Data backups

[john]

Which operating system do you use and what is your back up regime, if any?

I'll kick it off:

I use Mac OSX Snow Leopard.
Back up strategy is two-fold:  I do hourly/daily/weekly incremental Time Machine backups to external hard drive plus I use SuperDuper, every evening, to make a complete bootable clone to a different external hard drive.

I've also been looking at offsite backup but not implemented any yet.

[john]

C'mon, don't be shy. You do back up your data, don't you?

I also use Dropbox for offsite and distributed backup of certain data.

[Geoff1951]

Windows XP. Hasn't crashed in two years. Kept lean and clean with CCleaner, AVG, and WinPatrol. No updates to any programs without permission and necessity. Nor any need to upgrade for a while yet.

Four HDs in all, 2.8 Tb, main one is kept never more than half full, programs removed if not used in six months.

All working docs, files, pictures, etc stored on separate internal HD. Weekly backup of full system to external HD using Acronis True Image. Much easier to use than Norton Ghost, or whatever the current version is called. Plus also docs and pictures copied weekly to another HD. Then 6 monthly copies of docs and photos onto DVDs. Sounds cumbersome but a routine that takes little time with practice - apart from burning DVDs!

(Typing this while John posted his chaser.)

[john]

Geoff, that's impressive! 

[Geoff1951]

Backed up to the point of paranoia - Five years ago I didn't have a structured backup system. I lost all the photos I'd taken on our 25th anniversary, a week spent in Venice. Lost them before I'd backed up them up, and before SWMBO had seen them...


Important photos like that are backed up straight after downloading, and checked before deleting from the memory card. Once bitten, etc.

[Audax]

Important photos like that are backed up straight after downloading, and checked before deleting from the memory card. Once bitten, etc.

I wouldn't bother with deleting photos from memory cards, just buy new ones, they're so cheap now it's not worth reusing them and then you can put the originals in the fire safe.

[Max Headroom]

The only stuff Im really worried about losing are photos and a few documents. Photos get burned onto discs periodically, and the discs are copied to other members of the family, so there are backups of backups on that front.
I'm not one for downloading music, and prefer something tangible, so I still buy those old-fashioned CDs whenever possible. I also copy stuff like music to a portable HDD. Other than that I use AVG; CCleaner; WinPatrol;MailWasher Pro; and AVG PCtuneUp to keep it all running smoothly. I also copy stuff like music to a portable HDD

[Guyver1]

Use XP for OS and Firefox for browser, I don't bother backing anything up as I don't put anything on my PC worth the worry.

[sgould]

Time Machine.  Plus random copies to a second disc.  Would have been less random, but the Time Machine disc died  

That's the second Iomega drive to have gone down in 6 months....   One 1TB and one 750GB....

[James]

6 x 1TB WD Black Caviar drives in a 4TB Raid6 array, with one more as a hot spare.

Important stuff backed up via Time Machine to a Seagate external drive.

Really important stuff kept in the clouds.

Seems to work

[CitTone]

I print everything* off twice a year - you can't beat hard-copy! Never crashes, always accessible!

(* I mean incrementally, of course...I'm not stupid!!)

[ScarbSaab]

Windows 7 and XP on work machine, Linux on most of the rest. I use Bacula to backup from my systems to a server in the house, then duplicate to a filestore machine in the detached garage.

At our office (Win XP, OS X, Linux) I use Bacula on a server which mirrors the content to an external drive, rotated off-site daily.

Whilst working on a project I will copy source files to one of our servers in a London datacentre (which is itself backed up by the hosting company.) I tried using my broadband connection to sync off-site overnight, but it was impractical. Now that upstream speeds have improved, perhaps I should try it again.

sgould, did the failed Iomega drives use Deskstars?

[sgould]

The 750GB drive is a Deskstar. I removed it from the Iomega case and put it in a new enclosure, but it didn't work.

The 1TB was an Iomega Ultramax Drive. When I took it apart it was actually two Seagate 500GB drives with the internals linked by the electronics to appear as one. I now have each of the two Seagates in separate external enclosures. They both work fine, but none of the data was recovered.

But I had been using it as a second backup of the 750 Iomega so nothing was actually lost. I just copied the Time Machine on the 750 GB drive to a new (**)G-Max 2TB drive that I bought. This was fortunate as the 750 failed soon afterwards.

At the moment I have just the computer hard disc and the (**)G-Max in use. I really need to bring the spare disc into use as a further random backup device.



NOTE: (**) Checked the details and it's a G-Technology "G-Drive", not a G-Max.

[Max Headroom]

2TB??? Wow! How much did that cost?? 

[sgould]

Surprisingly little!  Memory is getting very cheap. I can't remember exactly how much but I can look it up.