What backup strategy do you use?
 
Examples:
Do you have an external hard drive that you move from computer to computer?
Do you have an extra internal hard drive for each computer?
Do you keep two extra copies of your important files in to physical locations?
Do you use an external RAID so you can either add more storage as needed or redundancy built in?
Do you use a backup service?
 
I have an external hard drive that I move from computer to computer but it no longer holds all my files so I need more space and I am trying to decide which way to go.
 
It seems like no matter how big of a drive you get, it will fill up, especially if you have multiple computers.
 
An external service seems convenient but what if they go out of business? I suppose you could just find a new one and for a short time be exposed.
 
Thanks

For my main pc, which is dual boot Win 7/Win 8.1 with separate SSD drives, I have an internal Hard drive that I alternate backups between that drive and an external USB connected drive.  I use Macrium Reflect (paid version) and do full drive backups when I back up.
 
I have my Sonar projects on a separate hard drive.  I backup projects from that hard drive to the USB connected drive.  This is a one for one copy, I don't use Macrium for that.
 
On my backup PC, which is also dual boot Win 7/Win 8.1, I use Macrium and do full drive backups to a USB connected drive.  I don't do backups to two different drives as this is only a backup for my DAW PC and if something were to happen I really haven't lost anything other than the time to reinstall everything.
 
 

Thank you for the reply

I image the DAW C: drive to an external (USB) drive.
 
I sync/copy my projects to the same USB drive.
 
I need to implement a cloud strategy for that ~1TB of data.
 
All my downloads are archived to a separate NAS (~600GB) or are on purchased hard drives i.e. Soundsonline, NI's K10U, BIAB.
 
I really do need to get a 2TB or > cloud storage account setup.

With doing local backups, I worry about having enough HD space and keep track of everything. With a cloud service, I worry about them going out of business.
 
I found an online service that is only $29/yr but then how long will they be around?
 
I was thinking at a minimum I would image my drive prior to Windows 10. I have a 500GB drive for data backup now but it is too small for our growing family of computers with photos, music, etc... 
 
I like the idea of getting an external shell, then buying hard drives to put in it. That way you can use RAID configurations.
 
...But then I like the cloud idea for the convenience.
 
Decisions, decisions.
 
Thanks!

Projects recorded to SSD.

SSD then copied over to internal HDD (PC) or external USB3 HDD (Mac).

Further copies then made to network accessible storage, with a final copy to 2TB USB drive connected to NAS.

Then clear SSD to recover space if needed.

I don't use remote cloud storage because I like to know where my data is and what it is doing. Also copying large quantities of data to internet storage is a slow process. Finally it's much cheaper to buy 2TB external drives than to hire anything like that amount of remote storage. Once the drive attached to the NAS is full (or if we're going away) it gets relocated to a more secure location just to be on the safe side.

The principle is that data which exists in only one place is transient and could vanish at any time if the drive fails. When I ran HDDs in RAID 0 I was even more paranoid. But I've seen hard drives fail and also seen people I know lose important data when a drive fails without warning. Including a friend who lost their entire Master's research thesis, both the final version and all the drafts, along with all the data it was based on a couple of weeks before it was due to be printed off and handed in. Did they have a backup? Yes, but on the same drive as the "working" data set. Duh!

Once upon a time I burned backups to CD then as the technology became available, DVD. Nowadays I just use external HDDs because they're cheap and at least as reliable as DVDs burned from an optical computer drive and far faster to work with.

I run a nightly job to local NAS.  No compression or anything else.  Just folders and their files so they're readable by any machine without needing to do anything special

It's also been said (wisely) if you don't have offsite backup (as a third copy) then you don't really have a backup.
 
That's the part that scares me. Having an external HDD copy (as I do) is great when the main drive fails. But what if a power surge knocks out all the storage in my home? That's where my strategy fails. Further if there is fire that destroys my home what good is my backup strategy if all backups where in my home?

These are all good point which is why I am asking.
 
Thanks for all the responses!

bapu
It's also been said (wisely) if you don't have offsite backup (as a third copy) then you don't really have a backup.
 
That's the part that scares me. Having an external HDD copy (as I do) is great when the main drive fails. But what if a power surge knocks out all the storage in my home? That's where my strategy fails. Further if there is fire that destroys my home what good is my backup strategy if all backups where in my home?

Good points Bapu, but when the insurance cost is greater than the value of the item ...
 
Only our telecom metadata is worthy of a Yucca-like facility