What do YOU backup?

[Generic User #2]

backing up your data is a BIG DEAL nowadays. The thing is, I don't really know what to backup.

currently, I keep all of my important documents, photos from my phone, and my music collection safe on dropbox and skydrive.

the total amount of data I save is only 10GB; it seems like I'm missing something. Although, honestly, I don't have that many photos and none of them are large. Don't have much of a music collection anyways.

if my SSD was to go kaput, I wouldn't actually go cry in a corner. The only thing I would lose is the time it takes to reinstall windows, dl all of its updates, download my programs, and configure settings all around.

The reason I'm asking is to see if I honestly need to invest the money and space into a NAS.

so, am i 'Doing-It-Right' already or am I being negligent?

[BryceBooth]

NAS is great for sharing over a network, backups and streaming. Basically, back-up what matters, or is important to you. If you are satisfied with your current strategy, then why change?
One possible suggestion would be to create a system image, and repair disc.

[Lpfan4ever]

I've got just about every bit of my 6TB of HDDs backed up with Acronis , 1.2TB backup in total. However, it's just all backed up to a single 2TB internal HDD. For the amount of data you have, I don't think the cost of a decent NAS would be worth it. I say keep an online backup like you already are and then keep another backup on a smaller local HDD, internal or external.

[Shadowmeph]

I usually only backup my settings for any programs that I have installed also my settings for my OS. but I some times like once a month do a full backup which actually reminds me that I forgot to back up last month lol

[Bond007]

I only back up personal items. Photos, family videos, tax files, etc

[BlueByte]

If you are only running 10GB of backed up data, then a USB key or small laptop USB HDD will be lots. Dont trust online services compleatly, they sure are convenient when they work. But look at cloud service screw ups in the last year or two, these companies have not learned from their own or other's mistakes yet.

I have just over 20TB of personal hard drive space for my family and some business projects that I work on locally. It is broken into 4 RAID5 arrays + 2 RAID1 arrays and the important stuff is backed up on rotating USB HDDs. I usually also try to keep enough space free across the arrays to be able to dump one whole array between the remaining ones.... just in case I have a rebuild go wrong.

My desktops backup to the server on a nightly basis, but there is very little kept locally on the PCs.

And finally I have a small truecrypt file ~30MB that keeps all my family's important documents or scans of documents, passports, birth certificates, wills, etc, keypass file. It is kept on my phone, wife's phone, cloud, server, pretty much anywhere where I can stick a copy. if I ever turn into one of those bank box kind of guys I will stick a copy in there too. I have traveled quite a bit and its always nice to have a backup of everything REALLY important handy in case something is lost, sh!t hits the fan etc.

[sswilson]

Media files and my steam games in order to save bandwidth / dl time when I redo a PC.

[kingnubian]

For my main 2 pc's I create full disc images, incremental afterwards, every week for quick disaster recovery. For the HTPC only the media is backed up. It helps that I have a Freenas box with 7TB (5TB Usable) to hold all the backups.
I've used Acronis, Paragon Backup and Clonezilla and like them all.

[Phill]

I back up everything:
photos
music
dl'd content
programs
iso's
accounting info
business docs
videos
etc
etc.

Currently it requires 2.2TB. I use a 3TB 7200rpm HDD and then backup to three different 3TB HDD at different intervals. Currently every seven days I backup from my "source" to one of the BKP HDDs. I use an old program (Director Toolkit) to update and prune the target HDD. At all times I make sure that one of the BKP HDD is powered down. There is more to it but that is what I have been doing for sometime now. I have looked into Acronis but have yet to trust my data to it.

[Cheakamus]

I only back up my personal files like photo, video, tax, work, etc.
Music, movie I dont even bother.