My Backup Strategy

In this blog, I would like to describe my backup strategy at home with my Mac computers and portable devices. I am not pretending that it is the only solution or the best solution, but it works well for me. I had so many friends asking me about my backup strategy because they lost data in the past. Some have paid huge amount of money to recover data on a dead hard drive. I want to help them avoid these problems and costs.  Instead of telling each of them  separately  , I though of putting my strategy in writing and offer it to everyone.

Why protect your data?

There are many disasters than cause you to lose your data. One of the main causes is hard drive failure. Even though a hard drive looks very durable, it will eventually fail. Even if the average life expectancy of a hard drive is between 5 to 10 years, nothing prevents a hard drive from failing after one year, after one month or even after one day. Many people told me: “My data is safe, I just bought a brand new hard drive”. Unfortunately, that is not something you can assume.

Data can also be lost if your portable devices such as your laptop, your iPhone or your iPod Touch gets stolen. If there is a break-in at your house, you could also lose all your data on your main desktop computer as well as any external hard drives. That means you could lose your primary storage as well as your backup storage. Data can also be destroyed because of a virus or malware, although this is less likely on a Mac. Finally, it could get destroyed in case of a natural catastrophe such as a fire or flooding.

 

What needs to be done?

• Data from your portable device need to be backed up daily (and make sure you do not carry the backup in the same bag as the device because if the device gets stolen, the backup could also be stolen at the same time).
• You need a daily backup or hourly backup of your computer on an external storage in case the main hard drive of your machine fails. This should be done as regularly  as possible. It doesn’t need to be your full OS and applications that are backup that frequently. It could be only your personal data, personal settings, photos, music and videos.
• You also need an “off-site” backup in case you get a break-in at your house or in case you there is a natural disaster at your house.
• Install files and serial numbers of applications you bought should be stored “off-site” as well.
• Your OS and installed app do not necessarily need to be backed-up because they can be reinstalled. Some people prefer to have a carbon copy or complete duplicate of their main hard drive on an external so in case of failure, they are immediately ready to boot from the duplicate and ready to work again. I personnally prefer to take advantage of a hard drive failure to reinstall, reformat, update and clean my system. Your choice!

 

How to do it? My own backup strategy

1. I synchronize my iPhone and iPod every single day with my main computer. That way, if they get stolen and they had information I don’t want to lose, the information will be safe on my computer.
2. I backup the main file of my laptop (music, photos, documents, e-mails, preferences, etc.) every time I am in the house using time machine via Wi-Fi (a USB external hard drive is hooked-up to the airport extreme). This could also be done using a time capsule. It is much better than having to remember to plug it to an external drive everyday, because most people will forget to do it and postpone it.
3. I backup the files on my desktop computer (music, photos, documents, e-mails, preferences, etc.) hourly using time machine with an external hard drive hooked to it.
4. I backup my install files and serials on a couple of DVD-Rs and I leave them at my brother’s house whenever I visit him. That way, the backup is not on-site.
5. I backup my most important and critical file on an on-line backup service called Mozy Unlimited Backup (you can use another one, but I really like Mozy). They offer unlimited space for a few dollars per month and everything is encrypted. If you have very little data, you could also use MobileMe Backup. Some people also like to use DropBox which keep a folder synchronized between two computers using the Internet.
6. Large video files are a problem. They are too big to upload to Mozy. They would take up to many DVD-Rs to bring at my brother’s house. What I have decided for those big video files is to purchase a Drobo. A Drobo is a hard drive enclosure that will let you put 4 to 8 hard drives and make a single big disk out of that. It allows you to mix different sizes of hard drive and has full redundancy (i.e. your data is always at least on two hard drives). If one of the hard drives dies, you can replace it and data will be copied from the remaining three to recover what has been “lost”. The Drobo is a very nice machine, but it tends to be expensive. You will need that only if you are shooting very large video files or you have a lot of data.

 

The flaws in my strategy

In general, I think my strategy allows me to keep my data very secure. Since I implemented it, I haven’t lost any data despite the death of two hard drives and some accidental file deletions. Is it perfect? Certainly not. There are a couple of flaws that I need to mention here. The first one is what if I get a break-in or natural disaster and both my computer and my Drobo get destroyed or stolen? In that case, I would lose my large video files since they are only available on the Drobo. On Mozy Unlimited Backup, I keep the smaller and critical files (documents, photos, music).

There has also been some report of problems with the Drobo when two drives die at the same time (or a second drive dies before you have time to replace the first one). In that case, I would also lose my large video files.

I currently live with those flaws. The risk of those happening is quite low and I got myself covered for all the other problems that could happen. Maybe one day, I will be able to afford a second Drobo that will be a copy of the first one and I will leave it with a neighbor or at my brother’s house. That would complete my perfect solution.

 

How much does it cost?

Obviously, there is a cost to a backup strategy like this one. However, you will find that the cost is very minimal compared to the cost of experts recovering your data  (if possible!) Here are some examples of costs involved:

• External Hard Drive: 1 Tb external hard drives are sold between $100-$130 these days.
• Drobo: a Drobo with four 1 Tb hard drives will cost you approximately $1000.
• Mozy Unlimited Backup: Mozy on-line backup will cost you about $5 a month for unlimited storage. You can also use Mozy Online Backup – 2GB Free
• Time capsule: a Time Capsule will cost you about $300 including the Wi-Fi router and a 500 Gb hard drive.
• Plus a few DVD-Rs to save your install files and serials.

As you can see, for less than $1500, your data can be quite secure.

I hope my backup strategy will be useful to you. If you have comments, please feel free to leave them here. I would love to know more about your own backup strategy. I am constantly fine-tuning mine and I would love to learn from you.