swirt
Forum founder. Former Owner.
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- May 17, 2008
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Bree's recent computer dead thread and subsequent talk about people backing up their systems got me thinking about the topic of backups. The only good backups are the ones that happen automatically.
Nearly a year ago I started using a network drive (it plugs into the network instead of a specific computer). It functions both as a shared drive, so any of my computers on my network can read and write to a section of it, and it sits there and makes back-ups of all the data on my computers. It encrypts it and makes multiple copies over time so I can actually go back three generations if I need to.
After quite a bit of research I chose the Western Digital 1 TB Network Attached Storage (NAS). You can get it now in 2TB or even 4TB versions (a Terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes). If you don't want it on the network and want to attach it to a specific computer they also make a USB 2.0 version that is a little cheaper.
The network version also has a media server running on it so you can store all of your itunes / mp3 files on it and serve them up to any computer on the network (I have an old laptop wired to my stereo so it can play them...makes it a lot faster than rifling through the CD collection. The media server files them automatically by artist, album, genre.
There is also a service that allows you to connect to the drive from outside the network (the internet), but since I use it for business and have security concerns I did not enable that feature. It might be secure enough, but I didn't want to take the risk. I have other secure methods to get into my network and that drive if I need to, without having to have the drive run the service for me.
Overall it was pretty easy to setup and it just chugs along doing its job without usually bothering anybody.
One nice feature about having it on the network, vs plugged into the usb port is that I have it located in a different part of the house than my main computer. That way if a plumbing leak or something were to hit my office and wipe out my computer, the NAS located in a different region of the house would still be fine. Ideally you want backup completely off-site (in case of fire) but this is the next best thing. For under $200 it is good peace of mind.
Nearly a year ago I started using a network drive (it plugs into the network instead of a specific computer). It functions both as a shared drive, so any of my computers on my network can read and write to a section of it, and it sits there and makes back-ups of all the data on my computers. It encrypts it and makes multiple copies over time so I can actually go back three generations if I need to.
After quite a bit of research I chose the Western Digital 1 TB Network Attached Storage (NAS). You can get it now in 2TB or even 4TB versions (a Terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes). If you don't want it on the network and want to attach it to a specific computer they also make a USB 2.0 version that is a little cheaper.
The network version also has a media server running on it so you can store all of your itunes / mp3 files on it and serve them up to any computer on the network (I have an old laptop wired to my stereo so it can play them...makes it a lot faster than rifling through the CD collection. The media server files them automatically by artist, album, genre.
There is also a service that allows you to connect to the drive from outside the network (the internet), but since I use it for business and have security concerns I did not enable that feature. It might be secure enough, but I didn't want to take the risk. I have other secure methods to get into my network and that drive if I need to, without having to have the drive run the service for me.
Overall it was pretty easy to setup and it just chugs along doing its job without usually bothering anybody.
One nice feature about having it on the network, vs plugged into the usb port is that I have it located in a different part of the house than my main computer. That way if a plumbing leak or something were to hit my office and wipe out my computer, the NAS located in a different region of the house would still be fine. Ideally you want backup completely off-site (in case of fire) but this is the next best thing. For under $200 it is good peace of mind.