'Backup' method

[Leglessmatt]

Soooo...after years of explaining the point of backing up his data, my friend has finally lost loads of data on his work computer...(from what I can gather one of his Saturday workers checked their email and a few mins later he couldn't open files, or so he said...I'm not sure it could happen that quick)

He works opposite a local computer shop (not big chain, just 5-10 employees etc) so he brought a new computer (the original was still running xp and was a little worse for wear).

He explained he wanted a good backup solution for data (less than a gig in total). Instead of explaining the options, the other shop literally just put a second hdd in the case and said 'don't worry all data will be duplicated over the drives'....

I'm trying my hardest to talk him into a better solution - USB 3 hdd, Dropbox etc. but he's under the impression that the local PC shop wouldn't rip him off as they are local and 'pretty friendly'...

...I personally think he's been taken for a ride, what do you guys think??

Better solution may be a local nas as he uses iPads, Apple TV and is considering a couple more static pcs. But then again well all know nas is not a backup solution either!!

Cheers

[C_Mike]

Using a second HDD as a "backup drive" is practically pointless. If there's a power surge, a fire or some sort of natural disaster his data will be gone, and the second HDD would have made no difference. If its only a small amount of data , like you said he should use dropbox or some other sort of cloud-based storage.

 

If he doesn't want to do that, then he could backup to an external drive or usb flash drive, and keep it in a fire safe to keep is protected.

[Almercenary]

For a backup ALWAYS either use offline HDD's OR a cloud based method. Or else there is no point really.

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Always at least have one offsite backup, whether it be cloud or a NAS at some other place (or even more primitively a HDD that is regularly updated and then moved away) doesn't matter much unless his data is extremely sensitive (as in someone wants to obtain it  without permission etc).

[Leglessmatt]

Thanks for the replies/advice - I generally backup/sync small folders (word docs etc) to Dropbox and nas, large folders (videos, photos,music) to nas (synology), then a copy of everything to and old hp micro server that's only turned on (via wol) when I want to backup...

Do you agree that the hp micro server (or other nas) is 'offline' (secure from viruses/ransomware/etc) enough, as it's technically connected but only turned on (at remote site) when needed, then out back to sleep?

Although cryptolocker etc work on network shares, so far I'm not aware of any virus/ransomware that can actually wake a remote device - let's hope they never exist!

As for the friend, I'll keep on at him ;-)