How often do you back up?

luci

I am really interested in Live Mesh.

I only discovered SkyDrive last week and uploaded all my photos and documents to that, but it took over 7 hours.

What is the difference between Live Mesh and SkyDrive? Am I right in thinking that they both provide online storage, but you can synch your documents with Live Mesh?

Does it take hours to upload the documents/photos the first time you use it?

charlieheard

luci wrote: »

I am really interested in Live Mesh.

I only discovered SkyDrive last week and uploaded all my photos and documents to that, but it took over 7 hours.

What is the difference between Live Mesh and SkyDrive? Am I right in thinking that they both provide online storage, but you can synch your documents with Live Mesh?

Does it take hours to upload the documents/photos the first time you use it?

Haven't really looked at SkyDrive, but I assume it uses much the same storage as Mesh and their online photo storage.

The limiting factor with any online backup is your connection speed, more specifically your upload speed which is a small fraction of your download speed. So it will take many hours, or even days, to upload many Gb of data initially, but future updates should be much quicker. Adding a file to my mesh folder takes only seconds.

Another thing to think about is if your connection has a monthly limit, as shifting large amounts of data around will affect your usage

daedana

I do backups quite seldomly. Right now my newest back ups are like two weeks old.

I use a Intel based MAC, but that alone is no excuse for not backing up.

busenbust

daedana wrote: »

I do backups quite seldomly. Right now my newest back ups are like two weeks old.

I use a Intel based MAC, but that alone is no excuse for not backing up.

:huh: So backup then!:rotfl:;)

...and welcome to MSE:hello:

twhitehead

I have a separate hard drive which stores all my data (drive G). Then I had a crash, the main computer died and when my friend came with his box of tricks and finally reinstalled windows we looked at drive G we got a message the disc needed formatting. We copied the data over into virtual memory and formatted G (about 12 hours). Now I use copybox for the two files saying MONEY and CHURCH (I am church treasurer) and if that file had gone it would have been a MAJOR disaster. However, I still have to put all my programs back and as some were downloads I am in conflict with a couple of suppliers who refuse to acknowledge emails with requests for activation codes. Any suggestions as to how to make these suppliers behave would be appreciated.
A friend tells me she has a plug in hard drive to which she backs everything up each week but does not leave it plugged in. That is now my preferred course of action.
:mad::mad:

Abispencer

I think its set to do it once a month, is that enough do you think?

hansi

twhitehead wrote: »

I have a separate hard drive which stores all my data (drive G). Then I had a crash, the main computer died and when my friend came with his box of tricks and finally reinstalled windows we looked at drive G we got a message the disc needed formatting. We copied the data over into virtual memory and formatted G (about 12 hours). Now I use copybox for the two files saying MONEY and CHURCH (I am church treasurer) and if that file had gone it would have been a MAJOR disaster. However, I still have to put all my programs back and as some were downloads I am in conflict with a couple of suppliers who refuse to acknowledge emails with requests for activation codes. Any suggestions as to how to make these suppliers behave would be appreciated.
A friend tells me she has a plug in hard drive to which she backs everything up each week but does not leave it plugged in. That is now my preferred course of action.
:mad::mad:

Sorry, but it's madness to use an internal drive to back up. I always use an external hard drive, and of course you don't leave it plugged in. Just plug it in when you need to back up.

hansi

Abispencer wrote: »

I think its set to do it once a month, is that enough do you think?

It depends on how much data you do in a month that needs backing up.

charlieheard

hansi wrote: »

Sorry, but it's madness to use an internal drive to back up. I always use an external hard drive, and of course you don't leave it plugged in. Just plug it in when you need to back up.

It's not madness, unless it's your sole backup. It's much quicker to restore something already on the PC than to access something stored away from the PC. It's what I do every day.

If you're using remote backups, you'll need to keep the backup well away from the PC, preferably out of the house. That would take a long time to recover something from...

hansi

So what would happen if your computer "died" and you lost the data?