How should I backup my computer?

[Statik]

So i'm coming up on about 9 months with my rig, and I thiiiink I should be giving it a backup. I know there's your standard secondary HDD, external HDD, etc. But what other options do I have? I've heard of a NAS before, but still am not 100% sure on how they work. How affordable are they? And would they be a valid option?

 

Also how would backing up to a cloud/network, etc work? How would I do that?

If something like a NAS isn't too expensive, and a valid option, I'll probably set it up to backup all the computers in my house.

[TDP_Equinox]

Well, my super ghetto excuse of a "backup" is literally manually copying the user folder to dropbox every few weeks.
One method i recommend is an external drive with crash plan running, automatically backing your stuff up.

If you get a NAS, you can also use Crash plan and set the network location; if that's your thing.

Again, crash plan has it's own cloud backup if you pay a monthly/yearly fee.

 

[Godlygamer23]

You can certainly use a NAS to backup to - however, if it's only one PC that you're backing up, it's a waste of money. You're better off just buying an external/internal hard drive to backup to. That being said, I use a NAS for backups and streaming(including games).

[kristaps552]

I've got my media pc with 4x tb drives, now what I plan on doing (when I get a gigabit switch cuz sky hub sucks ass) is backing up my SSD onto my 2TB hdd thats in my rig, and then that gets incrementally backed up onto the media pc. I can do that all using ease us to do backup free. And I think for the SSD I will do Daily backups, and for the HDD I will do weekly backups.
And I think that is not a bad option for backups. It would work roughly the same way with a nas.

[Statik]

You can certainly use a NAS to backup to - however, if it's only one PC that you're backing up, it's a waste of money. You're better off just buying an external/internal hard drive to backup to. That being said, I use a NAS for backups and streaming(including games).

How do you use your NAS for streaming?

 

If I were to get a NAS I'd be backing up probably 2 computers, and maybe a laptop?

 

EDIT: I forgot to include I have no idea which NAS is best, or what's good, and there is such a range in prices.

[Godlygamer23]

How do you use your NAS for streaming?

 

If I were to get a NAS I'd be backing up probably 2 computers, and maybe a laptop?

 

EDIT: I forgot to include I have no idea which NAS is best, or what's good, and there is such a range in prices.

For me personally, I have my specific user account folder set up as a network drive. With that, I can use it like a normal drive. Right now, I have all my major stuff copied to it, including all my iTunes media, PSOne games(and the emulator), an older PC game(for testing), and installers archived. Whenever I play media through iTunes, it comes from there.

 

If you decide on a NAS, I would definitely get a mirror storage drive for every hard drive you add(of the same capacity, obviously). This allows you to keep your data in the event your main drive(s) fail(s).