Is there a way to prevent "errors" with 2.5" USB back up drive?

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Batman

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#171441 18-Apr-2015 11:25

One day I plan to get a desktop with RAID 1 hard drive config to back up my stuff

For now it's doubling up 2.5" USB 3 drives. Despite making sure it is always "safely remove" - and if it won't i sleep my system (i hope that will mean the drives are properly stopped?) before removing.

Is that the most you can do to prevent "errors"?

PS - also, what do you guys think of getting 2.5" drives and buying a USB 3 enclosure and keep swapping them around for purposes of backup?

sidefx

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#1286752 18-Apr-2015 11:38

RAID != backup.

Even a USB drive isn't really a backup as such if you're keeping it in the same physical location as the original data

IMO go with a proper cloud backup solution like crashplan.

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#1286755 18-Apr-2015 11:53

yes i plan to investigate cloud when i have UFB, but at the moment it will take lightyears to backup.

maybe i could start investigating now ... is crashplan encrypted / how do you know no one will access/steal/copy/see/get/etc your data?

timmmay

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#1286759 18-Apr-2015 11:53

Configure the drive so it doesn't use caching and it doesn't matter when you pull the plug. If you can't dismount suggest you restart.

If you want to detect errors format it ReFS instead of NTFS. Can only be read on Win8.1+ I think. Have two backup drives.

As SFX said, raid is not a backup, it's to ensure uptime while you replace a drive.

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#1286764 18-Apr-2015 11:58

RAID on a separate computer. but i will be in the same house, i don't own so many houses

on second thoughts why do i RAID, just chuck 2 drives in and copy twice DUH

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#1286791 18-Apr-2015 13:01

Good suggestions above. Basically if you want to be able to pull the drive from USB at any time, make sure you configure it for Quick Removal.

Also RAID 1 is not backup. Worth repeating many times. RAID is only good for one drive failure. If you delete a file by mistake it's gone, gone from both drives.

You either keep using USB, or copy to another device at home (NAS or other PC) or to cloud.

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#1286820 18-Apr-2015 14:37

Thanks for the advise, before I crack my head figuring out the RAID controllers only to discover (eventually) what you guys have told me.

richms

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#1286886 18-Apr-2015 17:11

Just use crashplan and you can do a backup to an external drive, it handles incrementals etc, and you can send the really important stuff to the cloud now, and gradually add the folders of less important stuff and let it do its thing overnight on those. You can make multiple groups of folders and specify times they run at, so I have documents going all the time, but the music collection only between 5am and midday when I am not trying to use the connection.

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#1286932 18-Apr-2015 18:58

Another vote for Crashplan. Good bang for buck. You can access the backed up files remotely if you need to, which can come in handy.

You could use a USB drive as well if you like, but if you don't encrypt the content and someone got hold of the drive, then they would have access to all of your files!

joker97:maybe i could start investigating now ... is crashplan encrypted / how do you know no one will access/steal/copy/see/get/etc your data?

Yes it is. Use a good long passphrase/password. Without that passphrase/password no one can access your data.

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