Backup solutions Options

[cmac]

We've discussed it before, but what are you backup solutions?

I've never backed up and I've been lucky, but I keep hearing horror stories about losing years worth of stuff and frankly I'm becoming paranoid.

To me there's a difference between backup and archive. I'm looking for both solutions.

Backup, to me, is what can keep my current digital data from being lost by a mechanical failure and/or user error.

Archive is the long-term backup. The 'keep this safe in case I need it in 5 years' kind of thing.

I think I would prefer a local solution, as paying someone to store my files monthly seems kind of odd to me, though I guess I already basically pay flickr to store my archives of photos.

Any opinions on Drobo?

[impala454]

I haven't used any USB or firewire hard drives, but really the drive itself is more of a limiting factor than the connection. I mean, firewire and USB 2.0 both have a max of 400Mbps (50MBps)? Not a whole lot of current hard drives are going to get that fast in practice. My 1TB western digital hard drive that I put in the storage PC, will transfer much faster than the western digital NAS box. The NAS box goes about 5-6MBps tops, and so far the storage PC transfers about 30MBps. Not sure if it's a problem with the NAS box design or what, but haven't seen many NAS boxes that show good ratings for speed. If you need a file server, don't count on a NAS just get a cheap computer and put a big drive in it, if you just need occasional backup and want it network connected, the NAS is nice because of the portability/low power/ease of setup. If you don't need it networked then USB should be fine (and probably cheaper).