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Data Backup Dilemmas...

A

azharc

macrumors member
Original poster
Just wanted everyone's thoughts and opinions on this.

College student here so I'm on a budget. College photography student, so I have a collection of around 8,500 photos which, if lost to the perils of data loss, would indeed be most unfortunate. Also there's the music and other projects. In total around 160 gigs today.

Have a 200GB drive in my MBP. I have a WD Passport 160GB from a year and a half ago.

Currently I'm using Time Machine with the 160GB but of course in a while this isn't going to work (because my backup drive is smaller than my internal)

Options : (dum dum dum) - I can only choose one. On a budget. And I want to save for a Brenthaven Backpack next-to-next month.

1) Get Mozy. Backup off-site, unlimited, yada yada. But if I ever need my data, its a lot of waiting and painful downloading. But I can use my Passport to add storage to Mac since Mozy will back it up. Plus I'm scared all the continuous uploading might get me kicked off the college internet network (anyone has experience with this?)

2) Buy Ext HDD. And do what with the existing Passport I have no idea, doubt anyone will buy it. But I get Bootable copy right there.

However, if my laptop gets stolen (it's insured!) my ext. HDD probably will go too. So Mozy wins.

But if my hard drive fails, I have a HD I can take to the computer lab to use in Target Disk Mode (while with Mozy, I don't)

Mozy will be around $50/year. HDD will be around $150. If the HDD fails within 3 years, Mozy and the HDD cost the same.

Solve that 😕

Thanks everyone, appreciate your thoughts.
 
Are you using lightroom or aperture?

I'd get the external drive. I'm a bit leery of only having a time machine backup though so I'd use time machine on the new drive and backup my /home to the 160. That way you still have your files in a worse case scenario of a dead/stolen mbp and time machine not restoring correctly. Your home directory most likely won't get larger than the 160.

Store the 160 with a friend or something and update it as needed/weekly/etc.

I ask about lightroom or aperture because you could also use the 160 as you import your pics (import to the mbp and the external at the same time). At least lightroom allows this... not sure about aperture. This puts your pics into two places right away. In this situation I'd get two new externals. One for time machine and another for a superduper or carbon copy bootable backup and use the 160 for a "field" backup as you import until those pics get backed up by time machine or superduper

If you absolutely can only get one drive I'd skip time machine and use a method that gives you a bootable external (I use superduper) with direct access to your files..
 
Thats interesting... I'm with Aperture though.
Thanks for the advice.

Seagate's FreeAgent Go for Mac sure looks tempting.

And I've been Googling, Mozy restorations are pretty painful most say.
 
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