It's backup time

[Jonathan]

By definition, the data you DON'T back up regularly is data you DON'T care about. Since most (all?) PCs have a spinning disk in them which has a finite lifespan, a good backup is critical. And with Terabytes of storage available for cheap, there's no excuse for not backing up. Unless you don't care (which is entirely possible)...

So, how many have made a backup of their machine for this month? :0!

For myself: Two PCs down and a laptop down, two phones to go. Phones? Yep, you're smartphone is just a little PC with a phone app... :D

[Bastelmutti]

Excellent point! I have. I make back-ups a couple of times/week, since I use my machine for work. However, I am thinking of trying online backup to make sure it happens even more frequently and regularly. We have an extra hard drive w/ our photos on it, too. What I don't have is a backup of my phone - if I lost that I wouldn't be able to call anyone! Better get to it!

[Alan]

After losing everything several times over the years, I now do nightly backups, although not of everything. Being a little geeky by nature, I presently have 5 desktops, 4 laptops and a thin client in use at my home. Two of the desktops are used as servers (one webserver/mailserver and one fileserver). The fileserver is the primary repository for everything worthwhile in our digital world. While my laptop is filled with documents, photos, etc., they are also always saved on the fileserver as well so that everything exists on at least two different machines.

The servers are then backed up nightly onto a one terrabyte portable drive. I don't bother with the other machines since they either contain nothing of value, or only contain duplicates.

[CathyA]

I am so computer ignorant. We have these extra things that automatically back everything up. Is that the same thing? (I'm probably not even making sense!)

[Hattie]

Oh I am so glad you posted this thread. We do regular back-ups of our data, however, once a year Hubby likes to do some major back-up on some thingy he keeps in the safe. Not sure what it all is (I'll have to ask him), but it does involve much cursing and ranting when he does it. He hasn't done it yet this year and I think he forgot. I'll have to remind him. I'm sure he will love me for it. :~)

[CathyA]

I'm also pretty neurotic about losing pictures.......so they are backed up several times on external hard drives and stored on 2 different computers (one of which has auto back-up) and I also keep them on a flash drive. I'm thinking of putting the flash drive in our safety deposit box. but first, I have to scan about 100,000 pics of my kids growing up that are only prints right now. :help:

[AustinKat]

Does anyone do online/"cloud" backup? I have my photos in Picasa as part of my Google account, and I use Dropbox for regular file backup. Both are free.

[Rosemary]

I've been putting off buying a portable hard drive because all of them seem to have questionable reliability. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on the best way to back up data, and if it's on a hard drive, the best type and most reliable brands.

[Bastelmutti]

I'm wondering about online backup, too. I have non-disclosure agreements with my customers and that's what's kept me from sending files off-site, but in fact they're sending me files by e-mail, so they're already on my ISP's servers somewhere, right? Need to check into this issue.

[fidgiegirl]

Rosemary

CNET reviews external hard drives. http://www.cnet.com/1770-5_1-0.html?query=external+hard+drive+reviews&tag=srch

I think you are right to be concerned. I have been happy with my Western Digital My Book hard drive so far, but I have heard of other brands failing on people.

Thanks for the thread! It's time to do ours, and to set up Time Machine on our machine to remind us more often.

I lost the cookie recipe from Diana in WI because I didn't back up! That's my greatest lament of all that was lost in the last small window between the last backup and the final failure of the computer. :)

[JaneV2.0]

I back up weekly via One-Click external drive, and I make CD backups of photos and documents on a regular basis. I've also copied a lot of data between computers, so I have duplicate records that way. I recently got an external drive enclosure to see if I could retrieve data on a drive from a defunct computer. Fingers crossed.

[Greg44]

Glad you brought this up. What is the best method of backup? We have a HP PC w/Windows XP. I backup (flash drive) my Quicken files, buy NOTHING else. With our Tax money I thought we had better invest in what we might need.

One of the virus' we caught this year and had to take it to Best Buy -- he asked if we had a backup (no) and were there any files we were concerned about losing..."yes, I said - ALL OF THEM"! Any suggestions would greatly be appreciated!