Your turn to help me –
So writing on Emerald City, combined with a trip to Chicago last weekend, has totally killed my blogging output here. I can’t seem to catch up — but I miss you –
Anyway — While toting my laptop around halfway across the country, letting it get x-rayed multiple times, I started thinking I really, really need to get an external hard drive to back up my stuff — mainly my music, like the new Radiohead album.
What should I be looking for in a backup hard drive, aside from the amount of memory it offers? The wikipedia article, while v. detailed, is not actually useful in helping me figure out what info’s actually important… I have a Dell XPS M140, if that makes a difference –
Well, it depends what you want to do with the drive. Backup only? Just get a USB 2.0 drive with plenty of space.
Not too much data? You might be interested in an online backup service like Mozy. (Beware - monthly fees, so in the long run, it’ll be more expensive than a HDD. But they make sure your data is safe)
Tons of data? You might want to look at a dedicated storage thing like Infrant ReadyNAS. (Warning - dedicated storage *starts* at about $600, and you should have at least a couple hundred gigabytes of *really* important data before you think about that)
Only backing up music, and you have iTunes? Try bandwagon
If you want an external drive only, does it need to be portable?
If it’s really *purely* for backup purposes at home, in the 160 GB drive from Western Digital. (What can I say - beautiful color, and decent HDD, for $150)
(I should really turn this into an article at some point ;)
Comment by Robert 'Groby' Blum — October 16, 2007 @ 1:56 pm
‘in the 160 GB drive’ was meant to spell “I’m eyeing the 160 gb drive”. No idea where that got lost ;)
Comment by Robert 'Groby' Blum — October 16, 2007 @ 2:03 pm
It sounds like you have pretty simple needs. A USB port will do.
Get a hard drive that is about 3x bigger than the drive you have, and get backup software to do everything automatically for you. Mine backs up every time I shut down (when I’m at my coking station). It’s REALLY slow the first time, because it copies every file. But subsequent backups take only a minute or so because it knows which files have been altered.
I use FileBack software, which is pretty simple.
Note: Many hard drives offer a power-saving feature. Great for global-cooling greenies like us. But they sometimes result in wonky behavior (like not turning on when they are supposed to). My Seagate, for example, is wonky. It might be smarter to turn the drive on and off manually before and after you back up. Not really a difficult thing to do…… If you do that, you won’t have to worry about finding a “green” product.
Comment by Raphael — October 16, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
There’s a bunch of manufacturers making “green” hard drives now. Well, maybe not a bunch. But a handful. This one claims to be the most efficient:
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hard-drives/kangurus-eco-drive-is-the-worlds-most-energy-efficient-external-hard-drive-280774.php
Comment by stevejust — October 16, 2007 @ 6:24 pm
I used to work in IT, so please forgive the long spew that follows.
Here’s the short answer: do all of the following types of backup early and often:
1.) permanent media such as CDs and DVDs,
2.) flash drives or external hard drives
3.) the Internet.
First of all, I’d recommend that you go ahead and get the external hard drive. You can get insane amounts of storage for very little money these days. I have a laptop with a seriously undersized hard drive and I not only needed a backup solution, I needed to free up space. In any event, I find that having a centralized place for the files is essential to being able to actually find stuff again. The other great thing about an external hard drive is that you can backup data from several computers. Most of us wind up with outdated “doorstop” computers (which is a completely unnecessary solid waste problem whose origin is largely Microsoft’s incessant parade of increasingly bloated operating systems. But I digress). With an external hard drive you can keep files from every computer you ever own, or every computer in the family, whatever.
I also do CD backups. (Better yet would be to backup onto DVDs, if you have a drive that can do that, since DVDs hold more space.) These you would have to organize. But the good thing about CDs and DVDs is their permanence. Once a month or week, whatever is comfortable, make the backup and label the date on the disk. Then that dated version of your files is out there forever. I’ve been doing Nanowrimo since 2002. Thanks to this annual self-inflicted torment, I have numerous short stories and several novels. Occasionally I have managed to delete something, who knows how, but these things happen. The CD backups have saved me each time. I can go back in time to the point before which the missing thing was murdered. A backup onto any kind of hard drive (depending on how it was done) might have also backed up the fact that the file had been deleted. The same issues would apply if your computer was infected with a virus, for good or ill. There would be discs that would be virus-infected forever, but others would presumably have the files in a pre-virus state. In any case, the key would be to have the discs findable, organized and labelled, something at which I personally am a little iffy.
But then you also want to consider what would happen if, say, your home were burglarized/burnt down/otherwise destroyed in one of LA’s famously apocalyptical disasters. In that case your backups would be lost right along with the computer. Hence you also want to use a strategy that businesses use, namely, the offsite backup. For most of us chickens that could be something as simple as the old Nanowrimo standby, emailing key documents to yourself. You could use one of the storage services that Robert Blum recommended.
However, you may not like the privacy implications of storing things on somebody else’s network in this day and age in which phone and Internet service providers seem to turn data over to the government at the drop of an illegal subpoena (AT&T has at least one locked room containing NSA equipment; Verizon was just outed today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/15/AR2007101501857.html). In that case, your offsite backup can be as simple as dropping the occasional CD off at a friend or relative’s house, preferably in another city.
Comment by Deli Korkmaz — October 16, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
I personally prefer the online service for backups because its a very safe and accessible place to keep my data.
My hosting account has plenty of extra storage space, so I backup my personal data to there. I use an opensource software called rsync to automatically sync most of my data with my online account daily. If you don’t mind manually doing the backups, its very easy install an FTP client on your laptop and manually copy the files to your hosting account.
If you don’t have too much data and willing to a pay monthly, backup.com has a simple to use software that automatically backups your files. My company uses this service for Quickbooks backups and it was pretty easy to install and setup.
Comment by Jason — October 17, 2007 @ 12:55 am
Deli:
Without making specific endorsements, do you have any comments or critiques about internet backup services? Things to look for/avoid? Green concerns?
Comment by Raphael — October 17, 2007 @ 8:07 am
As for green concern, I see dvd’s and cd’s as deposible media. Compared to hard drives, flash media consume less power to function and less parts to manufacture, but memory space is limited.
As for online service, the green responsibility is transferred to the provider. Ideally, the provider has a few large storage systems that is shared among lots of customers.
Maybe this analogy will help explain the green differences:
flash media - bicycle
cd/dvd - disposible bicycle
hard drive - car
small online service - bus
small non-green online service - private airplane
large online service - train
large non-green online service - large airplane
Comment by Jason — October 17, 2007 @ 1:05 pm
Hey, Jason,
I don’t really know about online services, although I guess you would have economies of scale–one server holds many people’s stuff, hence your bus analogy. On the other hand, how possible is it to have a truly green online service? Is green compatible with, say, redundancy? Not to mention that you would certainly expect an online service to perform regular backups. So maybe an online service is more like an electric car recharges using electricity from a petrofuel or nuclear power plant–they foist off the ecological cost somewhere else. But I’m just guessing. I’ve been curious myself about the whole topic of computers and greenness.
Maybe I’m too blithe, but I’ve always gone under the assumption that the problems caused by using consumables such as CDs are outweighed by two factors. One would be that having backups is a non-negotiable, in the sense that in America owning a car is for most of us. Flash drives that are bigger than CDs are more affordable these days, but they’re terrible for archiving. And, my monthly cash flow is erratic enough that I don’t want to pay for an online service.
I always assumed that the biggest ecological problem posed by computers was the heavy metals and other nasties that leech out of disposed boards, cards, and especially batteries and monitors. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s Windows upgrades are driving many of the new system purchases. Since this brings in revenue both for Microsoft and the PC manufacturers, I don’t see any incentive for any of those players to change that little scheme. (For that matter, there’s no point in owning a pre-OS 10 Mac either, since there’s no usable browser for that anymore). The best way to fight that power is to install Linux, which the average bear doesn’t want to bother with. So maybe a good green initiative for geeks would be to convert their neighbor’s old pcs into Linux-fueled Internet appliances.
The other major environmental problem is the power used by computer components. The way to solve that is to have your monitor go black after a period of inactivity, have your system go into standby (although some systems aren’t so great about waking up again…), and turn off any peripherals when not in use. My external hard drive hums and vibrates whether or not I’m accessing it, so I keep it off most of the time.
Parents who want to limit their kids’ screen time can green up at the same time by simply hiding the power cord when time’s up. When my son wants to use my laptop, I put away its AC adaptor. The battery is so degenerated that my son gets just over 1/2 hour before it cuts him off.
I don’t have any concrete numbers or figures for any of the above claims, however. I’m just going by occasional articles in the MSM about landfills or the latest thing that’s sickening Chinese factory workers. (Which leads to another consideration: the environmental impact of the manufacture of certain products). The whole thing cries out for some coherent analysis.
Comment by Deli Korkmaz — October 17, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
Yeah, I think that Jason’s analogies aren’t too realistic. But they are food for thought.
I have never heard of a disposable bicycle, though!
Comment by Raphael — October 17, 2007 @ 10:50 pm
The best backups depends on how much you have to backup. Personally I have lots of photographs and some music so I use 2 external hard drives, one at home as the main backup and one that I update every week or so and leave in my office. Nice, easy and quick. That gives me 3 copies of everything (including the one on my laptop) so that should be safe enough (touch wood).
Comment by Declan — October 18, 2007 @ 2:16 am
I don’t know if someone has already mentioned this but notebook external hard drives (2.5″) are designed so that you don’t need an outlet to plug it in. The hard drive will take the power from your laptop, which _may_ be a problem, but I find it more convenient. Regular external hard drives that need to be plugged into the wall are 3.5″.
Comment by Roy H — October 19, 2007 @ 2:27 pm
Its difficult to tell if an online backup company is green, unless that info is publicized. Even if they claim to be green in their marketing efforts, it could be greenwashing.
In the datacenter, the things I watch for in server and storage hardware is RoHS certification and power efficiency. Some servers and storage are more energy efficient than others. I won’t give any specifics, but most of the ones I work with and provide to customers are RoHS complaint and very efficient. The efficient servers consume less power and less heat, which can significantly decrease the load on datacenter air conditioning.
I agree with what Deli mentions about the inefficiencies of the PC and the unnecessary upgrades. To add for the enterprise level, many companies are moving to thin clients instead of the typical PC. The remote offices I support have thin clients, which are basically small appliances that do the same thing as a PC. One of the recent office I recently built has 100 12W thin clients that are serviced by 3 unix servers (which consume about 450W each). Thin clients also have a much longer service life than a PC. Linuxworld has an interesting article about this, which reduced Verizon’s call center’s electrical use by 30%.
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/050407-thin-client-verizon.html
I don’t think any of this answer’s Siel’s original question about backups.
Comment by Jason — October 19, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
Related to your post about you dont want an external hard drives, laptops getting stolen, which happens a lot…we at AISO have a solution. A laptop that wont have any of that…no external hard drives, fully backed up every few hours, and if its stolen you wont loose any data…take a look at them here and more information about them:
http://www.aiso.net/virtual-desktop-solutions.asp
The main site that will be selling them is here:
http://www.agreenpc.com
Comment by Steven — October 19, 2007 @ 4:54 pm
Steven, I didn’t think anyone offered a “virtual desktop” as a service. I often do something similar off my company’s vmware servers without any problems. Combined with the 100% solar powered datacenter, it sounds like a very green option.
Btw, I see your datacenter with the large solar panels on the live.com satellite image. Not sure how outdated that picture is though.
Comment by Jason — October 20, 2007 @ 5:19 pm