This is very embarrassing. I have been without a decent data backup strategy for a very, very long time. Yesterday I finally did something about it. My backup setup is rather ghetto – a 120 gig hard drive (about $100 bucks at a friendly neighborhood computer store) and a USB 2.0 enclosure (another 50 bucks). For software I used the backup utility that comes with Windows 2000. At least now my photos and mp3s that took forever to rip from my scratched up cds live in more than one place. Why didn’t I do that before? Because I am a lazy moron.
Later on I will probably put together a backup server with a couple of 200 gig drives (about $200 a pop) that will do backups automatically over the network every couple of days. I will also probably take a look at books about how backups are done professionally. I mean, ideally I should have had an off-site backup service. But one look at what those cost sent me reeling. Besides, it would take some bandwidth to upload or download in case of a crash 30-50 gigs worth of files. I also looked at tapes, but cartridges often cost more than equivalent hard drives, and the drives themselves are not very cheap. I don’t really see a better affordable way to keep backups right now.