How do you backup?

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I am interested to hear how everyone backs up their work on their pc's/laptops. This should be a good one for Nikolas!

How often, what medium/hardware do you use and what software do you use?

Great topic!

I'll start by saying that I used to work for the Navy and maintained several large corporate systems. A part of my job required maintaining system and data security.

The biggest mistake many make is creating backups and keeping them all in one place. When a site or files become critical to business, I always suggest that at least one copy should be kept off site. If something happens to your place of business, no matter how well you backed up stuff, those backups may be gone as well. I realize that my original responsibilities on this referred to explosions, bombs, and total destruction of the facility. But fires, floods, and other assorted natural disasters are not restricted to big business.

OK, getting off my soap box...

I learned the hard way to make those emergency repair disks when you purchase a new machine. Personally, I think the PC manufacturers are getting away with murder by not supplying copies of the software installed on the machine.

I had been using CDs for data backups and still use them for major/snap shot sort of backups.

Lately I have been primarily using a USB Flash drive. I love it! My only regret is that I only have one and it is only sixteen MB. When I finally bite the bullet and buy a new computer, I will be adding a couple of these handy things to the list.

I'm leary of using backup software that compacts things. Backwards compatibility is not always a reality. I remember learning this lesson the hard way as well. Now that it's so easy to transfer files to external media and the price and reliability of the new external drives, I doubt I would ever rely on backup software again.

There is also another computer in our house that is basically an Internet terminal. I often also put a copy of important files there.

So all told, my websites and important files are in 5 places: CD (need to take another snapshot save, it's been a while), the flash drive, my computer, the other computer in the house, and on my webhost. I admit I haven't followed my own advice and don't have an off site storage location, but once my sites start making income, this will become my sixth backup.

I've also thought about putting some of my non web related stuff on my webhost. After all, I'm paying for that disk space and not using it as well as being off site.

I make backups on the flash drive everytime I make major changes or add several new articles to my sites. I had been trying to make the CD backup every month, but well, you know how that sometimes goes. The second computer gets updated when I use some of the software that doesn't run on my old worn out machine (Adobe Creative Suite) or when I get around to it. Yep, I admit I'm not as disciplined as I should be.

I'm working on creating a new directory site, I will have to get back into the discipline I had when working for the Navy and more frequently back that up. And perhaps look for someone to provide a corner to keep my backup in.

Hope this helps.

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Oh you are so right there when you say to keep a copy off site. That is so important, especially when your businees depends so heavily on that data!

Because I have too much data to backup, I can't just use my 1GB flash drive. I was thinking of DVD's, but these are difficult to mark and keep track of. So... I have just an external 3.5" hard drive enclosure and a 320GB hard drive which came to about AU$220. Now I have plenty of backup space external to my laptop. I use the backup software that came with my laptop and it seems to be doing a great job so far.

The reason I asked these questions is that my mom has a server in her business and I set up a tape drive backup system a couple of years ago. Now the problem I find with these tapes is that they are difficult to check to see if the backup was successful and how do I test it without destroying the data on the server? At least it is easy for them to take the current backup with them each night (away from the building). Anyway, I was wondering if I should change this old tape drive system for something like my new external drive. I would have to get a couple of them though so that they can be swopped every night. This would be a little harder than taking a little tape home, but I feel that it would be more robust and I can check that the backup has in fact worked.

Any advice would be great! Thanks for you input YMC... backups are so important! Aren't they Nick?!

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I use a network drive as hardware:
http://www.freecom.com/ecproduct_detail.asp?ID=2348&CatID=&sCatID=

and a simple backup tool: http://www.kish-d.com/

This way I create backup for my 4GB data within only 15 minutes every night.

EDIT it takes so long because my notebook is connected via a 10MB WIFI access point

Back in the day, my system backups were on 9 track tape; 20 per night. Other than storage space, the biggest problem with them was it was difficult to tell when the tape was wore out before it failed or simply broke.

I would research the tapes you use for your mom's business and make sure it isn't time to trade them out.

The biggest problem with a typical backup is that in order to test if it is working is to restore the backup.  Perhaps you could test by restoring a few random files? or does the system not allow for that? That's why I am loving the flash drive, instant verification. I realize her needs probably far exceed their capacity at the moment. (I did see an ad for a 2GB one recently though.)

I'm not sure I would use the tapes anymore. Personally, I would worry about them wearing out. There's just too many options out there now to have to worry about that.

Keep in mind, I've been out of the system, network, server, loop quite a while; but would she be able to create a mirror system at home? She wouldn't have to worry about tapes (I would still probably periodically back things up) and you could eliminate the single point of failure risk of having one server. I know that this is a more expensive option than buying a new backup system; I've just thrown it out as an idea.

Another suggestion on the current system...every once in a while someone else (you?) should have custody of one of the backup tapes if they are currently all in the same place. I worked for a company that had all the tapes except the most recent, offsite, but all at one person's house. When she had a small fire in her house we realized that offsite means not all in one place as well. While it would be unlikely for her house to burn down and backups to be needed at the same time, stranger things have happened.

In your mother's case, or any business for that matter; I would recommend daily, weekly (at bare minimum), and perhaps monthly backups. Some people keep two sets of each and rotate them in and out. In my original answer I was thinking more of personal data and websites rather than a functioning business; not to say your websites aren't a business.

If you decide to continue using the tapes, you should also institute a schedule for each tape to be retired after so many uses. (Please forgive me for assuming you don't already do that, but I've met many folks who don't realize those tapes wear out.)

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Tapes wearing out has always been on my mind, hence my thoughts on changing the system. The backups will probably take up about 20GB and so I think a new system with these ext drives for example would be a good idea.

YMC - I wanted to see what you guys did for backups for yourselves and businesswise, so no stress...

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Does anyone have anything to say about the Window$ XP Pro Backup software? Is it any good?

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I must say that you're talking about heavy backup methods (tapes etc.).

The thread starts about how do you backup your work from your PC or notebook. Doy you have 20GB data from your work?

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I have 7GB backup from my laptop at this stage...

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I have 7GB backup from my laptop at this stage...

me too (arround 5GB) but I backup only the modified data (most of the time only a few MB)...takes only some minutes

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How does the restore process work when you backup with this method?

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How does the restore process work when you backup with this method?

I have the original folders on my network drive, that will say I have after the backup an exact copy. Th good point is that its much easier to backup a single file.

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What I meant was, when your restore a backup (if your pc blows up like Nick's) does it restore that main backup file and them amend/update the extra smaller, more recent, backup files?

How would you keep weekly and monthly backups using this method? Would it work?

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I think this method may also get a bit confusing if you are rotating the backup drives or tapes.

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of course saving my backups (mulitple versions) on the same network drive is not so safe then using multiple tapes but this backup is  for the case that my note is stolen or the HD is died.

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Nice thread

Now let the (bad) experience talk (I just make fun with my computer's crash)

After a lot of thinking, I think the best way is to do a little from everything.

In my new pc I installed two hard disks in RAID 1 which means that all the data of the HD 1 exists on HD 2 in real time. This way a hardware//disk faillure is not a trouble. BTW I have asked some pros, and right now the best hard disks are the Seagate and the Hitachi. I got two 160GB SATA2 Seagate for 150 euros, and they have 5 years warranty.

The second easy protection is to keep some backup DVDs in a seperate place from the pc's location (I get the dvds from the office to my house) The good think with the DVDs is that they can be stored easilly, and you can verify the written data when you burn them (if you use software like nero)

Next (but a little expensive) is doing something like Olaf does. That is getting automatically a backup in a network pc. I am thinking to get a pc for my house and program it to get backups from the office every night.

After those if you lose data, then you propably have to go to a priest or something, as you will be cursed for sure

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I think its very important to ask yourself why do you need a backup.

in my case its:
be safe in case of loosing my HD (or the whole Notebook)
easy recovery of single files if something is overwriten
having access to my backup allover the world 24/7
the need of a quick backup.

about DVD's: note that for the most of the DVD's is no garantie to loose data after some years

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about DVD's: note that for the most of the DVD's is no garantie to loose data after some years

I agree with that, but anyway DVDs are not the real backup or in other words is not the main backup method. That's why I talked first about RAID and seperate hard disk backup.

BTW I forgot to mention before that external disks are not good. I used external disks in the past, but I am not sattisfied as they tend to burn very easilly (this is propably because the usb and the firewire cables have a lot of electricity) and the worst is that when they do that there is no way to retrieve the data. It is fine to have one, but don't rely on it for backup purposes.

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aah... my FSG is not a external disk, its a magic box:

File server
Backup server; make backups
Webserver
FTP server
Network router
USB server
USB print server
AV server;
Firewall
S-ATA enabler

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Sounds cool. Where did you find this?

Is it an old laptop/pc that you use with a special linux distribution or something else?

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