How often do you back up?

halcyon_drift

i try to back up my hard drive once every month, however, at the beginning of the year my hard drive decided it had had enough (infact i think one of the files needed for start up went corrupt which totally scuppered things). the interesting twist is that i was smack bang in the middle of my thesis....and i hadnt backed up me hard drive for a couple of months. needless to say, after much panic and discussions with dell, their only solution was to format the hard drive. i didnt believe this was the only option (and i knew the data was still on the disk, i just couldnt access it). i spoke to one of my computer wizz friends...he then went and bought some piece of equipemnt off ebay for like 5 quid. i gave him my laptop and he shut himself in his room. he magically reappear a few days later with a disc containing all my data..wayhayyy. he said that his biggest problem was actually getting access to 'My Documents' because it is encrypted or something.

moral of the story..... keep an active copy of anything REALLY important on a memory stick, back up your static data every month or so, and dont store important data in 'My Documents' coz it is well hard for someone else to access.

Halcyon

Toxteth_OGrady

Allexie wrote:

Hand up here at the back of the class......

Please sir (aka TOG)

Right, now I've got 'Backup' sitting happily in my System Tools, and I'm gonna do my first backup....

However, I can't decide which option to go for, either:-

• My documents and settings (which is the recommendation)

or

• All information on this computer (which will add up to loads of gigabytes)

I'm intending to store my backup files on a 200GB external hard disk which has 100Gb of free space right now. I really like the sound of the second option - tweaks, glitches and all! (BTW is this similar to what Drive Imaging Tools do - taking a virtual snapshot of your disk? )

I really would value your opinion as to what's best to do...or anyone else's either!

Also I intend to set up an automatic backup schedule on a weekly basis...does each new backup that you do update the previous one or do you end up with several (like system restore points)?

Since you've got the space on your external HDD you might as well do a full backup. If you change Docs and Settings regularly then you could do this as a more frequent back-up. Try creating 2 folders on your HDD one for full backups that you could do say once every 3 months, and a second folder for Docs and Settings that you could do weekly. The first should be sufficient for disaster recovery and the second to keep your more frequently changing data up to date.

Does that make sense?

Doing a full back-up is similar to drive imaging tools, but NT back-up has less flexibility and fewer backup strategy management options.

I personally use Acronis True Image 8 and it's absolutely brilliant. Had to pay for it though. I'm a tight-fisted git and if I could have got the functionality I needed from freeware I would have.

hth

:cool:

TOG

p.s. I'm not a sir. Just a humble portal of others expertise and knowledge.

DVB_3

Toxteth_OGrady wrote:

p.s. I'm not a sir. Just a humble portal of others expertise and knowledge.

Not exactly mutually exclusive

Allexie

Toxteth_OGrady wrote:

Since you've got the space on your external HDD you might as well do a full backup. If you change Docs and Settings regularly then you could do this as a more frequent back-up. Try creating 2 folders on your HDD one for full backups that you could do say once every 3 months, and a second folder for Docs and Settings that you could do weekly. The first should be sufficient for disaster recovery and the second to keep your more frequently changing data up to date.

Does that make sense?

Absolutely does make sense and sounds like a jolly good idea...never would have thought of that!:beer:

sevlow

As an IT Manager & a heavy home PC user I well understand the importance of having a good backup regime. For home software - and I have tried many my trusted favorive has to be GenieSoft Backup Pro. I will post a review at the end of this post. I love it because you can back up to any mediua or network drive or FTP site and the files can be made self executable. On top of that it's a joy to use.

Next thing is don't just back up - test the restore process. What are you going to do in an emergency, how confident are you? Well for those of you who are really sure that you have all the basis covered - why not format your hdd now to simulate a real failure and then try a restore. Well of course I would'nt expect you to really try - but do you get my drift - what would you do. I have tried some software packages and just could not get a sucessfull backup to restore.


I have never ghosted an entire drive. To me it's a case of risk management. Sure you can insure against anything but my prime concern is in the stuff I cant replace. Here is my own hitlist.

1. My photographs. Thousands of irreplacable images. Backed up via a) GeniePro b) Adobe Elements3 c) Jasc Photoalbum. Each is copied to Rewritable DVD and to a second PC on my home network. I do it when I know I have upliaded a lot of new images. I do b & C simply to capture the keywords used by Adobe & Jasc.

2. MY Family Tree. I have a lot of reserch mataerial catalogued in a Faily Tree Package. I back this up to Cd from within the application hwen I have done so much that I would be screwed if I lost it.

3. My Music. Not a real downer. Most is on CD.

4. Critical documents. Mainly stuff like cv's, job applications and other important scanned stuff.

Of course you will have your own agenda. But whatever you do make sure you test the restore. Delete a file from you PC and satisfy yourself that you know how to get it back. What if your PC is stolen - is the back up self exacutable.

Good luck

sevlow

Sorry - forgot the GenieSoft Review.

Genie Backup Manager offers several excellent features, including the ability to backup emails, the registry (your computer’s index), Internet Explorer settings, MSN, Windows settings, all of your Favorites settings and more. Genie Backup Manager backs up more types of data than any other consumer data backup software on the market. Also, you can schedule custom backups any time, attach a timestamp and add an encrypted password for security.

Genie Backup Manager can also backup data to a remote FTP location (so you can access your backup over the Internet), to DVD or CD, or to a set of media with disk spanning (convenient for unmonitored backups). You have tremendous data storage versatility with Genie Backup, including the ability to pick a new location for any backup. (Some programs don’t allow you to alter the backup location without reinstalling.)

You can specify exactly what you want to backup with Genie Backup Manager but if you want to backup everything at once you must select the sections individually; this is time-consuming.

Other features that would add convenience include a one-click, system-wide backup button and system recovery tools. If Genie Backup Manager offered these we’d give their software top marks for features.

theloft

I use EZBackitup, a utility, which was recommended in the Daily Telegraph Bootcamp articles. It is a free download from :

http://www.rdcomp.net/ezbackitup/index.php

sevlow

Theloft,

looks like a nice utility. Not sure how it compares with other free backup software but the Telegraph site is an excellent source oif information.

Be aware that EZbackitup does nor support writting to CD or DVD witohu third party software and offers no compression. So if like me you have a lot of digital images it may not be a practical proposition.

Maybe theloft can tell us more.

theloft

Sevlow - Sorry to be so lax in replying, have been off for a few days. Sorry can't tell you much about EZ Backitup, I have just used it for documents, financial stuff etc. And am a fairly new user. Maybe someone else has a more extensive knowledge of it.

catch22

My hard drive failed one week ago but thankfully the repair man managed to save my pictures. Was going to install a cd-rw drive but for some reason he could'nt find one to fit my laptop,so he recommended me buying an external one.
Question,would I be better off buying an external hard drive instead so that I can have everything backed up. I hardly ever use my floppy disks,don't want to burn my music cd's.
Thanks