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Backup Media Options

Everyone has their own preference on how they feel is the best way to backup their information. I personally prefer hard drive backups. One of their downfalls is that they are expensive and prone for failure so I am forced to use multiple drives for backup. Everything here has good and bad things to come from their use. What is everyone's experience with them and what do you find the best?

Options Media Backup

At the moment - DVDs are their best form of backup for me. Once you burn a DVD it is pretty much easy for you to walk around with it, make copies, hide it, etc. They hold a good amount of info with 4.5 GBs being the average. The other forms are either too small, easily corrupted or not moveable. I heard flash memory sticks are the next best thing, but they are too expensive and I have not seen any holding as much as a DVD yet.

Backup Media Options Gaming Video & Issues Computer

Due to a debate I had today with a client that has been having issues with their backup recently I have added Paper Print Out or in other words *hard copy to the poll.

My client's argument is that there is no technology that is nearly as reliable as a paper file. While I stress to him the vastness of his venture in the sheer amount of information that he actually has that he backs up daily.

Paper in my mind is very primitive as so much of society has gone to a nearly paperless environment. A paper backup is also very time consumptive to properly maintain.

Options Media Backup

Just today, we are installing a VTL at my office for our backups. We will hang a tape drive off of that in order to make copies of the backup to take offsite to protect us in the event of a server room catastrophe. For those who don't know, VTL is Virtual Tape Library, which is a very large hard drive in essence. We will have 3 TB initially.

In addition to the VTL, we will be using some TIVO technology when backing up our Exchange database.

I believe from a technical standpoint a hard drive is more reliable than tape, but I think any system that backs up electronically is more reliable than paper. Paper fades, runs when wet, burns, etc. Not to mention, how do you get the data back on the server when you need to do a restore...