Dr Skip wrote:

> What fear should I have regarding all the issues of having these backup
> devices online all the time? It doesn't protect against physical damage
> (fire, etc), and there's the wear and susceptibility to damage from the
> host OS or power supply, etc.

I have always at least one reasonably recent copy of my backups offline
(external USB harddisk).

> Lastly, what would be the best way (and economical) to attach a bunch of PATA 
> drives to a single machine? Preferably windows (probably 2k).

I think individual USB2 interfaces are (I think they start at $25 or so). 

> So, I'm very paranoid and haven't yet found a backup I can 'set and
> forget'. At least with whole image copies, I can do a bit level compare
> to verify. 

Acronis TrueImage (to harddisk) seems to work well; it's not free, though.

Gerhard

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