Had to call in the GEEK squad today!..

[BrianG]

Yeah, I was the Ops Manager at a datacenter for a few years and they used RAID10 for real-time data and then used DAT tapes to store backups off-site. I never liked DAT because you need the hardware to read them, a SCSI adaptor, and the tapes seemed to degrade after about 6 months.

So, I thought I would borrow that method, but address the weak points. I felt external drives work best because they are cheap for the capacity (compared to tape), easily replaceable, and can be read by pretty much anything. Even if the USB part didn't work, I can always disassemble the case and hook up the raw drive. And for things that change frequently, off-site via FTP is the way to go provided the data and the destination is secure.

One important note: If you are running an NT-based OS (Windows 2000, XP, Vista, etc) do NOT encrypt the data prior to backup. Encrypting is pretty secure, but is tied to your login id. If you have a catastrophic failure and need to restore, you will not be able to use/access those files even though you set up an account with the same username. Even though the names are the same, the associated login identifier is different. So, just don't encrypt the files. If security is a concern, encrypt the backup using a password-protected archive tool (WinRAR, WinZIP, etc) and use a strong password: over 10 characters with a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters; don't use dictionary words; and don't use any part of your name, SSN, birthdate, etc.