Is backing up to HD as secure as backing to disks?

[Marjorie Proops]

Forgetting buildings burning down etc. - as far as viruses et al are concerned, if I change to backing up to an external HD rather than disks, will viruses (viri?) & the like simply transfer across with the data?

I've lost two complete pc's to data corruption in the last 3 years.

I'm a numpty I know, so no gobldeegook please.

wacky

 

[cookie]

regular backup of HDD partitions to external hard drive or seperate internal unit* with acronis is the way to go IMO.

you can always back that up to DVD if required.

*what i do

 

[ianf]

I've got 2 250gb external firewire drives, one of which is used solely for backup.

This runs daily taking incrementals. Every month or two I delete the full and incrementals and start again with a full.

What I really ought to be doing however, is buying a 3rd, and swapping the backup drive out. Taking the most current one into work and keeping it there.

That way if your house burns down or you get burgled, you have a copy offsite somewhere to fall back on.

Best practice is some different media like tapes, but a drive capable of holding 250+gb on a tape (sdlt) is a lot more money than an external HDD.

I have got an SDLT at work and a few terabytes of disk space to store images now i think about it

 

[Marjorie Proops]

I'm thinking of getting the Maxtor 1TB external hd and backing it up in a mirrored 2 x 500gb fashion, but the question really is about the virus' trojans etc. - if your work is corrupted by something, will that corruption transfer across to the backup and these put everthing on the backup at risk?
Should there be some sort of firewall between the pc and the external HD?

 

[cookie]

yes, you could back up an infected installation, but if you have a decent AV then i'd not worry.

 

[Pressurized]

I'm thinking of getting the Maxtor 1TB external hd and backing it up in a mirrored 2 x 500gb fashion, but the question really is about the virus' trojans etc. - if your work is corrupted by something, will that corruption transfer across to the backup and these put everthing on the backup at risk?
Should there be some sort of firewall between the pc and the external HD?

If I understand you, you're going to use the Maxtor configured to be a mirror RAID array giving 500GB of storage - a hell of a lot. It will definitely be a good long term store in this configuration.

You are concerned about viruses and trojans so you must also get a good checker. I like ZoneAlarm but plenty others are available like AVG. One I'd probably avoid is Norton. Make sure you set it up to update which they tend to do weekly to keep themselves current against new threats. Also make sure you set it to run periodically and check incoming email attachments. This should keep your system clean.

Be careful with your backup strategy. Yes, any untreated virus, corruption, etc will be backed up too and, if a file is recently infected it will overwrite earlier versions. For this reason, the incremental backups (only backing up changed or new files) are a good thing as, if you realise a file's been infected during the cycle, you may be able to find the un-infected version. Also, make the backup easy to do or you may end up not bothering to do it.

To be honest, though, with a properly configured virus checker, you'll be adequately secure with a weekly or daily strategy.