I know we've taked about data backups on here before and thinking of the Katrina type scenario where your home and everything in it is gone then its a good idea to keep backups of inmprtant stuff offsite. I just got a $30 DVD burner and stuck it inside a $20 USB case so I could plug it into either machine at my house and make some backups that can me stored elsewhere.

I just ran a quick backup of our pictures on my wife's and my laptop, hers fit on one dvd, mine on two (my buner will do dual layer so I can get a dual layer dvd and get that down to one). I have all our photo albums scanned from when we got married in 95 to 2000 when we switched to using a digital camera as well as one of my old baby books so I have the majority of our pictures backed up now on a dvd in our fireproof safe.
I backup our systems to external drives usually weekly and am thinking about making monthly dvd backups of important stuff like the pictures and taking them to my parents house or mailing them when we are not going to be going there for a while. I might buy a small fireproof safe and put there to store them and leave a key with them then burna dvd of their systems when we visit and bring it back with me to store for them. I'm trying to decide if I should send monthly backups down there, or maybe alrenate with my local ones and then after a year replace the monthly with yearly, etc.

How often everyone do you make one?
What do you use, CD, DVD, Tape?
Do you just store them at someone elses house or a safe deposit box?
How do you get them there, mail, hand deliver?
I'm wondering if anyone else does offsite backups

I have a small USB hard drive that I use for backups.

On my PC, I have an encrypted volume created with TrueCrypt. I use that volume for everything I want to keep.

To back it up, I just plug the hard drive into a USB port, and copy the encrypted file to the portable drive. Then I stuff the drive into my day rucksack.

I also keep a copy of the encrypted file at work so there's another copy hanging around.

(I do a similar thing with an encrypted volume on my Mac. Details are different, but the principle is the same.)

I have a USB enclosure that each time I upgrade my drive I put the removed one in and use it for backups. I do those locally about once a week.
Do you take that drive offsite?

Also I did mention that in my original post and an external hdd is only one form of backup so what do you use for another form?

I use SmartSync Pro it's the BEST backup solution I have found for EVERYTHING.
It lets you schedule an unlimited # of backups and types.

You can do archival, copy, incremental, and more. You can copy to another hard drive, you can have it e-mail the backup files, you can have it upload them to a server, you can have it burn you a dvd of your files. All at a schedule you set so it's 100% automated! (You can create different backups for different directories and select different types/options for EACH backup too)

I use it to backup to an external WD HD and then backup that HD to another WD external HD. This way when I go on vacation I simply take one of those with me. THat way if someone steals my comptuer or a fire occurs while I'm gone I still have a backup. I also use Carbonite.com to backup to their service my documents, I won't be using it anymore once the service expires since SmartSync Pro can upload to my server (I own a couple servers for wokr which I backup on to as well). I used to make a couple DVDs every month and store them at a remote location but I find uploading them to a remote location automatically easier. I still make DVDs every once in a while but this new backup solution is pretty damn tight I think <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I originally got SmartSync Pro to backup to an External HD to take with me when I leave icnase of disaster at my place and now I use it for everything.
If your computer has RAID that's 1 good step towards backup assuming your computer doesn't burn down or get stolen <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> I try to put RAID in all my computers as it's easiest to recover from and 100% automated/HD backup.

-Todd

Use only magnetic media, not DVD/CD, they rot. Get 2 USB drives, keep one outside in an ammo box, works great.

What about a fireproof safe instead of offsite?

Fireproof safes are not rated forever... more like 20-60 minutes and even then your stuff inside is not 100% safe.
Some "media" safes say that you can store CD's or DVDs but I sure wouldn't trust them.

CD's and DVD's may rot or crack but I've got some that are 10yrs old still working fine and I make backups monthly so new cd/dvd a month = long long time before it ever cracks or dies. Those thumb drives are great and they are getting bigger and cheaper every day. I think you can get 4gb ones for around $120 now!!

Any backup is better than none <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I do have a fireproof safe here with CD/DVD backups as well as important papers. I'm planning on a small one at the offsite location as well.

I'll elaborate on the next reply.

I have a firesafe at my house where I store backups as well as papers in. I'm planning to get a small one for storage at my parents house. Even if they only hold up for a few minutes in fire they are still well insulated enough that they make temperature and humidity changes slower inside which helps keep the media lasting longer.
One rule of backups is to always make multiples and make them on multiple types of media. I carry a USB flash drive in my EDC with my calendar and addressbook on it which are my two most important files. Then I make weekly backups to another drive in an USB enclosure either by plugging it in my laptop or over the network to another system. Then I unplug and hide that drive somewhere in case someone were to break in and steal my laptop and run. Next was CD backups in my firesafe but that I haven't kept up on because it was taking too many CD's. So i bought a DVD writer to get that going again. It took two DVD's just to backup my pictures because I have almost 9G there then the rest of my documents and such. So USB flash at $120/4G would get cost prohibitive. Then there was one DVD of pictures on my wife's system. She edits hers and I keep theme original so there is no jpg loss.
I'm trying to work out a schedule, I'm thinking of maybe monthly backups of pictures and other select important documents, and maybe quarterly for the rest and maybe only move things to my archive folder once a year and mack a backup of it at that time.
Just wanted to see if anyone else did similar and what your schedule was.

I'm using rsync for hdd backups as I run linux 99.9% of the time.
On a laptop so no raid available.
I always take my laptop with me so my backup drive is the one that stays home, so the only time I'm not covered is the times when I might leave the house for a short time and not take the laptop.
I'm thinking of something similar to the GFS tape rotation where my local hdd backup is the daily incrementals, then write important stuff to DVD monthly and then stuff I move to an archive folder just do yearly and back that up afterward. Each dvd I'll make two copies and keep on in my safe and one in the remote location.

I have a USB drive, this will be in addition to and not replacing the USB backups so I will have two different types of media.

$140 for 320GB external WD hard drive. Not to bad and smal enough for a backacpk to take with you when you travel or to grab when running out of burning house or emergancy grab and go.
I work on my PC for a living so I need a lot of stuff backed up taht's why I do multi-HD on site, dvd offsite, and multi-hd(raid) offsite(backup online to my server).

I don't really see the "need" to carry a USB drive daily with schedules etc. I have a Motoroal Q which I can do that on and access the itnernet on too.. (also plug into laptop and get internet).
My Q can also take memory cards and store/access stuff on it too.

I access my home PC through remote desktop to check e-mail, access files etc. I almost have a 1mbit upload from home so it's almost like im sitting there!

-Todd

This is my plan:

1. Weekly backup to two firewire drives, one at home and another in a safe deposit box.
2. Daily backup to USB flash drive.

One completely free option is to have your data backed up online at, for example, http://xdrive.com/.
They offer 5gigs for free.

Personally, for storing pictures I only use CD-R meant for archival such as Verbatim, it says "Archival life up to 100 years" on the box. You could store them in acid-free archival storage boxes and folders if you're really serious. I wouldn't trust towels of DVDs that they sell for a couple of cents for each. But it's true that for me family pictures are not that important, I don't have to back up 9 GB of pictures.

I also have a Sandisk USB flash drive. I would stay away from U3 technology.

BTW I found this: archivalsuppliers.com

Frankie

I use cds, paper and usbs, most in a fireproof safe.

That's all i use - external HDD - 2 of them, alternating. I've had CD's rot out after 6 years. Every year, at Xmas time, I do the Great Media Conversion - for $200 a year, I buy whatever the biggest USB drive there is for $200 and then copy EVERYTHING over to it, and then add from there. Eventually the smaller drive can't keep up with the data, by then it's time to buy a new drive. Currently, I'm running a 250GB and a 160 GB La Cie, they are identical in content. The 160 GB is being replaced this month with a 500GB Western Digital, which I've seen in the range of $200. Eventually, the 50GB drive will be "small" and will be replaced with a 1TB drive and so on.
This is just one of those chores like chainging the oil.

One thing you can do instead of buying USB drives, is just buy a regular drive and put it in the USB case you have, you can save a bit or get a larger drive for the price. I paid $20 for a USB case and each time I put a larger drive in my laptop stick the older one in that case.
I still want to do some kind of offsite media other than the USB drive to supplement it. I found a tip on another site about making an archive folder and placing documents in there that are not used anymore but you want to keep around just in case like documents for previous jobs, old tax, bank, and other info. Then we will move stuff to that at the end of a year and back it to CD/DVD only then so it makes a bit less that I need to burn.
I've had pretty good luck with cd's not going bad, still have some backups from the 90's that read fine but I do plan on replacing the old every so often.