[quote=Coronita]one thing about backup usb drive. i dont leave it connected. A RAID usb backup drive mitigates against hardware failure with your main storage, and the dual RAID drive mitigates against a single hard drive failure in the USB RAID drive….However, these backup drives wont do anything against a computer infested with a virus. So i only have the backup drive connected when im backing things up.[/quote]
I use similar strategy. None of my data is stored on the computer – only software I install which isn’t much nowadays.
All of my data is on external USB – I have a 12TB drive and two 12 TB backup drives plus a 12 TB backup sitting in a safe deposit box which I swap out every 4 months. I will lose a week’s worth of work if my 12 TB main USB drive fails. I don’t keep any drive past 5 years of age – all failures I have seen have been on drives 7-10 years of age. Backup drives are plugged in only while backing up data.
If my house burns down I’ll lose 4 months of data, but if my house burns down I’ve got bigger problems than data.
If my computer goes belly up, all I do is unplug my 12 TB drive from my old computer and plug it into my new computer. Install 2-3 sw packages and I’m good to go! Easy.