WareWolf Development - Tim Fisher » Your Hard Drive Will Fail Whether Your Data’s Backed Up Or Not

Your Hard Drive Will Fail Whether Your Data’s Backed Up Or Not June 23, 2008

Posted by Tim in : Technology , trackback

Awhile back, my cousin sent me an email asking what I recommend for backing up computer hard drives. I was reminded that I’d been meaning to write a post about that very topic. I was also reminded that I’d been meaning to write any sort of post at all. I apologize for the hiatus; it’s been a busy couple of months.

Okay, on to the topic at hand. I was happy to report to my cousin that I do, in fact, have a few recommendations for backing up hard drives. Each option has pros and cons, but if you want to choose one, there is definitely one option that is, in my opinion, the hands down winner. That’s not to say that you need to pick one and only one. You could use any or all of these options together to give you the most flexibility. At some point, though, you may end up spending more time making sure your data is safe than actually creating data to keep safe.

The first option, copying files to an external USB or FireWire drive, is the quickest and easiest. It is certainly better than nothing. However, it’s of absolutely no use if your house burns down, gets pounded by a hurricane, or blown away by a tornado. Unless it’s one of those freaky stories where you end up on the news after the tornado saying, “The twister blew away everything I own except for this one backup drive!” Personally, I wouldn’t want to bank on that one. Remember, though, that natural disasters aren’t the only things you need to worry about. Often, those external drives are kept right by the computer that they are being used to back up. If somebody breaks into your house and goes to steal your computer, guess what. My money says your backup drive is going for a ride, too. The problem with this option is that it keeps the second copy of your data right with the first copy. That’s great until something happens to take out both copies.

Another option is to periodically burn your data to CDs or DVDs and mail them to somebody else (family member, attorney, etc.) for safe keeping. I’ve heard Steve Gibson of GRC talk about using this method. If you don’t have a lot of data, this option is still pretty easy in terms of getting the data copied. However, it becomes a bit more of a hassle when you have to put the disc in the mail. But, with the extra hassle comes some extra peace of mind. Even if something happens to your computer’s location, you’ve got off-site backups that you can use to restore your data.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could essentially combine those two options? Give me the ease of backing up to a huge hard drive, but make sure it’s off-site. That’s where my third option comes in. It is something that is relatively new, at least in terms of being cost-effective. I’m referring to internet-based backup. The idea is that you use somebody else’s hard drives to keep your data off-site. There are various places on the web where you can go for online backup but I am going to focus on Amazon’s S3 service used in conjunction with a program called Jungle Disk. I started using the service about 3 months ago and I really can’t say enough good things about it. It is as seamless as having an external hard drive connected to your computer, but it’s off-site. Best of all, it’s very inexpensive. The only downside is the transfer speed. If you don’t have broadband internet access, forget it. But if you’ve got a good connection, then you should check this out.

If you go to www.jungledisk.com, you can find all you need to get started. Jungle Disk is the program that will run on your computer. They have versions for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. It’s free to try for a month and then 20 USD for a lifetime license. I could go on for a long time about all of the features, but I bet you don’t want me to do that. I’ll just hit some of the main points. When you start your computer, Jungle Disk will mount your S3 drive so you can copy data to and from it just like a hard drive. It allows you to encrypt the data you save to it. You can also set up a scheduled backup. And as I said before, it’s cheap. You can look at the details on the website, but I can tell you that I’m backing up around 20 - 25 GB of data and I’m paying around 4 USD a month. Plus, I’ve heard that Jungle Disk and Amazon S3 will also open your beer and put extra hot sauce on your buffalo wings. Okay, I made that last part up because I’m on the verge of annoying even myself with how many compliments I can give this service.

I’m done now. Just try it. You’ll be amazed at the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you know that you could pound a railroad spike through your computer’s hard drive and still have all your data.