Monday, January 25, 2016

Best backup for your photos or important files

There has been a continuous discussions over this topic regarding which is the best backup for photos and stuffs. It makes you wonder if your files is currently secured and if not what really is the best backup to go with... well, we need to list down first all the backup methods and the pros and cons.

Raid redundancy
+ always available 24/7 even if 1 drive died
- not really form of a backup, not for beginners and it requires at least 2 similar drive.

Local Backup
+ easy to setup and very fast access
- manual backup required and more devices will clutter your desk

Cloud Backup
+ convenient and can sync/restore anywhere with internet
- uses internet heavily which means you will have a very slow access

Network Backup
+ it's like cloud backup but without the need of internet
- generally will cost more to setup

Disk Backup
+ real permanent backups, cannot be overwritten by accident and easy to use as majority of pc or laptops have DVD drives.
- has questionable durability or life of media, it requires a well protected and well organized storage space.

Since when I was a kid, my only choice for my backup media is optical disks especially when DVD was introduced but that was the time when HDDs were still very expensive. I still have my backups until now which also includes videos and even MP3s which makes me wonder right now that my 6TB of movies and TV shows are very expensive to backup for sure.

As technology progressed, a cheaper, more secure and more practical backup methods are being introduced and that when Cloud storage becomes a thing in 2015.

Now here are my setup and by looking at it you may think I'm a bit of paranoid. Yes I'm really paranoid! Even my D7100 has 2x 32gb sdcard slots and configured as mirror/backup LOL. I think it's really fine especially if you are keeping precious pictures of you love ones like since you and your wife were still dating until now with 2 kids and 1 of them is already 8yrs old.

PC raid cloud
- 2x hdd PC software raid for availability, normal desktop use like for editing and stuff.
- Onedrive cloud run by PC as well, default sync behavior of Windows, thanks to Microsoft for giving me mawr free spaze from reward being a Microsoft fanboy hahahah.

Server network backup
- USB Enclosure (/w cooling) + 3.5 server hdd" which plugged at my server but always off and will turn it on only for scheduled mirroring.

...but what really is THE best option? The answer is simply NONE. Best is always subject to debate as it really always depends on your needs and budget. I listed all pros and cons, now it's your call.

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