In the first part of Backing Up, I started the ball rolling on the idea of backing up your data and using DVDs as a backup media. In this second part, we take a look at how I personally back up my data.

In the first part, I talked about “Saving Early and Often” and that “A File Only Exists if It Exists in Two Places”. Personally, I take both saying to heart.

When I buy a new storage device, I always make sure that I have enough spare disk storage for the new hard drive. Please note that this is my backup solution strategy which works for me. This is by no means the only backup solution. You can make up your own or use my solution as a template to base your own backup strategy.

Currently, I own four systems, an Ubuntu desktop, a Windows desktop, a Windows laptop, and an Apple laptop, plus 2 external hard drives which I use for data. The Windows desktop has two hard drives consisting of an 80GB and a 250GB hard drive. The Windows laptop has a 250GB hard drive.

The Apple laptop has recently been upgraded with a 320GB hard drive while the external hard drives consisting of Western Digital 320GB and a Buffalo DriveStation 500GB storage. All-in-all, I use around a terabyte and a half (1.5TB) disk space.

To back up all these, I invested in a 1.5TB Western Digital Elements and another 500GB Buffalo DriveStation as additional storage for extra security.

Aside from the Ubuntu desktop, the Windows desktop and laptop and the two external drives are backed up in to the 1.5TB Drive while the Apple laptop is backed up on the 500GB Buffalo DriveStation. Now that I have all the hardware I need, the next thing to think about this the software. The 1.5TB Western Digital Elements drive is partitioned, or divided into parts for each of the drives that are going to be backed up.

I then use the freeware, SyncBack from 2BrightSpark (http://tr.im/syncback) on Windows to essentially synchronize the data on each of the drives to the separate partitions on the 1.5TB drive. I also set Syncback to do a one-way synchronization from the Source Drives (the Windows machines and external drives) to the Destination Drive (1.5TB drive).

On the Apple notebook, I use a separate drive due to the difference in file systems that OS X and Windows use which makes them incompatible. Although there is a way to use just one drive, it makes it much easier for me to use two separate backup drives.

In OS X, the operating system that Apple uses on their machines, I use Carbon Copy Clone (http://tr.im/carboncopycloner), which can be downloaded for free. CCC makes an exact copy of the Mac system drive. This is useful not only because you have a back up of your Mac, but in extreme cases, the backup drive can be used to boot your Mac and recover files from the damaged drive.

One thing to note on my Macbook Pro, I have a separate Windows Partition on it as well so that I have to option to use Windows-only applications when I work on the Mac. And for those like me who also use Boot Camp on a Mac, there is WinClone (http://tr.im/winclone). WinClone creates a single backup file of your Windows partition to be safely kept in a separate hard drive. You can WinClone again to restore the Windows partition.

That is my backup solution, but if you think that that is a bit extreme, that is only half of the ultimate backup solution! You might feel safe that you have more than one copy of your precious data, and as well you should, but your back up is on the same premises as your actual data.

The question is, “What happens if someone breaks and enters your house stealing your computer/s along with your backup or worse, a natural disaster destroying your computer/s along with your backup?” Answer, your back up becomes useless. You can always place your backup in a water- and fire-proof safe, but it will only make more difficult to make consistent backups.