External Hard drive for backups

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JohnD said:
I used to have hard-drive caddies, but moved to DVDs as easier and lighter to swap and store.

Not in the house. The fire that destroys your PC would also destroy your disks.

Before cloud became popular, I used to suggest small businesses took a daily backup and put it in the post each night. They tended otherwise to leave the backup disk in or beside the computer.
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How do you back up a huge hard drive to DVD?
 
foxhole said:
How do you back up a huge hard drive to DVD?
Click to expand...

You don't.

Daily backup is for the files that change frequently.

E.g. my folder "photos Skegness Holiday 1998" does not need daily backup. Once a year is more than enough.

My folder "cash transactions 202302" does

A business folder "todays orders" does

A business folder "2022 projects" doesn't

Lots of other things start a new file each calendar month, or weekly.

My accounts are backed up to the D drive every time I close the package, and I define the file name at least every month.

My backup app backs up only those files that have changed since last time they were backed up

I don't create a DVD's worth of new data in a month.
 
A hard drive won't fit on to a DVD and recordable DVD's are not very reliable. They do not last long.

A hard drive is your best option. Either a USB hard drive or a NAS, which plugs in via ethernet and requires a little bit more setup. This would mean you can access it from any of your computers on your home network.

Whatever you choose, get a second drive too to have as a backup. Ideally keep it offsite in a safe secure location.

Hard drives fail so its important to have a backup of the backup.
 
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also think about where the item(s) are stored
if in a house , then any fire damage, flood etc could cause the backup a problem

Theft - if its left near a computer , then it would likely be picked up along with many items

just depends on how much risk you are prepared to take - I have seen people lose all their photos by not having a backup and how upsetting that can be

I always suggest , at least 3 copies - ideally also online, and 1 kept offsite , but using a proper backup service , not just a drive share

then how frequently you back up will depend again on the risk you are prepared to take and how often items change
 
The idea that you should back up disks is wrong.

You should back up data, and only that which

1) you still need

And

2) has changed since you last backed it up.

This is much less

And less wasteful in time, effort and media.
 
JohnD said:
The idea that you should back up disks is wrong.

You should back up data, and only that which

1) you still need

And

2) has changed since you last backed it up.

This is much less

And less wasteful in time, effort and media.
Click to expand...
Yes some nice free disk compare/ then mirror windows apps available, which will do incremental backups
 
Meh; I'd pass on all these options and just pay someone like Amazon for their glacier storage. When you consider the volume of data an average person generates, you'll probably never even pay Amazon the amount it would cost you for a backup hard drive. The slowest glacier tiers are in the region of a dollar per terabyte
 
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