Do you find backing up important? If so, what's your method?

[nocrapchurch]

Backing up your work is one of those funny things. It can be a pain at times, but you just have to do it.

My previous method of backing up was using CDs. This would take hours to do and I'd end up using about 15 CDs in the process. I just read an article in PCMag that said, "If your backup process is difficult, then you won't do it." I think this is pretty accurate. The last time I backed up anything was in May.

I've had a computer glitch and lost a lot of work. Now I'm starting to take the whole back-up thing serious. I'm just curious if anyone else backs up their work frequently and what is their method?

-scott
http://www.scottmanning.com/

[younghistorians]

Zip disks work great for me. They hold alot. I backed up my whole C drive on one!

[nocrapchurch]

Originally posted by younghistorians
Zip disks work great for me. They hold alot. I backed up my whole C drive on one!

How big was your C drive?

-scott

[mentuat]

I lost an entire drive with no recovery not long back, the tape backup that kicks in at night didn't work because my network cable was disconected - in fact it erased the previous night's too with blank because of it. A backup-backup from two months previous could only dredge back about 15% of my work - the rest was unreadable and a backup-backup-backup from about november last year has still yet to be located (but thought to be in manchester somewhere).

fortunately I had backed a lot of work a few days before on cd's and i lived to fumble another day....

backing up is one of those 'won't happen to me won't worry about it type things' until of course you lose everything!

on the same subject, if you're a guy please check your balls regularly

I'm serious!

[MASA]

I burn my stuff once a week on cd.

[nocrapchurch]

Originally posted by MASA

I burn my stuff once a week on cd.

How many CDs do you use a week for that task?

-scott

[johnie]

I use a CD ReWritable and only back up important files. I keep all my Important Files in 1 folder and then just burn that to the CD.

I have all my most used apps installers that I downloaded of the net burnt on regular CDs along with text files of my software keys (When there is one- A lot of products I use are freeware and thus don't require a Key such as HTML DOC, WIN AMP, NS, Mahjong, My Solitare clone, K-Meleon, ClipYard .84- the new version 1.0 is no longer freeware, Pixia, GIMP, SWF2AVI, FirstPage, Open Office- it has one of the best vectorization functions for a free product I have seen, KF Web Server+PHP- excelent for testing PHP scripts on a local machine if you dopn't want PWS or are using XP Home which lacks an equiv of PWS, Game Maker 4.X, POW, Motion SWF, ECT My Download Manger helps me out a lot here as it stores all my downlaoded files into a folder called My Downloads ) as an archive ever since I had a machine go bad on me and I lost evrything. For software I bought Boxed I retain the Original CD and a post-it note with my key or in some cases the Cert of Authenticity attached to CD Cover- I don't keep the box and the almost always useless manual, although the Book that came with my Debian Package is usefull and I retained it, and typically I get a Jewel Case from my local store if one is not provided with the software in the box.

All in all I have about 15 software CDs and that includes the ones with my hardware and boxed software. For Files I only have the one ReWritable.

[hurricaneone]

Originally posted by younghistorians
Zip disks work great for me. They hold alot. I backed up my whole C drive on one!

I'm as interested as Scott to know how big your C: is, but beyond that, my ZIP drive is so freakin slow, I can set it to write 500 MG and comeback after a restful long weekend, and the things still chewing away.

(Well, not really, but you get my point).

[SubKloda]

I have a 2gb partition that i use for work files only... although i musn't do much work as i've only used 250Mb so far ... This easily fits on a CD and i normally do a copy every 4-8 weeks. In between CD backups i zip up the partition (once a week) and put this in the main partition.

Scott, if you're using 15CDs to store your stuff are you backing up your entire hard drive or are you just a very busy man?

If it's the whole HD, then i'd suggest using norton ghost or something to make a ghost image of your installed software (so you don't have to reinstall everything) and have a separate drive/partition for work files, which should make the process of backing up slightly easier...

hope this helps,
Andy

[johnie]

1 CD holds 650MB+ so he must be backing the whole drive up. 15 per Backup seems excesive as he would be doing about 10 Gigs of work a week.

Burning an Image of the machine is a good idea...

[vsecades]

Although it is very tedious to do backups (we always flip a coin in the office to see who gets to do it each week), there are actually a couple of viable and REALISTIC alternatives to backing up work. Now, CD-ROM backup is an option if you're backing up small amounts of information (although 650-800Mb of info sounds like a lot, it's not), and you're doing it locally on your machine. When I'm talking of small amounts is less than 4Gb of info. If the job is a lot larger that that, then I would recommend you use a more specialized option, like a tape backup. Although tape can be somewhat expensive (200 a unit, plus 20-100 per tape), they can be a real lifesaver. The software provided with these usually allows for you to backup a drive per volume, directory or file. In any case, won't bore you with the details. Tape can be a nice option for both local and network storage. I'll leave it up to our readers to decide for themselves.

[nocrapchurch]

Originally posted by SubKloda
Scott, if you're using 15CDs to store your stuff are you backing up your entire hard drive or are you just a very busy man?

I was backing up all my files on my hard drive along with my outlook files, favorites, fonts, etc. I don't do this every week. I wish I had. I've only done it about every three or four months. I would like to find an easy solution to start backing up everything weekly or even daily.

I was thinking an external hard drive might be the answer. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to drop that much money yet... but considering what I've lost and could lose, its probably worth it.

-scott

[hurricaneone]

It's a sad, sad thing to see a grown man cry, but if I lost my HD, I'd be there.

Anyway, apart from my own personal nightmares...

Yeah, I think that you could sum it up this way: CDs are great for personal users or even small business', but after that, you're gonna have to go tape or external HD/server.

Am I oversimplifying things?

[nocrapchurch]

Originally posted by hurricaneone
Am I oversimplifying things?

A little. You have the means down okay; now what should be the method? That's what I'm really trying to figure out. Do I back up daily, weekly, monthly? Or do I back important stuff daily and everything on the weekends?

I'm just looking to see what methods people currently use and which ones actually work.

-scott

[OddDog]

i back up jobs folders not the whole hd. i also kept writing on the cd what was the date of recording, with short info on lastest changes to work that caused new back up.

but i guess a usb hd would be the most effective you leave it copying every thursday night. but that will take all night.

[Jaffasoft]

I back up all my swf's and fla's once every month I try ritaulistically to back them up at the start of every month. Because I figure I could afford to loss a month worth wouldn't be so dramatic. I have about for folders on the desktop Webdesign, Exsperiments ect. It all burns onto one disk. 1500 files on the last burn.
I thought everything was being burnt until I completely wiped my harddrive and realized that in one subfolder in the main Webdesign folder was a DAMN link. When i was checking the folder to see if it was burnt it was opening the link in the harddrive and i thought it was burnt. Until I actauly wipped the harddrive then cheched the disk to see if it was there. So I lost all the menu's which really pisses me off. Don't know where the hell that real menu folder must have been. O'well that's just some of my thoughts and exsperiences. I'm just a fool around experimenting and developer with flash.

[JabezStone]

I use a CD writer for my backups, and this is my method...

1. I always backup an individual project, at least at its major milestones (the same milestones my clients pay on.) When a project is completed, it is saved to CD, then deleted from my network server. This opens up more development space, and allows me to store the CD away physically.

2. Just about weekly, on Friday, I will drag my "clients" folder onto my CD Burner's icon, and this will copy all the client files, such as proposals, invoices, graphics, HTML, PHP scripts, Flash files, etc.

I find it futile to attempt to back up the entire server. I have the CDs for all my programs... my "favorites folder" is not that important... There are just some things that, if I lose, they are easily replaceable.

Now, on the other hand, my Outlook files are something I haven't handled with too much. Here's why...
All of my contacts are daily synched to my Pocket PC, so they're backed up. All of my email communication that is newer than 30 days is still sitting on my mail server, as well as my PC. Anything prior to 30 days probably won't be of much use to me, since anything legal would be covered in my contracts.

I may have to re-think some of this to better cover my Outlook files, but this far it has worked fine for me.

-Jay

[BrainTea]

I back up all work files of an ongoing project, html/fla/psd/etc, to a Zip disk, then when it's done
(or I think it's done) back up to a CD. With Zips, I can continually update the ongoing backup
without accumulating a bunch of redundancy.

[AGENT 02]

Like many here, I burn essential files onto CDs about every 1-2 months. Older stuff only needs to be burned tht last time after the job is done, so only the more current stuff really gets burned continually...

Either way - it may be a pain, but it's the best thing you can do. In January, I was downloading a new BIOS from DELL off their support site and Windows went FUBAR. I lost everything. Good thing I ran backups a month earlier!

It's a pain in the @ss enough to go back out and re-install drivers and software... it's nice to have your works backed up!

[nocrapchurch]

Thanks for all the input, guys. Has any tried DVD-RW or some of these 4 GB disks that are available now? Just wondering.

I think I'm going to try and create a drive image about once a month or every two months and then back-up projects weekly. Hopefully, I won't need to use the back-ups, but you never know.

-scott
http://www.scottmanning.com/