How do you accomplish your Backups?

[mphilli7823]

I am starting this thread because I am just curious as to what other people are doing to backup their movie\audio\data collections.

Here's a little about my backup setup.

My sageTV server and server that hosts my media files are both virtual machines running under ESXi so doing my backups is a very straight forward process. I only have to use a script that makes a snapshot of the running virtual machines, which in turn makes a copy of the vmdk file on another target disk. The entire process takes around 12-16 hours to complete which I normally run once per week. The entire size of my backups which includes my sageTV server, and about 5 other servers which service my home network takes up about 1.5TB of disk space, but the media files take up about 90% of that space.

In the past that fit nicely on a 1.5TB hard drive, but I have outgrown that and I am on the cusp of doing an upgrade. The logical step would be to just buy a 3TB drive, then just do my backups to that drive, but I am questioning myself on is that the correct path to follow.

Some of the questions I have been asking myself are:
1. Should I even care about backing up my media files?
2. Should I maybe pursue backing up my files to an online backup solution such as backblaze that provides "unlimited" storage. This option would give me the added benefit of being an offsite storage solution, but would probably take an absurd amount of time to upload.
3. As above should I just do more of the same and use a 3TB disk as a backup target but without the added benefits of offsite storage.

With that being said here are some general questions I have about how you are planning or currently backup your data.

1. Do you even care about backing up your media files? If not why?

2. If you do backup your files how do you accomplish your backups?

3. How large are your current backups?

4. How do you plan on growing your backup solution as your media collection grows?

5. Is offsite backups a priority for you?

[SprDtyF350]

I don't care about backing the video up because it is replaceable. Or in the case of movies can be ripped again. Things like important records, pictures, kids videos, etc I have in multiple places so unless the house burns down I have a copy somewhere.

I have lost all of it before. It makes you mad for a few minutes until you realize you can watch it on Hulu, or tell Sage to record it again, or you will never really have time to watch it all anyway.

[GKusnick]

I back up my important documents, including family photos and home videos, by mirroring them incrementally to a server at my mother-in-law's house using an automated nightly script. Online backup presumably would work equally well for this.

Ripped music and video I mirror manually to a portable drive that I hand-carry to Grandma's a couple of times a year. This stuff doesn't change that often and can always be re-ripped if necessary.

Recorded TV doesn't get backed up at all because hey, it's just TV.

[Bizarroterl]

I bought a CRU dataport HDD carrier/port which allows me to swap out backup drives. I like it better than a USB drive as the read/writes are at full SATA speed. I back up all my media to 2GB drives in the carriers.

It was the most cost effective way I could find to backup the massive amount of space BR rips take up.

I back up my personal data to a seedbox.

[wayner]

I store photos, music, videos and software on both a WHS server (duplicated) and I also copy these files over to my Sage server. TV is only on my Sage server. I also backup photos music and some video onto a hard drive that I store offsite in my office.

[davephan]

My photos are stored using RAID 5, an unRAID server, and a on-line offsite service. The video files are stored on either on the SageTV computer using RAID 5 or on an unRAID file server. About one TB of video files are stored on both RAID, unRAID systems, and offsite hard drives at two off-site locations. Most of the 20 TB are stored only on RAID 5 or an unRAID server.

Periodic images are taken of the SageTV computer's C drive with both Ghost and Acronis. Other computers C drives are periodically imaged with either Ghost or Acronis. The images are stored on RAID 5, unRAID, and sometimes both. Some images are offsite too.

Dave

[Brent94Z]

I backup my data files (email, photos, etc.) to Carbonite in combination with some onsite backups. A fire is bad enough by itself... I don't want to lose all my stuff AND my important data.

I also use a program called SyncBackSE for onsite stuff. It is an killer backup program IMO.

This program runs on my main computer in my office but will backup my networked computers. In addition to Carbonite, this program backs up my data files to a different hard drive. I have ended up with a lot of Sage recordings that I haven't had a chance to watch so a couple months ago I started backing those up too (when 2TB hard drives went on special for $60 shipped I bought 4 of them LOL) using SyncBackSE and a mirror backup nightly. For my DVD movies I use SyncBackSE and a normal backup nightly. I then have a mirror profile that I run manually every few weeks or so to "clean up" the backup drive since I sometimes move files around and stuff on the DVD movie drive and the backup doesn't delete anything so I run the mirror to delete the straggler files off the backup drive. I know people say they can just rip them over again but if your time is valuable, consider backing them up I have my DVD movies stored on external 2TB USB drives that I bought for $100. You can put a LOT of movies on 2TB and it would take me days to re-rip them so for $100, it is well worth it to me

[mphilli7823]

Originally Posted by Bizarroterl

I bought a CRU dataport HDD carrier/port which allows me to swap out backup drives. I like it better than a USB drive as the read/writes are at full SATA speed. I back up all my media to 2GB drives in the carriers.

It was the most cost effective way I could find to backup the massive amount of space BR rips take up.

I back up my personal data to a seedbox.

Bizzaroter, which version of the CRU Dataport do you have that allows you to backup at full SATA speed?

[mphilli7823]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I back up my important documents, including family photos and home videos, by mirroring them incrementally to a server at my mother-in-law's house using an automated nightly script. Online backup presumably would work equally well for this.

Ripped music and video I mirror manually to a portable drive that I hand-carry to Grandma's a couple of times a year. This stuff doesn't change that often and can always be re-ripped if necessary.

Recorded TV doesn't get backed up at all because hey, it's just TV.

GKusnick, so how long does it take you to do those incremental backups over the wire?

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by mphilli7823

GKusnick, so how long does it take you to do those incremental backups over the wire?

It all depends on how much has changed that day. Generally it runs between 10 and 30 minutes, longer on those days when my wife has uploaded a ton of photos from her camera.

Since RAID has been mentioned, I guess I'll repeat my opinion that RAID/unRAID is not a form of backup. The only thing it protects against is drive failure. It does nothing to safeguard your irreplaceable data against fire, flood, lightning strike, or anything else that can fry your whole system. As such it must be regarded as strictly a downtime minimizer, not a true backup solution.

[Bizarroterl]

Originally Posted by mphilli7823

Bizzaroter, which version of the CRU Dataport do you have that allows you to backup at full SATA speed?

It's the Dataport 10. I get ~72MB/s writes to the Seagate 5900RPM LP 2TB drives.

If you decide to go this route be aware that if you want to swap drives without powering down there are some steps you have to take each time you want to swap as well as some initial set up. Let me know & I can post them if you decide to go this way.

[parkimar]

I use Mozy to back up all the photos, home videos, music and documents - the rest I figure If I ever feel a need to rewatch something - I'll rip it again.

I have played with the idea of backing up all my non personal movies, but found that for the cost of a proper solution - I just didn't care enough.

Cheers

Mark

[mayamaniac]

Definitely backup pictures and music, they are important and don't take a lot of space to backup compare to videos, especially videos in HD. If you have family or personal videos, definitely back them up also. These are irreplacable items so always backup to a separate drive and at another location like some people above mentioned.

TV shows and hollywood movies are not as important to backup. They can be re-ripped and you most likely can replace them if the worst happens. I never backup the videos, but I replace my video drives every 2-3 years and so far has never lost any thing.

[mikejaner]

Watch out for the fine details with companies like BackBlaze. I tried it out about six months ago, and found out they don't backup a lot of file extensions like MPEG, MP4, VMDK, etc etc..... They also don't backup files larger than 4GB. You would get your pictures and documents, but not any "Multimedia", or Virtualization files.

[mphilli7823]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

Watch out for the fine details with companies like BackBlaze. I tried it out about six months ago, and found out they don't backup a lot of file extensions like MPEG, MP4, VMDK, etc etc..... They also don't backup files larger than 4GB. You would get your pictures and documents, but not any "Multimedia", or Virtualization files.

Yeah I saw that bckblaze used to only allow max 4GB files, but I see that now they upped that to 9GB. However I did not know they only allowed certian file types. I wonder if they are just looking at the file extension to lock it down or are they able to dig into the file to determine what kind of file it is?

I was also researching an online backup company called crashplan, they have unlimited upload with no max file size.

[bits]

Originally Posted by SprDtyF350

I don't care about backing the video up because it is replaceable. Or in the case of movies can be ripped again. Things like important records, pictures, kids videos, etc I have in multiple places so unless the house burns down I have a copy somewhere.

I have lost all of it before. It makes you mad for a few minutes until you realize you can watch it on Hulu, or tell Sage to record it again, or you will never really have time to watch it all anyway.

+1

I periodically make an image using Acronis and each day I have a small program that automatically backs up email, family files(video,photos, documents) and Sage win.biz. Nothing else is worth the money or effort to backup. I own all of my DVD/BD movies and there isn't anything I record from TV that is worth backing up especially since sooner or later it will be re-broadcast or can be found on Hulu, Netflix or a host of other legal places.

I am sure no one on this forum pirates video (rent Netflix(DVD or BD) and then rip a copy or peer to peer downloads of illegal video) but I find that folks who do this seem to be very motivated in backing up the material they have stolen. If you own the DVD/BD then why make two copies?! The argument that it will take some effort and time to put some number of videos back on a HDD is a weak one at best. There is no rush to put it back and can be done at a person's convenience. I have 378 DVD/BDs spread across 8 HDDs and between my wife, two adult daughters and myself we may watch 2-4 per month with many months closer to 0. So the loss of a HDD is hardly an inconvenience.

[mikejaner]

Yeah, I agree.
Personally, I am more interested in fault tolerance, for things like shows and movies. Having all of that stuff on a RAID array makes it so I am not inconvenienced by having to re-record a show my wife wants to watch, or re-rip/get_up_off_a$$ to put the physical copy in my system to play the movie.
As for other stuff like pictures of my kids, documentation etc... I want that backed up somewhere.

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by SprDtyF350

I don't care about backing the video up because it is replaceable. Or in the case of movies can be ripped again. Things like important records, pictures, kids videos, etc I have in multiple places so unless the house burns down I have a copy somewhere.

I have lost all of it before. It makes you mad for a few minutes until you realize you can watch it on Hulu, or tell Sage to record it again, or you will never really have time to watch it all anyway.

I used to be exactly like this.

The only change I recently made - important records, pictures & kids videos are now also in the cloud using SugarSync.

Everything else can be replaced easily enough.

[Oats]

I don't backup tv and movies because like others have said it is easy to replace. I have 3 computers that backup nightly to a single drive WHS, then those backups are copied to an external drive once a month and stored at a family members house.

[Nelbert]

Like most people only things I back up are unique items so mainly photos and important docs. My email is already in an external datacentre, so nothing to backup there.

As for the movies, music, tv... don't bother backing it up as I don't see the point. We currently have ~100Gb of recorded tv from an old freeview box still needing converting, about ~300Gb on the satellite box that needs moving to the sage server and SageTV is busy recording more. Not going to be a great loss if it goes considering we've got recordings made over 3 years ago still waiting to be watched.

It's going into a new server with raid just because it can, and that's to guard against the inconvenience of disk failure. If the server is stolen then it can all be re-ripped, if the house burns down then the cd/dvd/bd collection will be the least of our concerns.