iiyamadude 6 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 For those that do backup your computer (and I'm sure there are a fair few that don't!) - what do you do? I'm interested coz one guy I know keeps all his files on a separate drive and basically reads them all into his computer from there... some kind of LAN setup or something. So he can actually change computer and all his still be there ready and waiting. He also does backups every night. Sounds pretty hardcore to me, and totally not necessary (for me). I just save my files once a month or so. Link to post Share on other sites
charlotte 0 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 Should I be backing up? Actually before Christmas I did make a DVD of my photos and a few files I have. Not much else on there really. Link to post Share on other sites
JPchucky 0 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 I back up everything I have. I put photos on DVD and onto an external HD. Then my music... I record live music at 24 bit so the files are pretty big. One hour > 1gb = well over 1tb of masters. Then 1tb+ of just Phish shows!!!! A terrastation of other random shows. All those shows are FLAC'd onto DVD-r as well. Also most of my Phish shows and alot of other shows. I transfered off of DAT so I still have those as well. So in the end everything gets backed up at least three times + I upload alot of my shows to the Live Music Archive, so there's a fourth, actually a fifth because LMA backs them up as well. On very important shows I'll back them up on DVD twice using different brands or batches "just in case" I get a bad spindle of discs. Oh and did I mention that a taper friend of mine and I store each others shows on DVD. All my DVD's are at his house, and all his at mine just in case of natural disaster Link to post Share on other sites
me jane 0 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 Everything on external HD at work, backs up automatically every night and I syncronise the D-drives of my work and home pc's about once or twice a week. Wouldn't be much use in case of a "natural disaster" as home and work are about 5 mins apart but my photos are all online at smugmug so somewhere outside Japan. Back up photos to DVD once a year. Link to post Share on other sites
scouser 4 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 About every month or so I backup onto a hard-disk thats about it. I think work does backups every night, but they would. Link to post Share on other sites
rach 1 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 I really need to remember to do that regularly. Thanks! Link to post Share on other sites
@tokyo 14 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 Sounds technical that me jane.... how does an overnight backup work, do you need special software for that? Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 If google has its way, we wil be using their software for word processing, excel etc so they store your files and look after the backups. i use it myself for some things, like work files i need when travelling, personal info etc, its quite useful. probably safer than carrying a USB too. Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted September 14, 2008 Share Posted September 14, 2008 Originally Posted By: iiyamadude I'm interested coz one guy I know keeps all his files on a separate drive and basically reads them all into his computer from there... some kind of LAN setup or something. So he can actually change computer and all his still be there ready and waiting. He also does backups every night. Sounds pretty hardcore to me, and totally not necessary (for me). I just save my files once a month or so. Not so hardcore!! I do exactly that too. I am currently on the lappy (wireless to the network) and my emails and all other files are on the network drive. What that means is that I can get to my files from here, from the desktop in the office, from the olive press room or from the nice sunny courtyard outside. It also means that I can backup to the second drive in the network drive enclosure, so fully redundant data. And, should you be backing up, charlotte? Not if you can live without your data! Could you? I know I couldn't, so I do go a bit OTT! Link to post Share on other sites
me jane 0 Posted September 15, 2008 Share Posted September 15, 2008 Originally Posted By: @tokyo Sounds technical that me jane.... how does an overnight backup work, do you need special software for that? The auto-backup's bundled with the virus software in Norton 360. You just set which drives/folders you want backed up and to where and specify the time of day. It's pretty easy - just gotta remember to leave the pc on and close all the other programs. I use logmein.com to sync my home and work pcs. Link to post Share on other sites
klingon 10 Posted September 15, 2008 Share Posted September 15, 2008 I used to be very lax but now do a backup once a week. Link to post Share on other sites
fukdane 2 Posted September 15, 2008 Share Posted September 15, 2008 I have it set to update files once a week on an external drive. I use two, swap them each week. Link to post Share on other sites
big-will 7 Posted September 16, 2008 Share Posted September 16, 2008 Same here, but with just one. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted September 16, 2008 Share Posted September 16, 2008 I just burn photos or finished artwork to redundant DVD once in a while, but have all files on the main HDD backed up on two different external HDDs. I have a spare boot drive that I update every so often, so if/when the active boot drive crashes, I don't have to go install all the software and related updates all over again. Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted September 16, 2008 Share Posted September 16, 2008 Ez, that's the sort of thing I'd be doing if I had mission critical (ie money m,aking) stuff on the box. As it is, most of what I have is, if not replaceable, at least live-without-able. Link to post Share on other sites
journey_man 0 Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 I back all my data to a pair of external HDD's. Unfortunately they live within a few metres of the machine so a fire would clean me out. So my "totally can't be lost business files" are also backed up to a machine I have on the Internet. Having said that I'd be very sad to lose my piccies so I should save them somewhere off site too. Some useful geeky stuff: HDD's are like like light bulbs. They all die. I've blown two on this laptop, one under warranty. Ok, I was unlucky, but it does happen. DVD's aren't a good long term medium because the recording layer detoriates. Not to mention death by scratches. For those of you who have Macs running Leopard check out Time Machine. A bit limited but it what it does do is awesome. It keeps versions and for recovering from hdd failures it can't be beaten. Windows has an Ok backup tool that keeps versions too, not as easy to use as Time Machine though. Has anyone tried the internet based backup systems? I'd be interested to know how well they work out. Link to post Share on other sites
journey_man 0 Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 Originally Posted By: Ezorisu I just burn photos or finished artwork to redundant DVD once in a while, but have all files on the main HDD backed up on two different external HDDs. I have a spare boot drive that I update every so often, so if/when the active boot drive crashes, I don't have to go install all the software and related updates all over again. Ezorisu, have you heard of mirroring? If you are up to it geek wise you could easily mirror your main and backup drive using a Raid 1 HDD Controller (now cheap for IDE and SATA drives) to control both your drives. The beauty of using a hardware solution is that if either of your drives fails your computer will still boot and run as normal. When your machine is next powered off you can replace the failed drive. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 My SATA host controller has RAID control built in. Link to post Share on other sites
big-will 7 Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 English please....! Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 Link to post Share on other sites
journey_man 0 Posted September 17, 2008 Share Posted September 17, 2008 Originally Posted By: Ezorisu My SATA host controller has RAID control built in. Easy then! Link to post Share on other sites
BagOfCrisps 24 Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 "My SATA host controller has RAID control built in." Sounds very impressive. But what does it mean? Link to post Share on other sites
JA2340 16 Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 It means that doing the RAID setup should be a snap! RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Devices Means that you can get protection from individual device failures with cheap(er) pieces. Various levels of RAID exist - most peoples use RAID0 (that's zero) - ie nothing! and rely on the single drive in the box to just keep going. When it fails, we get all thingy and expect some poor tech (ie me!) to "get all my data back". Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 My intent was to set it up as RAID1, but I got busy with other stuff (and also lazy), so I've been just saving to the external drives. Link to post Share on other sites
grungy-gonads 54 Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 I believe mine is RAID1. I never knew what it meant. ( Still don't ) Link to post Share on other sites
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