Community poll forum: Why haven't you backed up your data?

If you have ever lost everything on your computer hard drive in the past, you are likely going to do backups on a regular basis. I just use the Microsoft Back Up on Windows 7 that is set to back up every week, and also use an HP USB hard drive that backs up data every 5 minutes, and when the computer finishes a boot, the HP drive does an immediate back up on things that have changed since it was last backed up. Both the full back ups and interim back ups are automatic and I don't have to take any action to complete them. Large back up hard drives are relatively cheap today, and there is no reason to avoid doing things like this. Both of these programs require some set up, but after that you can leave them along and they will take care of things.

I can still remember having to do back ups to tapes, and that could be an exercise in futility.

I back up to the internet using both Mozy and Carbonite, plus an external USB hard disk. I paid for a Carbonite subscription, then I got Mozy for free from my work. Both work well, The good thing about the internet backup is that it's always available, whereas you can have problems with a USB external disk. Between the two of them, internet backup and a local USB disk , you have pretty good odds of not losing anything. I use Retrospect to backup to the USB disk.

I've used the backup on the external USB disk to recover specific files, and used the the internet backup (Carbonite, specifically) when I re-installed a Windows XP desktop. It was very useful to have all the data files, photos, bookmarks, etc. available for selective download/re-installation on a newly re-installed system.

If you have to think to do backups, in my oppinion you have already made an error.

A few years back I regular made mirrors of my laptop to an USB harddrive. One time I needed to restore my computer - and the USB harddrive crashed in the middle of the process. I lost everything! Since I am a freelance graphic designer is was quite critical.

Today I take my backup serious (besides always having my antivirus application updated). I have transformed an old workstation into a fileserver, fitted it with a raid-controller and a bunch of discs in raid-5.
I do, have a tape station but the backup/restore process takes ages with the amount of data that I have today, And with the low price on hard drives today, it is faster and more flexiable if you have terabytes amount of data. So the tape station is for sale
On the fileserver I have installed Super Flexible File Synchronizer. Every 20 minutes it copies files from my current workstation to the server. If files are deleted it moves the files to seperate folder. I do have to manually emty that folder now and then, but if I accidently deleted a file on my workstation, I know I can find it on my server.

Besides the server I backup the most essential files to a clould server. I also always install the OS on a seperate hard drive, so the OS and data files are never on the same.

In order to qualify as a backup, it must be stored somewhere other than the computer. In fact, it is recommended that critical backups be stored completely off-site (at someone else's house, for example). You can back up your computer automatically, but it is going to cost you something. Companies like Carbonite don't just offer their services for free. Even then, the system is not going to be backed up and neither will very large files. If you want it done right, you are going to have to oversee it yourself. If you want something important done, then do it. Don't expect it to be automated for you.

Macrium reflect is easy and I understand it fairly easy.

I have used several "back up" progs over the years but none are really satisfactory. They are all incomprehensibly complex to use and most don`t work when you need them.I use Maxtor at the moment, but despite getting my local "nerd" to try and sort it out, it is currently not working properly.
In my business we religiously backed up every night and took a disc off site, but when we finally needed
it, the disc was empty!
Why do they make a simple operation so difficult?

I am afraid to back up my data because I slowly starting to get confidence in working and right now I am afraid if I start backing up with a program and something goes wrong I am not sure that I will be able to back out of it successfully.

Jerry

I used to use a copy of Retrospect Xpress that was bundled with one of my external drives. When I got a new Windows 7 machine, that software wasn't compatible. Rather than buy an upgrade, I began doing a drag and drop backup from each of my program and data drives to my backup drive. Unfortunately, that process is a resource hog and still takes all weekend. I've gotten serious pushback from my User base.

As a result, I haven't done one for a while.