back up questions

[footballdude2k3]

alright, i am a comp sci major and i have been doing some coding, currently i have 2 pc laptops, i am getting an apple later this summer to do some objective c work. at some point i will be building a home theater pc and possibly a gaming rig down the line.

my question is on backing up files, i want to back up the code, school documents, and also pictures, both personal and professional, do some photog on the side. the three different things i am thinking about doing are building a home server, getting a couple external drives, or some internal drives with a toaster. what do you think the best options would be and why?

 

[setishock]

NAS setup. But there you have to be careful cause there's a lot of junk out there.
I've been looking at some routers that have a usb port for adding externals drives. Do your homework before you decide which route you want to go.

 

[Dngrsone]

I concur. NAS is a good starting point.

In order to have a real backup solution, though, you will want to have at least two copies-- one off-site, so that if anything catastrophic happened (say, a fire in your home/apartment; or even sillier, your NAS drive crapped out), you'll still have another copy of your backup files.

Off-site could mean a few burned discs or a portable drive in a safe-deposit box or at work, or 'cloud' storage, where you upload data to the internet.

Of course, storing data in the cloud requires internet access, which might not always be available (which is why I prefer to have physical copies in the form of burned DVDs and duplicated hard drives.