# What's the easiest and least expensive way to backup the data on my laptop? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672 "2009-09-26T20:01:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/1 "2009-09-26T20:01:33Z")
I download a lot of music from Amazon onto my laptop. What’s a good way for me to back up all this data? My hard drive says it has 109 GB free of 184 GB There really isn’t anything else stored on here that isn’t replaceable except for the Amazon music. It would be a pain for me to rip all the CDs that I’ve stored online, but I still have the CDs. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/2 "2009-09-26T21:52:10Z")
I use a USB external hard drive. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/3 "2009-09-26T23:55:45Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > I use a USB external hard drive. Seconded = Cheap and fast - Get two if you want to be belt and suspenders secure. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/4 "2009-09-27T01:04:27Z")
A hard drive isn’t a backup, but it’s a good start. After you get your data on the hard drive, you should also back it up to CD/DVD/Blu-Ray and store in a safe place. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/5 "2009-09-27T01:21:58Z")
He’s got upwards of 75GB of data to backup, so that would require a ridiculous number of CDs or DVDs. I’d recommend putting the external hard drive in a safe place. (Or buy two and swap them out regularly, with one always kept in the safe place.) ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/6 "2009-09-27T05:07:21Z")
Yeah, hard drive. Keep one in an altogether separate place if you can in case of fire, flood, robbery, Armageddon, what have you. There are also online backup solutions (Syncplicity, Mozy, JungleDisk) etc… You can limit backups to your Amazon music if you don’t want to pay too much for space. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/7 "2009-09-27T05:23:53Z")
Definitely hard drive. They’re so damn cheap these days it pays to get a few and do backups regularly, as advised above. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/8 "2009-09-27T05:59:54Z")
$100+/HD isn’t “cheap” to me. And USB may not be an option if he’s got a Mac; Macs allow characters in filenames that Mac/PC formatted USB drives don’t allow. He’d have to reformat the entire drive Mac-only, which would keep him from ever getting it read in a PC. (That may or may not be important, but still.) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/9 "2009-09-27T07:33:18Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > That may or may not be important, but still. Can you name a scenario where it _would_ be important? I certainly can’t think of one. Good point about the cost, though. It annoys me when people say hard drives are cheap. They aren’t. I’m still on DVDs for all my backups. (And, incidentally, the DVDs apparently can’t be read under Windows due to the really long filenames I use. The odds of me switching from Linux at this point are so slim I don’t care.) ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/10 "2009-09-27T08:42:38Z")
I got some dvd’s at office depot on sale for like .25 each, so one gig would be like .05. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/11 "2009-09-27T08:58:55Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Can you name a scenario where it _would_ be important? I certainly can’t think of one. If he’s doing some work or taking a class that only has one, and he uses the other? If he owns a Mac, and wants to print at a library with only PCs? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/12 "2009-09-27T10:52:18Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > He’s got upwards of 75GB of data to backup, so that would require a ridiculous number of CDs or DVDs. I’d recommend putting the external hard drive in a safe place. (Or buy two and swap them out regularly, with one always kept in the safe place.) You can put 10 G on a double sided DVD. You can put 50 G on a double sided BluRay disk. So we’re talking 8 DVDs or 2 BluRays. I think that’s manageable. ---
**Author:** ![leander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bcef8e/32.png) [@leander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leander)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/13 "2009-09-27T10:55:04Z")
Wow! Less than 70 bucks for a 500G drive and under 100 bucks for a TB…that’s expensive?? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/14 "2009-09-27T14:27:00Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > You can put 10 G on a double sided DVD. You can put 50 G on a double sided BluRay disk. So we’re talking 8 DVDs or 2 BluRays. I think that’s manageable. Personally, I’d prefer a single external drive to eight DVDs. And while two Blu-Ray discs sounds reasonable, that assumes that he has a Blu-Ray burner on his PC. And I’ve been checking prices on these things. It looks like a 50GB disc costs about $20. So we’re talking about $40 in write-once blank discs just to store 100GB. For about $70, you can get a USB-powered 320GB external hard drive. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/15 "2009-09-27T18:10:46Z")
> [@leander](#): > > Wow! Less than 70 bucks for a 500G drive and under 100 bucks for a TB…that’s expensive?? I agree, but there’s no winning these comparisons. Modern external drives are insanely cheap relative to historical costs and storage capacity, but anytime you start touting “great deals” someone will chime in and point out how insensitive you are to people in tight circumstances and that asking them to spend more than $50 - $100 for a solution to back up from 100 gigs to one terabyte of data is an unbearable burden. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/16 "2009-09-27T18:14:03Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > A hard drive isn’t a backup Why is that? ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/17 "2009-09-27T18:35:45Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > He’d have to reformat the entire drive Mac-only, which would keep him from ever getting it read in a PC. Not so! [HFSExplorer](http://hem.bredband.net/catacombae/hfsx.html) > [@](#): > > HFSExplorer is a [Windows] application that can read Mac-formatted hard disks and disk images. > It can read the file systems HFS (Mac OS Standard), HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) and HFSX (Mac OS Extended with case sensitive file names). ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/18 "2009-09-27T18:37:39Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Why is that? Because if you corrupt your original and don’t notice it, it will propagate to your second hard drive and now you have no good data. Backups are a snapshot in time that don’t change. They can’t get corrupted if you corrupt the originals. Now, DVDs and the like can corrupt over time, so you need to test your backups periodically as well. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/19 "2009-09-28T04:29:25Z")
[carbonite.com](http://carbonite.com) is a good online solution. 15 day free trial. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672/20 "2009-09-28T05:36:20Z")
> [@Enright3](#): > > [carbonite.com](http://carbonite.com) is a good online solution. 15 day free trial. No such thing as a good online backup solution. Having a good offsite backup solution is not in any way similar to having a (necessarily bad) online backup solution. If you fail to see why, ask yourself what happens when [carbonite.com](http://carbonite.com) leaves the online backup business. If you think they have any legal duty to save your data, you are in for a shock. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-easiest-and-least-expensive-way-to-backup-the-data-on-my-laptop/511672.md?page=2)