Backups - How do you do yours?

i use an internal hdd, although i do back up onto dvd's if i do a few big downloads as i like hard copys (a virus can do damage)
 
Vanilla said:
I guess i'd better explain Mozy a bit more.

Online backup.
Unlimted capacity
$5 a month (£2.50)

Bargain.

To all those who back up onto an external drive or onto DVD.

What happens if a fire were to happen? Or if you PC and all the little gubbins were stolen?
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With my setup I'm getting, if there was a fire I'd grab my external and run :p

Problem with online backup is you have to upload it, I don't see BT liking me uploading over 100GB of data :p - it'd take ages as well (20kb/s)
 
basmic said:
Acronis True Image 11, USB to IDE adaptor, and a 160gb Western Digital harddrive.
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Another vote for Acronis (9 in my case, very cheap off a well known auction site) + spare HD here. With HDs so ridiculously cheap these days, when I upgrade I buy them in pairs and mirror my working drive to the spare regularly.

Ok, most of that data isn't important. But the peace of mind I get from knowing I can simply stick in the cloned HD is worth every penny of the small cost in time and money.

Andrew McP
 
Three different categories of backup.

1 - Everything
2 - Stuff that would be a pain if you lost it
3 - Important things

I never backup everything, as I can't see the point in retaining hundreds of gigs of game files that I can just reinstall anyway.

In Category 2 I'd include stuff like MP3s. Not the end of the world if you lose them, but it would be a bit of a bummer. I use Activesync to maintain a copy of them on a 2nd PC to guard against drive failure.

Category 3 only includes 3 things for me. Financial files, Outlook .pst file and encrypted password store. Those get Activesynced to 2nd PC and also stuck onto a memory stick which I keep at work.
 
Vital stuff I keep on a USB Key, monthly DVD backups and in certain cases, a secure online data dump.

Other stuff? As I have well in excess of 4TB of files (mostly music, some films, some games/software) & junk on my various disks, I'm lackadaisical about backing it up. But then I have some rather nifty recovery software that isn't available to the general public, and it's bloody good. I haven't yet failed to recover *all* data from a damaged/dying hard disk, so I kinda take that as it goes.
 
The only thing I'd be really annoyed about losing would be my photo's. These are stored on an internal drive, backed up to a large eSATA drive and saved onto DVD for long term storage.

Music is always backed up to DVD's but I keep a load on an internal drive for day to day use.

PST/My Docs etc are also backed up externally but really arnt that important, at home.
 
I clone my partitions roughly every one to two weeks onto a second hard drive using Ranish Partition Manager (http://www.ranish.com/part). I also clone the partitions onto an external hard drive, although less frequently.

If my main hard drive fails then I can boot from the second drive. No hassle with re-installing and recovering files, etc.

Given how cheap large capacity hard drives are I can't see any reason to backup to CDs or DVDs. Just use another hard drive.
 
memyselfandi said:
3). Third backup is run monthly and involves rsyncing all classes of data over to USB disk(s) which are then disconnected and kept unplugged till the next backup, normally in my drawer at work.
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You knows it, best way to be sure. Weekly folder syncs (Foldermatch, wicked program. Have used Robocopy at work too, but FM does everything I need at home) to Seagate Freeagent drive for quick access stuff, then once a month do backups to another HDD which is wrapped in anti-stat and bubble wrap then stored "off site".

Interesting to read about the online data dumps people have been using, sounds more than reasonable - my only gripe is that it would take forever and a day to upload 250GB+ on cable modem upload speeds.
 
The only thing I back up is my uni work. It would suck if my hard disk failed and I lost all my music and stuff, but it's not really important. I just save all my uni work onto the uni's server, which they back up regularly as well.
 
Well if my windows drive dives then my solution is having a 2nd sata disk and migrate "my docs" folders which includes backups and settings etc to that drive.

if the 2nd drive dives then my backup solution for the backup is to have an external USB2 drive which I use MS SyncToy to sync the 2nd drive onto weekly :p
 
The only critical thing that I back up are photos I've taken, they just get backed up to DVD every few months.
 
Replication jobs between main PC upstairs and media centre downstairs which covers the following:-

Photos - 25 Gb
Music - 40 Gb
TV/Films - Lots Gb
Other critical files (Docs, PSTs, odd bits) - 2 Gb

Photos/Music/Critical files also backed up to a removable drive held at work, then finally another copy of the photos are backed up to a spare internal drive that gets drop off at my parents place.

Wanted to setup a NAS raid system at home to avoid the replication between the two PCs but have decided to wait for Windows Home Server to see what that offers.
 
jdickerson said:
...offsite to protect from fire/aliens/Tom Cruise.
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LOL :p

I don't have a vast amount to back-up. I have got a fair chunk of AVI files on my HTPC I'd be gutted to lose and may buy an External HDD one day to back-up those.

Otherwise, my mp3's are on my iPod and can be retrieved from there, I have two HDD on my main PC with My Docs, Pics, Music and other important stuff backed onto different physical drives, I also burn stuff to DVD occasionally to be sure.

My HTPC has copies of all my pictures and music on also, so I've got "spares" if my main PC goes mammaries-up.

I'd have to be fairly unlucky to lose EVERYTHING, so watch it happen tomorrow! Keep an eye out for "Spec Me Some Back-Up Software" threads in the next week or so :D
 
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