Idiot's guide to backing up music & photos?

buyitall

I would like to start being sensible and back up my photos and music to disc (at last). Could anyone please tell me: are dvds and cds both suitable for this purpose? Once I have backed up once, how do I go about making regular back-ups without having to re-back up everything that has already been done or, even worse, writing over it? Hope this makes sense! Thanks in advance for any advice!

espresso

Download SyncBackSE and read through the comprehensive context sensitive help. CD's and DVD's are fine for backing up although you could also use an external hard drive.

gelato_cat

You can use either CDs or DVDs, but DVDs have a bigger capacity.

Suze

buyitall wrote: »

I would like to start being sensible and back up my photos and music to disc (at last). Could anyone please tell me: are dvds and cds both suitable for this purpose? Once I have backed up once, how do I go about making regular back-ups without having to re-back up everything that has already been done or, even worse, writing over it? Hope this makes sense! Thanks in advance for any advice!

bat999

Hi
When you save data files (such as photos or mp3 music) on a CD-R you can set it up as 'multisession'. This allows you to 'append' more files.
When you are sure that you don't intend to add any more to that disc you 'finalize' it.

This might apply to DVD-R and DVD+R discs too, but I'm not sure. Perhaps someone else will comment on this.
:cool:

albertross_2

How much data do you have to backup, in GB?

sevlow

You can certainly use CD's or DVD's but I just put off doing things that are a pain and I put backing up to CD/DVD in that catagory. So unless you have small directories for your pics/data and musoc I'd invest in an external hard drive which can be had for around £70.00.Think of it as a one off insurance policy.

You connect these devices via USB and on a simple level you can drag and drop your my ducumentys folder to the external hard drive.

Managing you files gives you more flexibility and options which is why I use Genie back Up Pro and Acronis True Image. Whatever you do mentally run through the disasters that could happen and if your back up strategy would allow you to recover for example Fire, Theft, PC failure etc etc.

buyitall

No idea how much I have to back up, sorry. At a very rough guess about 200 photos and 70 music cds perhaps, so prob not much by some people's standards, no idea how much that is in gb!

daniellaB

We use a seagate freeagent pro 500GB external drive. It's fast, quiet and does exactly what yu need it to do without any fuss. It comes with some great backup software that auto backsup contents of any nominated folder. I actually get stuff backed up now!

buyitall

A quick check on pricerunner brings the seagate up as £89.99 in Amazon, does that sound about right? Doesn't mention the word 'pro' though

daniellaB

We bought this one because it has usb, firewire and eSata connections, so making it very versatile.

This list shows the various options.

Donnie

A simple solution is to use InCD 5; http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/InCD_5.html or Back It Up from Nero; http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/Nero_BackItUp_2.html

Trial version available from their website; http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/Nero_BackItUp_2.html