Is a USB stick or an external hard drive better for weekly backups?

[KatyMac]

I have an external hard drive, but I was wondering if a few USB sticks would be better, so I can backup then drop it in at my dads (just in case) then rotate them

Whereas external hard drives are much more expensive

Which brand of USB stick are most reliable

bump out of interest

hard drive would be better, because then you can back up programmes and not just files.

We use mozy.com which backs up daily off into the cloud. Very cheap (no personal interest).

I back up monthly onto a hard drive

So it's just documents really

Bit wary of the cloud

How much data do you have to backup?

I'd seriously look at the cloud like Dropbox or box.net or similar.

what is it you are wary of?

Well it's children's data & photos..........

I'm highly uptight - I think justifiably so - about my files because they contain all my work. I have an external drive which is backed up once an hour automatically (using Apple's Time machine) going back several years, and a second external drive which I connect once a month or so just in case the first one ever went pear shaped. In addition I do a CD back-up of just files (not photos or programmes) every so often. I find USB sticks practical in the short term, but extremely unreliable as back-up because they break so easily and the data is then lost.

Just as well I have my external back-up, because a year ago my entire internal hard drive just died on me. The Apple shop was able to replace the drive and then use the external drive to play the entire contents of the computer onto the new drive - I lost absolutely nothing - e-mails, photos, even my wallpaper stayed the same. it's a sobering thought what would have happened without that external drive.

I just copy my memory stick to the hard drive every week & do a 'proper' back up every month

Katy. Do you know how much data you have to backup?

I have some of my very personal files stored on different cloud services so depending on how much data you have, I may be able to recommend a good free one for you.

I am a keen photographer and I have literally hundreds of gigabytes of photos so until I get fibre into my house (i wish) then I am stuck with my current backups which is on my server and mirrored onto different drives with a cunningly hidden Apple Time Capsule at the other side of the house too. So in effect I keep 3 copies of everything.

3.5 GB I think - but

Whoops
"3.5 GB I think - but is the cloud thing secure?"

I made the switch to the cloud a few years ago (crashplan.com who are fantastic and mac compatible as well as pc). Before that I was backing up to an external hard drive. One day my hard drive on my laptop died so I went to my external hard drive to recover my information AND my external hard drive had picked that moment to die as well....luckily I had a back up of the back up and only lost about a week's worth of information. I was told that actually it's not uncommon for external hard drives to die and/or be unreliable.