Best Backup Systems

[ohsoquiet]

Hello!

I am trying to decide if iI want to buy Apple's Airport Time Capsule for wireless back up (but am seeing some pretty bad reviews).  I currently have an external hard drive but never remember to do it frequently enough.  I wanted to know more about your back up systems.  Do some of you only rely on dropbox?  I don't know why I feel strange having everything (no data) on dropbox ... but I am thinking this might be the way to go...  What do you guys do?

Thanks for any help!

[Pink Fuzzy Bunny]

4 minutes ago, ohsoquiet said:

Hello!

I am trying to decide if iI want to buy Apple's Airport Time Capsule for wireless back up (but am seeing some pretty bad reviews).  I currently have an external hard drive but never remember to do it frequently enough.  I wanted to know more about your back up systems.  Do some of you only rely on dropbox?  I don't know why I feel strange having everything (no data) on dropbox ... but I am thinking this might be the way to go...  What do you guys do?

Thanks for any help!

I do something similar... I use Google Drive as "my documents". It has the benefit of everything always being backed up, plus I can go back and forth between computers without having to e-mail myself anything. It's just a folder on my computer, like My Documents - there's no difference.

[sjoh197]

I find that external hard drives are the most reliable, and like you said, the big problem is remembering to use it. I solved that problem by just scheduling it into my actual calendar. My partner used a bunch of different click free and wireless back ups and ended up reverting back to the hard drive. 

[TakeruK]

If you have a Mac, TimeMachine is a pretty good backup system (not the wireless type, but the one that is physically plugged into the computer). I back up my work iMac in this way---I just leave the external hard drive in all the time and set it up to back up every so often (Time Machine defaults). So, there are hourly backups for the last day, daily backups for the last week, etc. (or whatever the backup is).

For my personal laptop, I also use TimeMachine with an external hard drive I keep at home. I only do this weekly though (only personal stuff on the laptop at home, nothing work critical). I just leave it plugged in overnight on a weekend night. 

I also store a lot of things in the Cloud via DropBox and/or Google Drive. All of my coursework and papers are saved on my Dropbox-linked folder. So for the super important stuff, in theory, it's on the machine I created it, the external hard drive that backs up the machine and in the "cloud" (i.e. Dropbox's servers). I don't store data in these folders (too big), so I just keep it on my own machine (which is backed up) and also on my department servers (which is backed up independently). Finally, the telescope themselves also store my data and back it up (although this is just the raw data products, but I can always re-run my analyses if something terrible were to happen to all of the above machines).

My main use of Dropbox is for ease of access between machines rather than a backup but it works as an extra backup. I like TimeMachine better for backing up personal things because then I don't have to keep everything in a Dropbox folder and I don't have to make sure I have enough space left etc. And, I think TimeMachine also saves things like App settings so I can just restore everything if I screw up my personal computer in some way. 

[rising_star]

I don't know your field but there have been some PRISM related concerns for those in some fields about using Google Drive or Dropbox to backup files. I prefer SpiderOak or SugarSync (and pay to use the latter). The features suited my needs better than Dropbox or Google Drive at the time and I'm a creature of habit so I've never switched. Everything saved in "My Documents" on either of my personal laptops or my work computer is backed up there. It also means I can download those files to any of the other computers. I also have an external hard drive which I periodically back things up to.

[ohsoquiet]

Thanks everyone!  Very helpful!