OT: How Often Do You Back Up Your Files

[Atrocities]

I try and back up my files now at least once a month. I found after loosing many things do to HP and AMD hick ups, that backing up my data is the best thing I can do.

Last year when I made the Ferengi and then the HP died, and like an idiot, I sent it in to be fixed, and got a replacement PC without my old HD I discovered that regular back ups are gold.

Then when CK lost his HD and with it all of his STm work, the importance of back ups gained new appreciation.

The problem that worries me about back up is what do you do with them? For example, everytime I go on a trip, I back up my important files and take the disk along with me. This way if there is a fire at the house, theft, or other I will have my important documents on disk.

What I am thinking about doing is buying one of those fire proof safes and puting my back up disks in that. Do any of you know if those Sentry safes are good safes or not?

[dogscoff]

Most of my creative output (stories, shipsets) are backed up Online- If my computer exploded I could just download it all back off my website.

Stuff in-progress is found on my PC and also on my USB memory stick, which goes most places with me.

But no, I don't often back up although having said that I spent a whole day yesterday burning my music&video collection onto 13 CDs...

BUt yeah, I really ought to back up other files more often. Like, ever...

[ March 15, 2004, 22:16: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

[tesco samoa]

dailys are incrimental
weeklys are full

4 week rotation

and then 6 monthlys

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Atrocities]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif But do the fire proof safes work? I mean what good is a back up if it burns up or is stolen along with your computer?

on line back ups are great. That is what I do with the STM.

[Thermodyne]

Weekly full backups and incremental (changed/unmarked) daily. And now and again I’ll burn a full to DVD set. I was using tape, but recently I moved to an IDE backup solution. I was testing/debugging it for a client, and it was so fast and so easy that I kept the test rig for myself. IDE drives are dirt cheap right now. I back up system state to CD and store that out in the garage with the DVDs. And I burn the Ghost Cast images to CD sets and keep them in the garage too. All workstations use home folders on the file server, so other than an occasional GC, I don’t worry with the workstations.

If it’s other people’s money, then I push SCSI raid 5’s and big tape. But for me, IDE is cheaper and faster.

[tesco samoa]

i off site at a friends house on the weeklys... he does the same

[Ed Kolis]

Why should I tell you? Then you'll know exactly when to hack into my computer! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[Gandalph]

I have a RAID 5 server with 2 RAID 0+1 workstations set to sync with my server twice daily. The chances of all hard drives failing at once are infintesimal (that would be slim and none with slim already leaving town). I would think all IT guys out there would have similar setups.

[David E. Gervais]

I make a Backup Bi-Weekly (every second week) Or, If I happen to have done lots of work over one week, then I do a backup before the bi-weekly period is up.

What to do with the backups? Find a friend and exchange CD's with him, you keep his, he keeps yours. Oh, and once a month, make a double backup and keep one and exchange the other.

Before you ask,.. no you can't have my SE5 work Backup CD's they go to Aaron http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Beck]

Yes, the fire proof safes do work. Just beware that the safes are rated as to how long they can be expected to work and frequently at a particular temperature. Generally for most home environments anything 90 minutes or greater is fine. My father had one when his house burnt down and everything with the safe was fine.

[Shrapnel]

The fireproof safes are good if you get one rated high enough. My dad had one, and it was great. Just got to remember when buying, you get what you pay for!

[Ruatha]

Every time the computer crashes and I reformat the HD, I swear that I'll always make backups....
So far the backups isn't taking up very much storage in my home...actually there are no backups.

[capnq]

I have very little stuff that needs to be backed up. All my backups currently inhabit one ZIP disk, and most of them are there to save me the hassle of downloading them again.

[Cipher7071]

You can always store some up your back-up disks at some family member's, or a neighbor's house. That will go a long way toward solving the fire/theft problem.

[gregebowman]

Everthing I've d/l for this game I'll put on a cd-r/w disk before I put it on my hd. Unfortunately, I haven't made copies of those. So if my place burns down, then I'll lose those disks. I could make a copy of the disk and give it to my sister-in-law to keep with her computer stuff, but I'm afraid of what my niece and nephew might do, as they have disk scattered all over the room where she has her computer. But they're moving, so I hope the kids won't be able to get to the disks so readily.

[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by Ruatha:
Every time the computer crashes and I reformat the HD, I swear that I'll always make backups....
So far the backups isn't taking up very much storage in my home...actually there are no backups. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Try Ghost, you can reload the whole system in 5 mins.

[Instar]

not often enough

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by Ruatha:
Every time the computer crashes and I reformat the HD, I swear that I'll always make backups....
So far the backups isn't taking up very much storage in my home...actually there are no backups. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Try Ghost, you can reload the whole system in 5 mins. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I made an image once, but found that I had changed what programs I use so much that I didn't want to use the image....

[Atrocities]

What do you guys think about portable Hard Drives?

[Kamog]

Well, at work I back up my stuff about once a week. At home, I hardly ever back up. A long time ago, I used to back stuff up on floppy disks. It was a good thing I did that because a few years ago, both my computers got stolen when someone broke into the house. I still have my data because of those floppy disks. But now with file sizes getting bigger, floppy disks are just too small. I don't have a CD burner so I don't have a good way to back stuff up. Maybe I'll buy a flash card reader and a bunch of 256-MB flash memory cards or something to back stuff up on, I don't know yet. Or I guess I might get a CD burner.

[Atrocities]

I should get into the habit of backing up files at least once a week. But how can aford CD/RW disks.

I want DVDR.

[David E. Gervais]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
What do you guys think about portable Hard Drives? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They are great, My brother has an 80gig external USB HD that he uses for backups. Actually it's one of those universal USB caddy units that can hold any standard PC IDE unit like a HD, ZipDrive, Floppy, even a removable HD unit. It simply has it's own power cord and hooks up to the PC via a USB cable. Plug it in and it works like any other drive. It appears in 'explorer' as "USB External Drive (F:)" (or what ever letter follows the Last Local drive on your system.)

..and they are portable enough to take with you anywhere. Now that is a very good thing. The only downside is that the transfer rate is something like 128kb/sec (aka 10 megabits per second) but for backup, that's not too bad.

Nuf said, Cheers!

[ March 18, 2004, 11:27: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

[David E. Gervais]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
I should get into the habit of backing up files at least once a week. But how can aford CD/RW disks.

I want DVDR. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">CD/RW? Why? CDR's are cheap, around 50 cents each when you buy 50 or hundred packs.

DVDR's are still around $12-$16 a piece (they hold the equivalent to about 8-10 CDR's) so value wise CDR's are still the way to go.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Cipher7071]

Even if you don't have a CD burner, you can still send backup files to some willing person for safekeeping. No system is failsafe, but the safest backups are always off site.

[Atrocities]

"Ok here is a copy of my important data including my bank PW's and on line account info. Please keep it in a safe place."

Do you trust any one with that information?

[The FryeR K]

I have a new jump drive a protable 256MB harddisk.
Solid state, I back my stuff up a toss it in a fire proof container, the drive is water proof by itsself.
Nice to have a new toy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Fyron]

CD/RW? Why? CDR's are cheap, around 50 cents each when you buy 50 or hundred packs.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">50 cents?!? Even in Canadian money... you have been ripped off my friend! The most I ever pay for them is 10 cents US each! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[dogscoff]

"Ok here is a copy of my important data including my bank PW's and on line account info. Please keep it in a safe place."

Do you trust any one with that information?
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">2 solutions:
-put that information on a second disc (even a floppy) and keep it somewhere else.

-encrypt the information first. Just a password-protected zip will be enough to keep ppl honest.

But yes, there are plenty of people I would trust with that information.

[gregebowman]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
What do you guys think about portable Hard Drives? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Mine was great until it got zapped by lightning. I'm still hoping the guy I gave it to can recover most of the files on there, but he's been pretty busy. But darn, it's been almost a year since I gave it to him. If I can afford it, I'll get another one. My 40 gb hd is getting kind of full.

[tesco samoa]

good thing i back files up http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif