popejubal wrote on Jul 28
th, 2012 at 9:18pm:
Just make sure you buy a new hard drive each time you get a new computer because hard drives do go bad after a few years and losing all of your data really sucks even if you do have a backup (which almost no one actually does).
I actually keep what some would consider redundant backup. I always have one drive for OS and programs, and one drive for program installation files/documents/media/pics/anything I want to keep. And I also have an external on which I keep a copy of that second drive. So if anything ever happens to my OS drive, all I have to do is replace the drive and the OS, and reinstall my drivers and programs, but I don't actually lose anything. If anything ever happens to my second drive, I replace it and import everything from my external, so I still don't actually lose anything unless I haven't backed up in a while (which I try to do once a month or so, just start the process before I leave to go somewhere and when I get back it's done).
I prefer this approach over partitions because if the drive actually goes kaput, having a partition doesn't matter, you still lose it. If the backup is on a completely different drive and the first drive goes bad, it's a different story.
So one drive for OS, one drive for all *my* stuff, and one drive for backup of my stuff. The second internal drive for my stuff is the one that people would call redundant, as a partition would work for that. But I like having that extra drive. It just makes it easier if the OS drive takes a shit. Then I don't need to start from scratch and import everything from the backup. All I have to do is the system stuff and programs.