Do You Backup?

[harryball]

I gotta say something now... it amazes me how this theme keeps repeating.

---
"Hey Bob Botter, how are you?"

"Doing better, PC crashed, got most of my stuff back but lost some. I'm sure glad though, if I lost the whole thing I'd be up feces creek with my face for a paddle for sure..."

"Wow", I say "what are you doing to backup and protect your files?"

"huh... well... uhh... I pray every night, keep my doors locked and I spray my computer with RAID every morning."
----

I'm sure this is familiar but the question is... what are you doing about it?

So, Survey...

[bleeth]

Photos are put on a couple computers, Bookkeeping gets backed up to a CD, Home computer gets docs backed up on free on-line back up provided by Comcast. SB and Artfiles are stored on design computer and floor computer.
Design computer, which acts as general server, is also fully backed up on external hard drive.
I still have dead hard drive at home with stuff on it that needs retrieval after crash from years ago. Can't bear to pay 1k to get it done and can't bear to throw it away!!

[dana_swift]

Backup? More than get the car out of the drive?

Ok joking aside- I have a stack of blank DVD-R disks, each time I do something I wouldn't want to lose, I copy everything to the next blank disk. Then I save all of them, so I can find a file that may have been deleted but may not have noticed until much later.

Anytime there is any hint of flakiness I backup immediately.

It has saved my bacon many times..

A lot of piddly things dont need backing up. So they just get saved in the next disk-burning session. It is unusual for me to backup more often than once a week, or less often than once a month.

All disks of all kinds fail at some point. That is why I back up so many copies. At about $0.50 each its no big expense, and paid for itself many times over.

D

[blake_koehn]

If you don't backup you will... After you wish you had!

I use a program called EZbackitup. Google for it.

I use a External USB hard drive. You can get them very reasonably from Walmart.

1. Plug it in.
2. Download Ezbackit up for free.
3. Set Ezbackitup to backup your files everynight.
4. Fogetabloutit.

Ezbackitup checks every file and if the size has changed at all it backs it up. If nothing has changed it skips over it, so it doesn't have to copy everything every time.

IF something doesn't work right you have a warning on your screen the next morning telling you what happened.

[clueless]

Carbonite user here. Been using it for a year or more. Love it. Backs up all the important stuff without me doing a thing. Used it to recover files one time and it worked perfectly. Well worth the $55 a year it costs.

[chiloquinruss]

OK here's the real problem. I do art / draw on one computer and then copy the stuff to a stick. I put the stick into the Bot computer and copy to its hd. Of course this is also the set of files that gets all the 'corrections'! I sometimes back up the art / draw computer but I don't remember backing up the Bot computer! OK so I'll add backup to my Bot checklist and make sure it gets done. Shame on me! Good thread thanks! Russ

[myxpykalix]

I have a single main directory that all models, working files, ect go into. Then i have a external drive that i use microsoft "syncToy" to back up all my created and saved designs to a external drive that it all is copied to.

[knight_toolworks]

I use dropbox to sync my home computer and work computer I also bought the save changed files forever option. my home computer is backed up with time machine and and two free online backup programs.

[adrianm]

I use a program called AJC Active Backup that I have set to monitor all my working directories.

It keeps a full archive of all changes made to my files on an external disc with the benefit of being able to roll back to any revision of a file or compare changes.

I run a RAID 10 array as well plus I backup all important directories to another external drive every Sunday.

One very important thing to do is to make sure you can actually read your backups and they are saving what you think they're saving. Don't rely on a program that says it's backing up your data without verifying it actually is.

I worked as an IT consultant for many years and I've lost count of the number of times I went to companies who thought they had bulletproof backup procedures only to find that they were backing up only a tiny fraction of the data they needed or the backups couldn't be loaded back onto the system.

[navigator7]

Mac and Carbonite.
What's a virus?