Best (Safest) Solution for Data Backup?

[HermanTheGerman]

I have to constantly back up 200 GB of data (mostly music, pictures and documents) using external hard drives, which I constantly drag along.

The data are crucial for me - on a private as well as a business basis.

Thus, I want to create an additional copy of my data (in order to keep it in a really safe place and not using it) for the worst case scenario.

Should I buy double layer DVDs or another external for this amount of data? I have heard that both of them come along with their own disadvantages:

Hard drives are expected to malfunction over time, whereas DVDs are supposed to lose data due to their organic burning surface.

What is the better solution? Or is there even one that I have not considered yet?

 

[livingfortoday]

I think both are good options, but with an extra drive you can always update the backup without having to reburn a bunch of DVD's. If I were you, I'd just buy or build a nice external drive, and backup to that.

 

[Schroedinger]

Buy a second external hard drive, back up to it, unplug it and take it over to your mom/sister/brother/friend's place and ask them to keep it in their closet. If the hard drive is not in use it won't malfunction, and the data will be stable for a long time.

If you're going to do this you may want to consider some sort of encryption software so in case that hard drive is lost/misplaced/stolen you won't have to worry about the data being out there. Of course, this depends on how sensitive the info is.

 

[johnmartin78]

I'm pretty redeundant on my important data.External and disc.Also I use online backup,probably just paranoia.But I'm not only worried abotu my HD failing,or my disc losing data,but if my house catches fire or something crazy,I want my data somewhere safe.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

have you ever though about Tape back up. It is more reliable than a hard drive. It is still used today for anything major to be back up. It old tech that is still one of the best ways of backing up data.

It will not fail like a Hard drive and it does not deal with the loss of data over time like a DVD.

Now tape drives are slow as hell when you are trying to pull stuff off of because it takes a long time to find everything but for backing stuff up they are great.