It’s 4 a.m., and instead of sawing logs, you’re still awake rebuilding a project that’s due in the morning because your hard drive is making the click-of-death sound, and your files are toast. After realizing there was no hope of recovering your files, you spent 3 hours installing your software from scratch on your friend’s laptop, and now you’re just praying that you can crank out something decent before the buzz from your third venti black coffee wears off. If only you had some kind of backup of those precious files.
I’ve been there, and felt the panic of not knowing if I’ll ever get my files back. I’ve cursed at hard drives that have my data eternally trapped in useless, cold metal discs. Years ago, I decided this would never happen to me again, and I developed this somewhat-simple backup strategy that has served me well ever since. It’s made up of two parts, which I’ll go over separately.
This setup protects against
- HDD Failure
- Fire
- Theft
- Power Surge
- Accidental File Deletion
Software Required
Working Files vs. Archive Files
I have two general groups of files that each get handled differently. The first is my ‘working files’, which consists of active projects I’m working on, my music, photos, and videos, and any other kind of file that I keep on my computer all the time. For me, these files usually total around 100GB.
The second group of files, Archive files, are those files that I don’t need to have immediate access to, but still need to be permanently stored somewhere secure. Some examples of archive files can be files for completed projects, camera RAW images that have been converted to JPEG already, or just files that you want to keep around, but don’t want or need them on your computer all the time.
Backups of Working Files
Working files are extremely important, especially if you do client work. If you miss a deadline because of a crashed or stolen hard drive, it’s not just your neck on the line, it’s probably going to affect your client as well, which is never a good thing. Here’s my strategy for backing up my working files.
Internal Nightly Mirror
I have three hard drives in my workstation. Two are configured in a RAID0 array for speed since I do a lot of video and motion graphics work. The third is a dedicated hard drive for automatically mirroring all my working files each night. The key word here is automatically. I don’t know about you, but I would never remember to manually back up every day, so this is a fully automated process that happens at 4 a.m. every day. The software I use is Second Copy, and what makes is so great is that it detects and backs up only the files that have been changed or created since the last backup, so it doesn’t wear out my drives by copying 100GB every single time.
Weekly External Mirror
The second part to backing up my working files is a weekly external mirror. This does the exact same thing, except this time it’s an external HDD that I mirror my working files to. I use Second Copy for this as well, and I have a separate profile set up for it to make it quick and easy. So now you’re asking ‘why would I need a backup of my backup?’ Here’s why… The internal nightly mirror will protect you against HDD failure, but what if you get a power surge that fries the whole comp? What if your whole computer is stolen, or the house burns down? I know these are somewhat rare and extreme situations, but they happen every single day. Having an external backup lets you put it in a safe place at work, or a safety deposit box, or at least in a fire safe.
Another benefit of having both a nightly mirror, and a weekly external mirror is that if you need to get yesterdays version of a file, or if you accidentally delete a file, you can get it back. This is why I prefer this setup to a RAID1 array, because you can go back and get yesterday’s files easily. With RAID1, if you overwrite or delete something, you don’t have any options except the weekly external mirror.
Archives – HDD and Disc
For my archive files, I keep a folder where I dump files to archive. Once that folder reaches the size of a DVD (about 4.7 GB), I’ll start a new folder, and start filling it up. When I get time, I’ll take each of these folders and copy them to an external hard drive, as well as put the contents of each folder onto a DVD.
I do this for a couple of reasons. First, it gives me two copies of my archive files so I can put one copy in a different physical location to protect against fire, theft, etc. The reason I make DVD’s is so that I’ll have 2 different formats, so that I have some options if I need to go back to my archives. I could probably go with another external HDD, but with Blu-ray writers becoming more and more affordable, I’ll just transition to them when the time comes, and put 25 or 50GB on each disc.
What about RAID?
RAID offers some great options for data protection, and if you’re comfortable with RAID setups, then I think they’re a good option. I prefer having access to yesterday’s version of my files, and I can also use the extra space on my backup drive for scratch discs, virtual machine images, or just extra temp space if I need it.
What about those online backup services like Mozy?
I’m not against these at all, and if you don’t create huge files on a daily basis, I think they’re a good option. The only thing I don’t like about them is that your data is being transmitted and stored somewhere in ‘the cloud’. I like the security of knowing exactly where my backups physically exist, and exactly how to access them without relying on any service. I guess I’m too much of a do-it-yourself person to rely on an online solution.
About Second Copy
First thing: I’m not getting paid by anybody to write this. I have just found that Second Copy is an essential tool for me. I’ve used it for 5 or 6 years, and it’s just a simple, solid, stable backup utility. I’m not going to go into detail about how to use it, but here are a couple of tips.
If you want to see exactly what files are going to be backed up in a certain profile, you can right click on the profile and choose ‘Show Preview’. Also, to keep your mirror clean and free of empty folders, go into the ‘How?’ tab, and click the advanced properties option, and check the ‘Delete empty folders after copy’ option.
So there’s my solution for protecting my files. I know there are lots of other ways to do it, so please feel free to comment and let me know how this method could be improved even further. Thanks for reading!
UPDATE – I forgot to mention one other option, which is Network Accessible Storage, or NAS. I’ve not used one myself, but my friend Sean pointed out this one made by Synology that looks like it’s a wonderful option. A NAS is basically an advanced hard drive enclosure that you can plug into your router so you can access it through your local network.
This is a really nice option for handling large files, especially if you have a gigabit network. It gives you some security against theft, because you could hide this device somewhere out of sight yet still have access to it. This is also be a great option if you don’t feel comfortable opening up your PC to add new drives, or if you work on a laptop that doesn’t have space for another drive.
