eSata server

I'm more worried about constantly moving around drives, which are highly susceptible to environmental and physical factors, and that you need to be aware before you rely.

More than likely you won't realize that your backup drives are crapping out unless you have an active recovery plan that you drill for... which can get really ridiculous as a home user. The other problem then is that you are then left with optical media, or tape.

Optical is problematic because of the write-once drawback, the amount of media needed, and the chance for scratches or incorrect burns.

Tape is still the ultimate way to back things up, and has been cost effective since the dark ages. While you back up, the tape performs in-line error correction and high data integrity. However, the initial cost is tremendous for a home user until you start getting nearer 20-30 TB.

One option I didn't think about is Cloud backup, which is probably the best. you pay a small yearly fee to get access to industry-level server gear, and you let some other shlub ensure your data is guaranteed safe with high integrity. This is a bit of an old post, but there's some good info there. Search for the responses by Zelannii, sounds like he knows a few things.

He recommends BackBlaze
MiMedia is another option, and it is specifically designed around media hosting
Not sure where I got the link, but here's one for Arq

Finally, there's a free* option called Crashplan. You could build two identical machines, plop one at your place and one at someone else's home. Crashplan syncs the two machines.
*There's a free option, but also a paid option, depending on your needs.

 

i just bought some stuff to make a htpc

have to go buy a hdd from somewhere though, to many stories of DOA don't wanna deal with that.

 

Go to your local Best Buy. HDD prices don't usually vary more than $20 between online retailers and major local retailers. Sometimes Best Buy is cheaper, sometimes Newegg.

 

normally i hit up my local enu thanks for the suggestions! fry's is great to, but it's hard to justify the trip for only one hdd.

so far 262$ spent and all i need is a hdd, eventually want a remote.

 

Synology NAS boxes are great but if you are a little more cost conscious you may want to look into Drobo. I've been running Drobos for a couple of years and never had any issues with them. I use the 4 bay Drobo with 4 Western Digital Green drives. There is not a whole lot of speed but archiving my data is what I am looking for.