What would be the best way to save and back up videos and files I have stored on my computer.

Atm there is about 200GB of videos and files (work stuff) stored, and I add roughly half a GB daily to that.

I went and bought 1 terabyte elements external hard drive which I copied and pasted all my work to that hard drive.

My question is what would be the best way to go about having a back up option as I read online that external hard drives aren't reliable and need to be replaced often so I'm thinking should I buy a second hard drive and store it on that too? I also read about Cloud Backup Backblaze but I don't really want to store work stuff where others might be able to see it? not sure how all that works though. I read a bit about RAID 2 drives one being a mirror hard drive.

Obviously as you can see I'm not into computers and when I read about this stuff online someone would wrap something while another bags it so I thought I keep it simple and ask what you guys think would be the best and easiest set up to store and back up videos and files.

Thanks in advance.

You could buy a second high capacity hard drive and install it in your PC, and this could allow you some redundancy on your data, but it would be better to have a separate computer to store data on as well, because it's possible for things to happen like power surges killing your motherboard and subsequently killing every or most pieces of hardware attached to it, like hard drives.

I would suggest getting another cheap PC with lots of storage capacity and use it to store backups of your data, and use it for nothing else. You could set up a media server with it if you wanted to, but that's more work.

As far as the actual transfer of data, I have used BitTorrent sync, which is now Resilio sync, and thought it was really good. Way better than spending hours loading files onto and off of a flash drive to transfer your data.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent_Sync

I prefer to set up file redundancy in layers. There are different data loss scenarios and different redundancy layers protect against different threats. My suggestions will assume your running Windows, running a different OS, some tool names would change.

Your USB drive is a good start. If you don't need versioning, you can just use robocopy to sync up the USB drive on a daily or weekly basis (you can set up a cmd file to copy off multiple folders if you'd like). Your USB drive should be unplugged when not in use. This layer gives you some protection against ransomware. Adding a second drive and alternating which drive you back up to is a good addition here and relatively cheap for the amount of data you're currently backing up.

Next, I would suggest some sort of cloud based file storage as an additional layer, provided that your files aren't highly sensitive to being potentially leaked (source code, "personal" photos or video, trade secrets). Cloud based storage is reasonably secure (if your account password is reasonably strong), but you don't want to put anything potentially career damaging up there. I use OneDrive for my photos, you can get 1TB of space (plus Office suite) with an Office365 subscription. Single user is $57 on Amazon, 5 user (each user gets 1TB storage as well) for $80. If you move your files you want to back up to your OneDrive folder, they will autoupload and sync. Google Drive, DropBox and Amazon offer similar storage. This is a reasonable price to get an offsite copy of the files, with the bonus of being accessible basically anywhere.

RAID provides up time, not backup. You can look at mirroring your drive if you'd like, but still need to back up as well. An accidentally deleted file will be gone from both mirrored drives and crypto-lockered files will be locked up on both. If you have documents that you may need to revert to older versions on occasion, you can add a second drive to the PC and set FileHistory up to use the drive. This will auto-store versions (up to a quota or when space is needed, depending on your settings) on the secondary drive.

As I mentioned I'm a computer noob so excuse my likely silly questions. I bought a second 1 terabyte hard drive, the first hard drive is plugged into the computer 24/7. From the first hard drive I copy and paste the files to the second hard drive and keep the second hard drive unplugged from the computer, only plugging it in to save new files.

What is the advantage of storing the files as you say on a computer vs storing them on the second hard drive which is unplugged as a second backup?

I looked up some videos on YouTube to see what a media server was but there was only a couple videos both bit over my head. From what I understood I think that a media server basically holds all the videos etc, and your computer would receive those videos from that media server.

I should have included in the op that the videos I use for work I can watch from a few different websites for free but every time I go to watch the video the video takes a while to load so storing the videos on my computer there is no download time, but instead instant access to videos which is what is required for the type of work I do, for example, I might only need to bring up the video to watch 2 minutes 21 seconds in to the video to 2 minutes 25 seconds, so basically only 4 seconds worth on video viewing, and I do this a few hundred times during the day. So if I understood the YouTube explanations on what a media server is, the the media server would basically be like viewing the videos from a website because it would still require to download the video each time when you need to view the video, which doesn't suit, or can the media server be connected to the computer and be set up so there's no download time but instant access viewing instead? yeah my bad as I said I should have included this to the op

I currently save new videos to the first hard drive I bought not the computers hard drive because my database which stores the videos I play is configured to the new hard drive which is hard drive F, because the computers hard drive cant fit the 400GB of videos, so how would robocopy work in this example? Were you suggesting files being saved to the computers hard drive and then robocopy would copy the files to the other hard drive F etc?

not sure if i'm missing something here

Are u keeping the originals stored on your PC for viewing?


just do as you're doing and copy and paste them to an external and pop that somewhere safe. Once a fortnight plug it into your pc and drag n drop the updated vids to the external (1/2gb a day = 7gb a fortnight)

thats 2 hard copies of the vids, and as u have said if in the event of a disaster like a bomb u can always redownload them off your work site. But two copies will be enough, if something happens to one of them make sure u always 2 copies.


and if/when your PC HD starts filling then add a second internal HD to your PC

Yes because there's no download time when stored on the computer, so 10 hours of video viewing work would take double the time if viewing the videos from a website as you would have to download each video each time to view and some videos are viewed 25 times a day per same video.



OK thanks, but regarding downloading them again it would be a heap of work because there's 400 GB plus another 250 GB of videos I'm adding totalling at ~650 GB and most of the videos are 1 minute to 4 minutes, so would probably take roughly over a 1000 hours to download manually all again.

yes but u will never need to do that if u always keep the 2 copies

just get a second storage for your pc say 2tb HDD and buy a 1tb/2tb/external Drive if and when needed and just copy over the updated files even monthly. you can use the various tools to do this so that when u plug the external in it will just update that one particular folder from PC to external.And if u want to be extra cautious do a third copy.



i actually have a similar scenario i have about 150GB-200GB of videos i watch (studying material), and have it on my PC where i downloaded it (took days to download) so i have a back up on an external as well.

When you say "add a second internal HD to your PC" can a computer noob do this? I'm just thinking if I take the computer apart it might stay apart lol

Also I assume add a 2 terabyte hard drive if adding one, might as well?

And is there much difference between adding a 2 TB internal hard drive vs a 2 TB external hard drive which is constantly plugged in?

best to have it inside for a few reasons, wont get knocked/dropped like an external could, plus should be faster depending on what ones u are comparing. And then also have your seperate external for back up purposes only



on ur standard desktop desktop adding a second HD is take off side panel pop into a bay (holds HD in place) then plug a cable into motherboard it really is simple and anyone on here will guide u once u get it

OK, thanks for explaining man! is there a hard drive you recommend?

Depending on how important your data is having a good quality backup solution like Macrium Reflect can come in handy.

Personally I prefer to have a large c-drive (I used a 2tb Firecuda drive on my laptop) and regularly backup the entire drive to an external drive. Also I have two of them, and besides the regular backups I keep a spare C-drive ready to swap in if the initial one fails, or something bad happens.

The external drive I use is: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HAPGEIE

You may not need one that's so large.

Good quality backup software let's you back up just the changed files, or the changed portion of files (if you have really large files).

If you're doing this for work data and that data is a key part of your business you really need to spend some money and talk to a consultant about your IT set up. Otherwise you are going to **** something up and lose something important. If you can't afford hiring someone professional to help you then at least take some online courses in data storage systems so you aren't so in the dark about this stuff.

Yeah I was actually going to ask how would you go about hiring a IT guy? as most computer experts seem to have different opinions, as I said in thread, one will recommend a set up while another will bag that set up and recommend a different.

From reading the replies in this thread does this below seem right?

Basically having a hard drive connected to the computer 24/7 doesn't seem the right play because of power surges and other etc.

So a computer with a 2 terabyte internal hard drive seems the best play because the videos need to be stored on the computer for instant viewing and no download time, as the database I use is configured to a particular hard drive to play the videos and not any or multiple hard drives.

Second, a external 2 terabyte hard drive for backup, unplugged.

Also having a second computer to send the videos and files with say Resilio Sync for storage only. I viewed and read a bit about Resilio Sync, question is how secure is Resilio Sync as in can others get to see what you stored? is it the same as a cloud based storage which wouldn't suit for that reason etc.

And what is the advantage between storing videos and files on Resilio Sync besides fire and theft vs storing them on a second, say two external 2 terabyte hard drives which would both be unplugged, so basically keeping work stored on the internal 2 terabyte hard drive and two external 2 terabyte hard drives both unplugged? two unplugged might be a bit overboard? but some are suggesting it wouldn't.

The basic rule of serious backups is 321
Keep at least 3 copies of the file
Use at least 2 different storage media
Keep 1 copy off site

If I was in your shoes and wanted to hire someone I would talk to people doing what I do and ask who they used and if they were happy. Talk to some videographers or photographers at a meet up or something and see what they are doing. There are several different ways to solve this problem so of course people you talk to are going to have give different answers. You need to find someone who can help you get the best answer for your situation. Something that fits your budget, your office IT maturity and your unique business requirements. It may be as simple as a SAN connected to your network with redundant drives for local connections and a process running in the background that clones everything on the SAN with an AWS Glacier bucket. Or it could be a tape solution where your ferrying tapes home with you every week. Find someone who knows all the options and will take your requirements into account.

This is a universal problem with advice. I've been in IT since the 1970s and I can clearly tell you know what you're talking about. But to most people all advice looks equal.

I hope the OP listens to you.

With external hard drives when you click the eject hard drive option it says (safe to remove hard drive) but if you don't unplug the hard drive the hard drive is connected on restarting the computer.

With the replies about power surges damaging hard drives ITT, would a power surge or or ransomware still damage the hard drive when you click eject and it ejects but its still connected to the usb?

I'm pretty sure that all those responses require you to physically disconnect the drive. Note that if it's a powered drive you should also unplug it from the mains. Basically disconnect it from everything. Best practice, of course, is then to keep the drive in a different secure location, so as to ensure that if fire or some other disaster affects your main machine, you have an offsite backup. That's not simple for most people, hence the suggestion that one of your backups should be in the cloud etc.

OK thanks

A question regarding hard drives. When I go to copy everything from one hard drive to another for example..

In hard drive F I select all and copy. and then paste it to hard drive G, but when viewing the hard drives, one displays different GB to the other for example

F 726 GB free of 931 GB and 506 items

G 731 GB free of 931 GB and 509 items

They are both the same hard drives WD elements 1 terabyte

I copied and pasted a few times but still displaying a difference in GB stored one from the other.

What is the difference? shouldn't both hard drives display the same GB used?

Let's just check what you're trying to copy first. Is this a drive with your operating system on it, or just files like documents, music and photos?

I didn't understand the bold

but I'm copying files I named individually with Videos stored in each file

As someone already said in this thread, just get an office 365 subscription and store all your crap in the onedrive folder. If you want a local copy use file history on an external drive which will be faster to recover from in the event of a disaster than downloading 200+gb from the cloud. You'll get office for near the price of most backup solutions like backblaze, code42 etc and have versioning on your onedrive files.

If You Had a server, Raid 1 or 5 would be quite standard and would protect against 1hdd failure but with computer would be inclined to back up with external HDD like others Said

Now you have to understand that even if you copy the data on external HDD and keep it on same location you are not covered against theft, fire etc

Then there is the data corruption , perhaps viruses and other things which may Cause problems or ruin your data. Your data may be ruined , then copied to backup which is there but no use. Imagine i have txt doc and something happens to it and may overwrite a known good file

Businesses use RAIDS to deal with HDD failures, they do full back ups or incremental back ups (ideally on different physical location) and tape back ups.

Some software requires specific back up methods and data wont work without it been Done correctly.

You may want to speak some IT guy but if you dont understand how it works youre pretty much alone When something goes wrong.
I dont know how important the data is but you could do something simple as copy new files to one or two external hdd as u have new files .also burn 1 or 2 copies on dvd and keep them (or 1hdd and 1/2Dvd or Any similar media) on different location.

You still need to verify once in a while that your back up files are working. Cloud is one option as well.

It all depends how important the data is. Company can go out of business due to a data loss, For others just major inconvenience.

Cant edit after 30 mins.

You also need a good indexing system /method of naming the files from the beginning to avoid Mess later.