Community weekly poll: How often do you back up files that you consider important?
- 10/12/06 3:26 PM
How often do you back up files that you consider important?
by Lee Koo (ADMIN) - 10/12/06 3:26 PM
How often do you back up files that you consider very important?
Hourly (how so?)
Daily (how so?)
Weekly (how so?)
Monthly (how so?)
Quarterly (how so?)
Biannually (how so?)
Yearly (how so?)
Never (don't know how or just living on the edge?)
Other
Various...
by John.Wilkinson - 10/12/06 8:02 PM
In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Critical files are copied to a flash drive after every major change, at which time the flash drive is removed to prevent accidental modification or deletion.
All files are synchronized to an external hard drive daily, though prior to each sync a comparison is made to verify that no files are going to be replaced or deleted without being appropriate to do so.
On a weekly basis all files are backed up to a set of DVDs. The DVDs are cycled through, so several weeks worth of backups are available in case one becomes corrupt.
And, of course, all backups are automatically and manually verified after creation to ensure validity.
Any other questions? 
John
WOW (Saint) John
by grayja - 10/13/06 1:14 PM In reply to: Various... by John.Wilkinson
I must say, you sound terribly meticulous and almost RELIGIOUS!!! but very comendable none the less. I assume you do serious important and valuable work on your computer, but really, for us lesser mortals who take family snapshots, copy music, surf the web, and write emails, might we be able to do something a little less rigorous and less frequently.
My problem is 'good intentions' - I know, the way to Hell is paved with good intentions!!!. I set up the windows Scheduler to do my backups at 1 am. every Monday - sounds good eh??!! trouble is now I have left it up to the computer to do the dirtly work, I get sleepy of a Sunday evening, and goo off to bed early, switching off the PC on my way!!!!!
What I'd really like is some way to have the PC flash a message on the screen on Sunday evening when I start the Shut-down process to remind me "Hey Dummy - tonight is backup night - PLEASE LEAVE THE PC ON.
Anyone have any good ideas - I'll watch this discussion for a few days. Thanks, Arthur
Not that Easy Yet!!
by gigal226 - 10/14/06 11:04 PM In reply to: WOW (Saint) John by grayjaI am sure at some point we will have the capability of having a message pop up before we turn our computers off, but until then I would suggest a backup program that will backup after every change or daily. I have an older computer and only a 28 gig hard drive so I don't need something huge to back up to. Anyway, I use a 750 meg zip disk to back up to. Files that are important to me I have set to back up after every change; files that are not as important, I have set to back up daily. This usually happens when I restart my computer; and files that I just want to have I manually back up once a month. I hear a flash drive is better than a zip and can do the same thing, but I haven't really needed the additional space a flash drive offers. As far as I know something like the zip or flash backups are as close to the popup as you are going to get at this time. Believe me, once you have lost important files, you will spend the time and make sure you back up your data.
Daily Backups
by rsherry - 10/13/06 8:16 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use an external USB 300GB Seagate drive to backup my files on a daily basis using "VersionBackup", a FREEWARE product. I tried many others, but settled on this one because it allows you so many useful options. There are no nag screens and it is simple and FAST!
Every 10 minutes!
by richlane - 10/13/06 8:31 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I use Second Copy and set it to sweep through my user data folders every ten minutes. When it finds a file that's changed, it backs it up to an external hard drive. If a file is still in use, it can't be backed up, but it is backed up within 10 minutes after I close it. (The one exception is outlook.pst, which isn't released by Outlook for several hours after it's closed, which I never understood, but it gets backed up at least once a day also.) Once a day, I back up the external hard drive to another hard drive. Every month, I swap the second external hard drive with a twin that I keep off-site. Having an off-site copy of my important data is a crucial component of my strategy. I also do a disk-image backup of the system and program files every few days, and keep it on both external hard drives as well. All this took about $200 in hard drives (which are really cheap these days), some inexpensive software, and a few minutes to set up. Once a month I have to drive to my storage locker to swap the backup hard drives.
Backup of data
by woodwrth - 10/13/06 8:33 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have 2 hardrives in my PC. I use windows XP briefcase to backup my data weekly to the second hard drive, then quarterly i copy the data to CD or DVD.
If they're important, I'd do it right away...
by smartipants - 10/13/06 8:36 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Most of the files that I work on are not so large or important that they need to be backed up at all. I back them up a couple of times per year, and then I can't find them when I need them, anyway, and have to recreate them (which takes all of 10-15 minutes). :o) On the rare occasion that I work on an important document, I back up (replace) each version as I work on it.
Handling back-up
by dickboy - 10/13/06 8:39 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have windowsOne Care Live that prompts me to do it every two weeks. I I down load a new program or have new documents, it prompts me to do the back-up. It backs up to a DVD. If I had an external hard drinve it would back-up automatically.
Drive Image Pro 7.0 is the best
by Pikepole - 10/13/06 8:41 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I back up my HD with Drive Image Pro 7.0 and I think it is the best. It is quick easy and relatively cheap. There have been many times that I have used the restore and I just love it. I have it scheduled to run once a week. There are still copies of this out there if you look.
--Bob
Almost immediate backups
by powersville21 - 10/13/06 8:44 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Although I've never lost "irreplaceable" files, a couple years ago I lost all the backup MP3's I made of all of my CDs. Reconverting all my CDs into MP3's was an incredibly tedious task. In addition to the ripping process, I had to re-tag all the new MP3 files. Once I finished that, I vowed to myself "Never again."
I have two internal hard drives. The primary drive is split into a C: drive and a D: drive. The C: drive is for programs and system files. The D: drive contains the My Documents folder. The secondary drive contains a small partition for the Windows Page File. (Microsoft recommends that the page file be located on the 1st partition of a physical hard drive separate from the drive containing Windows.) The 2nd drive also contains two other partitions, which I use for internal backups. I have created a folder on one of the backup partitions My Documents-Backup.
Whenever I create a new document or update a document, I save it. Then I go to the Start menu, locate the new/updated document in My Documents, right click and select Copy to Folder. I choose the similarly titled folder in the My Documents-Backup folder (such as My Pictures-Backup or Letters-Backup) and add the copy/update there. Thus I backup every document just minutes after I add new information.
When I upgraded my primary hard drive from an 80 GB model to a 300 GB model, I removed the old drive and bought an external USB enclosure. I plan to use that new external hard drive as yet another backup, although I'm not as diligent about that process. I figure once every 2 or 3 months, I'll create an external backup on that hard drive.
I suppose I could build a RAID system to do all this, but a computer overhaul isn't in the budget right now. This system is fairly convenient for me. Almost anyone can afford to do it because hard drives are relatively inexpensive these days. I bought the 300 GB drive for just $99 at Newegg. If you only need an 80 GB drive, the prices would be much lower than that.
It's always possible that one hard drive will fail but it's highly unlikely that two hard drives would fail at the same time. Since I live in a high-rise apartment building, flood damage to my computer isn't a risk. I think only an electrical surge could knock out both hard drives at the same time but I think most modern apartment buildings have some kind of additional surge protection that standalone houses don't.
Anyway, that's my backup process. It's pretty easy to do, it's inexpensive and I never risk losing more than a minute or two worth of new data.
Weekly Backup
by yellowcabohio - 10/13/06 8:45 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've got a Dell system that has three large hard drives, and a CD Burner, connected to my router that is used only for backing up. I use the standard Windows 2000 Backup Application and back up to a mapped drive on the "backup box". Important files that are subject to change are backed up to a specific folder where a CD is burned and filed. It's worked so far!
I also have a ghost image of my system when it was fresh, with all applications installed and tested, so I only back up data files on a regular basis.
Monthly
by braintimbers - 10/13/06 8:55 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I back up to a 2gb memory stick
Backing up data
by the enforcer - 10/13/06 12:58 PM In reply to: Monthly by braintimbersYeah, me too. The only difference with me, is that I back up my files to a 1gb memory stick, which may not last that long, thou . . . I will upgrade to an 8gb maybe later n in the future. I wonder what everyone else does?
Second Copy for frequent backups
by MartySB - 10/13/06 8:57 AM In reply to: How often do you back up files that you consider important? by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've been using Second Copy for a number of years and it's saved my bacon several times. Second Copy allows me to backup files in any directory to a second hard drive or a flash drive and any other logical storage device. It can be set to run at user defined itervals, can move the replaced files to another folder, can zip the results, just about as cusomizable as one could hope for. The only annoyance is when you are working on a file that would be backed up... you get this loud female voice telling you that the FILE IS IN USE! and she really sounds snotty about it!
One thing that Second Copy has forced me to think about is the way I store data files on my hard drive. It's easiest to put all my files in one folder, i.e. My Documents, then have that entire directory backed up.
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