Quote:
Originally Posted by AdamWill
...The simplest way to be safe is to buy a tape backup drive and back the whole thing up to two different tapes once you're finished. Then lock the tapes away somewhere safe. That's the only 100% (or close to it) reliable method. Anything else leaves you trusting to luck just a little bit.
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I am not a big fan of tape drives. They have their uses, especially for companies that must regularly back up large numbers of computers. However, for the home user, I think they end up giving a false sense of security.
Why? Because tapes are not reliable forms of media. Most experts recommend throwing the tapes away after a year of use, but most home users will not do that. What's the use of a backup if the tape goes bad, and you can't retrieve your data?
The absolute best method for long-term storage is magneto-optical media. It's not affected by magnetic fields (unlike tape and hard drives), doesn't mechanically stretch/shrink (unlike tape), and has no dyes that can degrade over time (unlike CD-R and DVD-/+R). Unfortunately, this technology never caught on in the US (although I hear it's very popular in Asia).
I think the most practical backup method these days, is to back up to another hard drive. It's fast, convenient, relatively reliable, fairly inexpensive, and not subject to some dye rotting away after six months of storage. Either mirror the drives, or put the backup drive in a FW enclosure or removable tray for off-line storage. Even better, use more than one drive, so you can rotate your backups.