up a few extra bucks for business class service. I've been on a $89/mo plan that delivered 16-20/3 or so, just recontracted for $99/mo with the old rate for the first year, 20/5. No limits.

I'm not willing to pay that much for internet. I pay too much now. I just decided to drop Mozy and manage my own backups.

What do those numbers mean? 16-20/3 20/5

I'm not really comfortable with the concept of transmitting off-site either, and at such prices. I shoot too much and the RAW files for my wedding & event work involve a LOT of transmission time.

It does take discipline, but I prefer to do it myself with the low cost of HD media thats' out there today.

Willie wrote in post #10168027
I'm not willing to pay that much for internet. I pay too much now. I just decided to drop Mozy and manage my own backups......

Willie wrote in post #10168027
I'm not willing to pay that much for internet.

Well, then, you'll have the be satisfied with a reduced level of service. Chances are that you're already paying a substantial fraction of this price.

That's your choice, of course. How are you arranging for an off-site copy of your important data?

Downstream and upstream speed limits on the connection.

My first personal hard drive was a 19" rackmount unit with a 5MB removable pack, so yeah the capacity is astounding. One has to be careful, though, about reliability -- the Seagate 1.5TB units have had some issues which may or may not have been addressed by firmware updates.

Here's a comparison I found a while back covering a number of the online services:

http://www.macworld.co​m …009/09/online_b​ackup.html

sapearl wrote in post #10168308
I'm not really comfortable with the concept of transmitting off-site either

Why? A single fried power supply can destroy everything if you keep it all local.

I shoot too much and the RAW files for my wedding & event work involve a LOT of transmission time.
So? What do you care about transmission time, other than a window of vulnerability while it syncs?
[QUOTE]It does take discipline, but I prefer to do it myself with the low cost of HD media thats' out there today.
Local backups are trivial, though, with Time Machine - no discipline involved unless you're physically rotating drives off-site.

anthony11 wrote in post #10168479
Well, then, you'll have the be satisfied with a reduced level of service. Chances are that you're already paying a substantial fraction of this price.

That's your choice, of course. How are you arranging for an off-site copy of your important data?

Downstream and upstream speed limits on the connection.

My first personal hard drive was a 19" rackmount unit with a 5MB removable pack, so yeah the capacity is astounding. One has to be careful, though, about reliability -- the Seagate 1.5TB units have had some issues which may or may not have been addressed by firmware updates.

Here's a comparison I found a while back covering a number of the online services:

http://www.macworld.co​m …009/09/online_b​ackup.html

I'm paying mid $40s for high speed connection, so, yes, sizeable fraction of the business one. Still, that service is fine for me except for the 250 GB limit, which I only hit when subscribed to Mozy. My download speeds are fast, and I'm a heavy user. I'm near the 250 GB limit many months w/o online backup.

For offsite, nothing yet, but I am in the process of buying an extra HD and keeping it at work.

anthony11 wrote in post #10168513
Why? A single fried power supply can destroy everything if you keep it all local.

$5/month seems expensive to you?

That's only the cost of the service. What most don't know is that if you have sizeable data to retrieve, it will most likely cost you several hundred to get it. That buys a lot of hard drives.

anthony11 wrote in post #10167576
The only way IMHO to get reasonable service from Comcast is to pony up a few extra bucks for business class service. I've been on a $89/mo plan that delivered 16-20/3 or so, just recontracted for $99/mo with the old rate for the first year, 20/5. No limits.

That's a function of what you put it into. Why didn't you just spend the extra couple of bucks for a 2TB unit?

because 1.5tb is plenty, I'm on a budget, I don't want to put too much data into one item and it's more than just a couple of bucks.

Willie wrote in post #10168572
That's only the cost of the service. What most don't know is that if you have sizeable data to retrieve, it will most likely cost you several hundred to get it. That buys a lot of hard drives.

Hmm, I looked at Mozy's site as an example, and found no mention of a charge for restores.

Willie wrote in post #10167524
What internet provider do you have? I backed up at least that much to Mozy through Comcast and then the Comcast ****s called and said I exceeded my 250 GB/month limit. They said if it happens again they will suspend services for 1 year.

What that meant for me was that if I had failure, I would need to have Mozy send me my data on DVDs. That's expensive. In your case, it would cost over $200.

I decided that rather than pay $60/year and then several hundreds more to get my data I would just get external hard drives.

COX cable. I was nervous when I did the original backup which was maybe 120GB that they would freak out but they didn't and they haven't said anything since either.

Mozy does not charge anything for a file restore done of the the internet and they charge a very reasonable (certainly not hundreds of dollars) fee if you need DVDs to restore from.

http://support.mozy.co​m …b_restore_files​ystem.html

OK Can a SATA be used on a laptop? I just got mine in the mail and realized I should have done a little bit more research on how this works before I bought it. I guess I assumed it could be plugged in like an external harddrive.

if it does work on laptops, what are the other accessories (besides cables) I need for this to work? thanks.

SnapsbyPoteat wrote in post #10175999
OK Can a SATA be used on a laptop? I just got mine in the mail and realized I should have done a little bit more research on how this works before I bought it. I guess I assumed it could be plugged in like an external harddrive.

if it does work on laptops, what are the other accessories (besides cables) I need for this to work? thanks.

SATA is an interface type, not a thing. Modern laptops use 2.5" SATA disks internally; desktops usually use 3.5" SATA disks.

What exactly did you buy? External hard disks in an enclosure usually attach using a USB (crappy but ubiquitous), FireWire (better), or eSATA interface. Laptops rarely have an onboard eSATA interface but cards can be had for masochists.