How often do you back up?

charlieheard

fridgeracer wrote: »

never.

why? because i have a NAS - network assisted storage. Mine is a synology one. you just take normal 3.5 inch hard disks and put them in it and you access it via your router / switch, whatever your hub is for your internet.

And what happens when one of those drives fails? Unless you're using a RAID array, you've only shifted the problem to another box...

PaddyMcG

There's loads of software that backs up to the cloud for very little (I pay $5/month which I expense through my company). There's nothing worse than losing your precious photos, or your clients work in my case!

PaddyMcG

Forgot to say I favour backing up to the cloud rather than a NAS or TimeMachine as if your house ever got burgled that might be nicked too

rockandroller

Chiming in - OS gets done every month (imaged via ACRONIS, I use the free "WD" edition.) Data is currently done redundantly (manually) to a pair of 1TB data drives - one is internal in my notebook, the other is a USB drive.

As soon as funds permit, I'm getting a network RAID and automating the data backups...

fridgeracer

charlieheard wrote: »

And what happens when one of those drives fails? Unless you're using a RAID array, you've only shifted the problem to another box...

i am using a raid setup with x2 drives in the NAS. if one drive fails it doesnt matter, everything is mirrored with each other. it could happen as you say, but its very unlikely 2 drives in 1 nas will both fail. 1 of them is more likely to fail than 2, but either way overall the likliness of them failing at all is very low. especially when i set the nas to have the drives in sleep mode when not being accessed - not as if they are on all day long running even when im not home.

i think for the OP a nas is the best way to have backed up data and not actually having to back anything up. just simply put all your stuff onto your nas the same way you would dump stuff onto desktop or other folders. its easy, safe, and stress free.

i setup my nas 2 years ago and after taking a lot of time configuring it and ensuring it works, its been sitting there flawlessly and still has not let me down. OP, imo you should get a nas. i cant speak for many brands but synology do low end budget versions which still work well, that i know of ^^

fridgeracer

PaddyMcG wrote: »

Forgot to say I favour backing up to the cloud rather than a NAS or TimeMachine as if your house ever got burgled that might be nicked too

very true. but then again, what data is the absolute most important to safeguard from theft?

i would have thought:

passwords, bank details, addresses of friends and family, your CV.

all these kinds of data can be eliminated by simply remembering them such as bank details - all of which are displayed on your current account debit card. why would you need to save the details somewhere? addresses of family, just simply add the contact details onto the people in your contact list on your google mail for example. your CV can be saved to the cloud such as icloud or google drive and redownloaded anytime you need it or need to change it.

other kinds of data such as music and movies could be the biggest worry of losing, but if you are not breaking the law and buying your media then you can simply redownload them for free and quickly via the platform you paid for them. if you didnt buy your music and / or movies and stand to lose terabytes of media that you didnt pay for well.... serves you right to be honest! you never owned it in the first place.

grumpycrab

I think the poll needs to be reset and a new option (or 2) added:-
Realtime (remote, e.g. cloud-based)
Realtime (local, e.g. external disk, raid, nas)

john_smith_4

I cant remember ever backing up my computer which is stupid as I have a lot of information id be lost with out, like my pictures, work documents & the thing id be lost most with out my music

for some reason i just see it as too much hassle and a lengthy process, but hey maybe I should

grumpycrab

john_smith wrote: »

I cant remember ever backing up my ...work documents...

Tut tut. Buy an external disk e.g.
www.amazon.co.uk/Bipra-200GB-External-Portable-Software/dp/B00518DML0/
Stick it in the back of your computer and run windows backup. Or if you're not running Windows8 this is a good "run-once-and-forget" program.
http://web2.iomega.com/iomega-quickprotect

Tsujima

I never ever back up; a waste of diskspace! And I have nothing special to back up in the first place ;D