Backing up photo data

[tri-x1]

<p>I have two 640 meg sata drives in a raid configuration plus I periodically back up all image folders onto a 1 TB external drive.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Given that hard drives are so inexpensive with so much capacity in these days, I don't backup on any optical disc any more. For hard drives, when you need to, you can backup just 1 file when necessary, and that is very quick. Or you can back up 100000 files with just one click (or maybe a few clicks) of the mouse. The acutal copying make take hours, but that is just computer time. You don't to be there yourself and in fact I frequently let the backup run overnight.</p>

<p>All hard drives will eventually fail, and I am sure there are "horror stories" for just about any brand. Overall I am quite happy with Seagate and Western Digital so far. The key to hard drive storage is to have multiple copies around so that when one fails, just make another duplicate on a new hard drive from your other copies. If you have concerns about copy errors, there is plenty of software for further verification.</p>

[jyoungman]

<p>As a couple of people have already said here, it's a terrible mistake to have your backup devices attached to the same wiring (i.e. in the same house) as your main storage. One lighning strike can kill both devices stone dead. I've known it happen. As a number of people have said, a fire can destroy everything, too. <br>

A backup is not safe unless it's an *offsite* backup.</p>