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Re: [LUG] File storage and backup

 

On 18/06/11 09:15, Neil Winchurst wrote:
Tom Brough wrote:

For Me .....

A good external USB Drive (x2 if you want redundancy) + good old
fashioned tar command from the command line. I don't like the idea of
3rd party "cloud" storage. I like my data where I have total control. If
you are worried about fire / physical damage keep one USB drive off site
(a good use for relatives). It might not be the most convenient solution
but it has its merits. If your data requirements are small enough a usb
pen drive might do the trick.

I have asked about external drives and checked for reviews on the
internet. I am surprised how often I read that the drive failed after a
short time. I suppose it is a matter of luck if you get a good one.


You need to remember, hard drives are fragile devices, they can fail if they're knocked about (although saying that, my Iomega 320GB USB hard drive has been dropped off the sofa on to the floor when it's running and been chucked in a bag and it's still working!). Not been dropped on a hard floor though, just a carpet.

If you don't have much data then as Tom suggests, use a USB stick, maybe a 16GB or 32GB one would suffice.

I do have /home on a separate partition by the way. And I suppose I
would need to reformat any external drive to say Ext3 or EXT4 before
using it. Is that easy?


You don't have to, it might come formatted as FAT32 or NTFS, Linux will support both, but you may loose permissions on files and FAT32 only supports up to 4GB file sizes (so maybe not a problem). You can if you wish though reformat the drive to EXT3, EXT4, BTRFS etc...

I have my external USB drive formatted to EXT4.

Rob

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