# Best Electronic Memory



## Cooky (Apr 25, 2011)

What is the most reliable computer memory system? I just recovered a bunch of pictures and stuff from an external hard drive that bit the dust. I think I got lucky that it was still there. How should I store all that stuff?


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

I think multiple sources is the key, using something like dropbox in addition to an external drive.


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## Cooky (Apr 25, 2011)

What's a dropbox?


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

You could always burn them to a CD. Burn two of them, one for viewing and the second one just in case something happens to the first one


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Critter said:


> You could always burn them to a CD. Burn two of them, one for viewing and the second one just in case something happens to the first one


Unless you are buying "Archival" grade disk's, they wont last more than 4-5 years, even stored in a dark place. Magnetic media is still king for long term storage.

Honestly, for most people with lower amounts of data you should just get a Carbonite account and their software will backup what you choose to their servers and encrypt it. Its the safest and easiest solution for "the common man".

Me personally, I have a 2 Terrabyte external Hard Drive I hook up to our various computers and run a program that makes a 100% perfect copy of the drive all files, programs, settings... everything, and copies it to the back up drive. In the case of a computer failure, I can quite literally restore the copied part back onto the fixed computer and everything will just run. Its called "Ghosting" a hard drive.

If you dont want to do the Carbonite thing, just get on www.newegg.com, order up a external hard drive... copy your important files onto it from time to time. Once the copy is done, unplug it and store it elsewhere preferably in a fireproof box somewhere. Dont forget to copy newer files onto this every month or so.

I paid a grand once to get a fried hard drive recovered, it was my wifes drive and she thought she had lost everything... pictures, journal, recipe books from her grand parents... lots of personal things. A company tore it down in a "clean room" and rebuilt it enough to scan the data and recover it. I was a hero come that Christmas when I surprised her with the data. On the flip side, I could have bought a dozen spare hard drives to back up the data with the money I spent to get that drive recovered. Life and learn.

-DallanC


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