What is the most important Purchase?
Some sort of Data Backup, any sort!
This is an educational announcement, no inspiration here just wisdom. If you already have an automatic backup system in place skip this blog post and look at my gallery instead. If you don’t have an automatic backup system then keep reading.
I just purchased this one week ago after my 1TB version was all filled up. This won’t be a technical review of hardware… so if you’re looking for that look elsewhere.
So why is this the most important purchase?
You will suffer a hard drive failure at some point in your life, unless you’re ridiculously lucky. When it happens it will either be the biggest stress that you’ve faced in a long, long time or it will be a minor inconvenience… YOU get to decide what it will be RIGHT NOW!
Common Types of Backup Available
- Online Backup Sites (like Carbonite or Intronus or Mozypro)
- Internal Raid (duplicate harddrives with mirrored data)
- External Harddrive (Using Apple Time Machine)
- Manual backup onto CD/DVD/Microdrive
So of all those I opt for option 3. External Harddrive. Is it as secure as other backup options? Well it does not always protect data in the case of rare events like war, floods, hurricanes, or Dick Cheney hunting accidents… things like that, but it does protect against a much more common form of data loss – unexpected and unannounced harddrive failure.
Backing up with a Mac is about the easiest thing you’ll do in your life. To start automatic backups all you do is open your system preferences, click on time machine, select the backup drive, turn the BIG switch from Off to On.
You’re finished.
You can tweak the settings if you want but the backup starts immediately, once backed up it continually updates the backup file. And it really does work like a time machine, you can open a folder and choose whatever version of a particular file you want to back up to within the last several days… distance of time in the past depends on the size of backup space available.
Why do I Use G-Technology?
I like these external hardrives from G-Technology for a couple reasons. Not only do they look sleek they also run nearly silently, they are pretty durable (I haven’t broke one yet) and work right out of the box with Mac (and work well).
I’m going to be honest, I don’t know a ton about hardware… but this is my third or fourth drive from G-Tech and I’ve had no problems with any of them. They also get good reviews… if you find a better external harddrive I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
In the mean-time do yourself a favor and pick one up… here’s the one I bought (August 2010), you may need much less or much more space than me… look around and find a solution that fits you!
G-Technology 4TB G-Raid External Harddrive Array
Whatever you do, don’t wait until you learn the hard way!
Once the first backup of all your data finishes and you have two copies of everything you will sleep much better at night… trust me.
Great post!! I already had one failed HD, and learned my lesson. WD 1G Ext. HD are on for only $60 today at Dell.com Great price to get started. Thanks Jake!
I’ve been using external LaCie hard disks for 5 years now and I swear by them. I would easily recommend them, especially if you are on Mac and use FireWire. A good friend of mine had been raving about the Drobo which I’m considering purchasing in the future. You get plenty of room to grow with one of those.
The drobo pro system is the best thing we have bought for data management. 16tb of heaven. To be honest though, my studio uses all of the above for back up, plus another setup at my house that mirrors our drobo pro. When images are you business you can’t afford to take any chances of losing any of them.
Great post.
Backup is sooo important, thanks for posting this Jake. I also love the G-Tech Drives. My only problem with them is if one of the drives in their array (RAID) products goes bad, which is the theory and reason you have a RAID, you have to send the drive to them to have them replace the bad one or get the data back to you. Seems too dependant for me. I suggest buying two single G-Tech Drives and Mirror them with Super Duper, CCC, etc. Or just get a Drobo 🙂
Brody – I’m curious how you mirror the drobo pro offsite. Is that just a feature of the drobo pro system or what? Sounds like a great system whatever it is.
Jake- it’s the coolest program ever. Each day, my assistant or myself moves the new files to a transfer drive and I bring it home and put them on my drive. 😉
Nothing fancy, just have to remember to do it each day. However, I did find a way to do it remotely, but it is very slow and almost worthless unless both connections are on fiber.