Difference between desktop & enterprise Grade hard drives?

Enterprise drives are supposed to be more durable than consumer drives, especially for continuous operation, but frankly, based on customer reviews, the only difference I see is price. For a backup drive that gets connected to a computer only when updating a backup (considerably preferable to leaving it hooked up at all times), an enterprise drive is way overkill. I personally use WD Greens for my backup drives. Since any drive is subject to failure at any time, I also maintain more than one backup; essentially, I backup my backups.

Hey! It's an emu, not an ostrich! But, thanks!

I also use a safe deposit box for storing backup HDDs. I'm a bit anal (ok, a lot) in that I use four backup HDDs for each one of the data HDDs I have in my desktop rig. I keep two of each set of four at home and run daily backups on them using FreeFileSync. I backup my boot SSD to my main data HDD using Macrium Reflect Free (here is a good tutorial on how to use Macrium Reflect) so the image will get backed up when the HDD it is on gets backed up (cuts down on work, number of HDDs needed, and time; I'm not only anal, I'm also lazy and cheap!). The other two of each set of four I keep in my safe deposit box at my credit union. At least once a month, I will swap out the home backup HDDs with the credit union HDDs; more often if I add a lot of new or changed data in a short period.

I also use Carbonite to backup my data but complete data recovery from any cloud backup except more expensive business plans would take weeks if I lost all my local backups. By having the backup HDDs at my credit union, if all my local backups should go away, I can quickly recover most my data from the offsite HDDs then recover the data that was added or changed since the last time the offsite HDDs were updated from Carbonite; that will be much faster than trying to recover all of it from Carbonite (although it is still an option should a bomb take out my home and my credit union six miles away, assuming I was lucky enough to be far away when the bomb went off).

Emu's are much cuter than a ostrich. That's how I tell the difference.

Layback Bear said:

Emu's are much cuter than a ostrich. That's how I tell the difference.

Why, thank you! Your bears are always adorable.

GARoss said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Hey! It's an emu, not an ostrich! But, thanks!

I also use a safe deposit box for storing backup HDDs. I'm a bit anal (ok, a lot) in that I use four backup HDDs for each one of the data HDDs I have in my desktop rig. I keep two of each set of four at home and run daily backups on them using FreeFileSync. I backup my boot SSD to my main data HDD using Macrium Reflect Free (here is a good tutorial on how to use Macrium Reflect) so the image will get backed up when the HDD it is on gets backed up (cuts down on work, number of HDDs needed, and time; I'm not only anal, I'm also lazy and cheap!). The other two of each set of four I keep in my safe deposit box at my credit union. At least once a month, I will swap out the home backup HDDs with the credit union HDDs; more often if I add a lot of new or changed data in a short period.

I also use Carbonite to backup my data but complete data recovery from any cloud backup except more expensive business plans would take weeks if I lost all my local backups. By having the backup HDDs at my credit union, if all my local backups should go away, I can quickly recover most my data from the offsite HDDs then recover the data that was added or changed since the last time the offsite HDDs were updated from Carbonite; that will be much faster than trying to recover all of it from Carbonite (although it is still an option should a bomb take out my home and my credit union six miles away, assuming I was lucky enough to be far away when the bomb went off).

OK... Emu. Everyone give's me "the bird" so often, I get them mixed up!

That's a lot of back-ups! Sounds like you've got it covered - many times! Even if our internet were faster, we'd keep this system. It's simple, safe, cheap & nearby. Thanks for the tip on FreeFileSync. Looks good.

Let's home no drones take out out homes, CU or banks! Take care! :)

Since you keep multiple backups and as long as you keep them updated, you will be fine.