awake Posted July 7, 2004 Report Share Posted July 7, 2004 I have a need for a dust-resistant backup device (internal or external). Capable of backing up around 200/300 Mb a time. Regular internal tape devices have been used before but don't tend to last too long as the PC sits in a fairly dusty environment.Fully ruggedized units are too expensive (and probably too much protection).If anyone has heard of, or is using something like this, I'd appreciate some info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted July 7, 2004 Report Share Posted July 7, 2004 Why not use an additional hard drive in the computer?All of my backups are made in this way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted July 7, 2004 Report Share Posted July 7, 2004 or External USB hard drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awake Posted July 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 8, 2004 Hard drives are fine for backups if you only want to store one image. They're not so good if you want to, say, backup once a week and hold onto a months worth of backups.You could (maybe) still do it on one huge hard drive, but putting all your backup images on one single medium isn't a good idea.I think some kind of dust-resistant (semi-ruggedized) tpe/cart unit is needed.Thanks for thoughts anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted July 8, 2004 Report Share Posted July 8, 2004 A 300MB back up once a week equates to 1·2GB per month which equates to 144GB per year. I don't have to elaborate further on that except to say that hard drives considerably in excess of that capacity are commonplace now and not particularly expensive.Putting your backups on one single medium is, as you say, not a good idea but isn't that what you would be doing with a tape or cartridge unit? You can always have a back up of your backup kept off site - I know my son does this for his business machines. He has a dedicated backup drive installed in each machine and, every Friday afternoon he copies the latest backup to a removable hard drive installed in a removable caddy.Are very large tape/cartridge units easily available? Are ruggedised units available? I'm a bit doubtful unless you are thinking about military type systems which would be either second hand and not much good or new and extremely expensive. Remember a hard drive is a sealed unit and thus all sensitive parts are protected from contamination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent Smith Posted July 8, 2004 Report Share Posted July 8, 2004 How about an external USB (or SCSI if fitted) CD Writer.2-300mb will not take long on a modern fast drive, and it can then be unplugged and stored in a dust proof container.If you "lose" a faulty cd, then you will still have the week before as a fallback.I would not use CDRW discs for this though.Mr. M. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted July 8, 2004 Report Share Posted July 8, 2004 Also stay away from DVD+R or DVD+RW's as they are dual layerd, and require special care.I can only recomend that you don't put ALL your back ups in one place. Because if you loose one, chances are you've lost them all and your screwed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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