1) Critical data (finances, IDs, photos…) : 1*32GB flashcard at home + 1 at work (in a drawer) ; redundant data, updated once every 3 months (data is pretty static)

2) Less sensitive data :
- Cloud (Dropbox) : for ebooks, health records, diplomas, univ. courses
- 2*1TB HDD (Samsung) : for music & videos (redundant data)

What’s next : encrypting the files

Final note : I try to keep the data I backup to the bare minimal. Even if I lose my videos/music, I would be able to download them again since I keep track of them using a directory lister.

Your plan is a very good plan. I am in the process of re-organizing my files and having all my files on my main pc, then backed up as backup files to externals, and backed up to two cloud services.. one that does the backup automatically and the other manual in which I can upload files to.

I do like your idea of having a second computer and will do so at some point, with two internal 4tb drives. I appreciate your advice of not compressing the backups and will no longer do that.

Basically, I need to re-organize my files again and determine what is important for which cloud service, externals, drop box, live, etc.

How did I know my files were missing? Because every week, I use filezilla and go through and random check folders to make sure my files are still there. After all, they didn’t know of the problem until I let them know. It took nearly 28 days to get them to restore. Believe me, none of the cloud services that other people are suggesting are in this forum and I didn’t come here to tell everyone how horrible they are. It is their fault that they lost the files, but it is my fault that I allowed them to have the only copy. Believe me, when the restore is complete, I will be downloading everything onto external drives and making sure this doesn’t happen, and I will be going with another service and just simply use them as a temporary over-sized cloud for when I need it.

Based on all the suggestions, I am going to sign up with a monthly cloud storage that backs up the files that are on my computer. I will make sure to get another 4tb internal drive so that I don’t have to worry about making sure my external is always plugged in. Next, I will take one of my spare externals and use that to off-load my tv shows to. This external will only be for tv shows and nothing else.

The other external drives that I have will be used for encrypted backups from a true backup software.

For the OS, I will back up to a dedicated external drive that I can do once every three months.

The only thing is, I would love to have a software tell me where my files are backed up to. It would be nice to know where a file that was moved from my internal drive to an external drive or the cloud (keyword moved!).

Could roll your own with Linux RAID (Something many of the ready solutions already come with) and without the high cost. Here’s one example dealing with this with about 4TB usable and SSD R/W speeds on RAID6.

http://www.microdevsys.com/WordPress/2012/04/02/linux-htpc-home-backup-mdadm-raid6-lvm-xfs-cifs-and-nfs/

They put it through some heavy hits as well and it continues to tick and function though sufficient *NIX skills would be required.

Regards,
Dev

The consensus, at least as far as photos and documents, is: Paper. Archival-quality, non-acidic paper — and photo paper — has a proven track record of centuries with little or no degradation.

Now, the ink used… that’s another issue still under discussion.