My lap top has died, I've lost everything on the hard drive.
I still have a copy of everything on a flash drive.
How many back up copies do most people keep?
How many back up copies?
Quote: Griff @ May 13 2008, 2:51 PM BSTI recently bought one of these to back up my important files on. I still don't remember to DO the backups very often though... thanks for the reminder. Sorry to hear about your lap top.
ta. I've had a new hard drive fitted, fifty quid. 
you should get a MAC, they're much better and never break.
Email it to a hotmail/yahoo/googlemail account and let them worry about the backups. They back up their servers so you'll probably not lose them, even if your house burns down taking all your hard drives with it. Better still, do what I do (as an backup-obsessed database administrator) and email them to your work account and a web email account, as well as keeping a copy on a local and external hard drive at home.
My backup strategy is second to none. Shame my scripts aren't really good enough to deserve it!
Dan
I email myself almost everything or put it on my website. I should have a hard drive but I can't afford it.
Quote: manchester's trendy chorlton @ May 13 2008, 2:55 PM BST...and never break.
Hehe I've heard that before.
I setup iBackup.com at work and that's very good for automated off-site backups. For home I just backup to a seperate hard drive but would probably use iBackup too if I went back to being self-employed and had work stuff at home.
For someone for who has very little money - but over 8000 photos she wants to back up (that's all I care about) what would you all recommend?
Picasa. http://picasa.google.com Or indeed any sort of web place that you can upload to. It's free, btw, so even you can afford that, Ellie 
I'd say Facebook (and then restrict the privacy settings to 'Just Me') but apparently when you download them again they're not as good quality as uploading them.
Dan
Better still, do what I do (as an backup-obsessed database administrator) and email them to your work account and a web email account, as well as keeping a copy on a local and external hard drive at home.
My home and work e mail adresses are one and the same. 
Quote: swerytd @ May 13 2008, 3:03 PM BSTEmail it to a hotmail/yahoo/googlemail account and let them worry about the backups. They back up their servers so you'll probably not lose them, even if your house burns down taking all your hard drives with it. Better still, do what I do (as an backup-obsessed database administrator) and email them to your work account and a web email account, as well as keeping a copy on a local and external hard drive at home.
My backup strategy is second to none. Shame my scripts aren't really good enough to deserve it!
Dan
My home and work e mail adresses are one and the same.
I bought my G4 Mac in 2000 and it still runs perfectly. It never got a virus or broke down once in the 8 years I've had it.
My fiancee has an Emac she bought back in 2002 same thing zero problems no viruses had to get a bit extra memory for it but thats it. This Macbook Pro i'm typing on is only a year old but I had to replace the battery a few weeks ago (it was paid for by Apple but still). Over the years of having that G4 my friends have all had to purchase 2 or 3 PC computers (viruses, faulty hardware, not fast enough ect..) in the time span of my G4. I would still be using that G4 if I could use the new OS with it (but unfortunately only G5s and Pentium run the OS and thus the new software).
Besides battery problems (laptops and ipods) they are the most reliable computer you can own in my opinion.
Quote: Andrew M Bedell @ May 13 2008, 3:23 PM BSTMy home and work e mail adresses are one and the same.
Okay, get a second email address (doesn't *have* to be one work and one home -- there's no law or anything) from yahoo/googlemail/hotmail (they're all free) and just use that exclusively for sending your scripts to.
Dan
Quote: swerytd @ May 13 2008, 3:26 PM BSTOkay, get a second email address (doesn't *have* to be one work and one home -- there's no law or anything) from yahoo/googlemail/hotmail (they're all free) and just use that exclusively for sending your scripts to.
Dan
Not that my scripts are probably worth the bother anyway!! 
Ah, but if you get the infrastructure right now, when they become worth it, you'll already have a great system!
</usual database administrator nonsense>
Dan
Quote: swerytd @ May 13 2008, 3:18 PM BSTPicasa. http://picasa.google.com Or indeed any sort of web place that you can upload to. It's free, btw, so even you can afford that, Ellie
I'd say Facebook (and then restrict the privacy settings to 'Just Me') but apparently when you download them again they're not as good quality as uploading them.
Dan
can you upload at a decent file size though? most of my pics are 6meg - i use a web based back up service but back up the full file - if i lost all my pics i wouldnt fancy getting them back at 12kb each!
Speaking as a bloke who has been dealing with computers since 1962, 46 years.
My answer is: at least 3 copies in addition to the original.
Basically this is what they are for
1. The original.. To go wrong in horrible ways when your computer crashes or gets infected by a virus.
2. One for you to mess up completely while trying to do your own rescue, or which happenned to be being written as a backup at the time of the crash in (1) and is therefore incomplete.
3. One for the cowboy IT person (or friend of a friend who 'knows computers') to mess up trying to do a rescue
4. Your fourth and final, really & truly vital last copy, to be rescued by a REAL professional IT person.
=============================
The professional backing up systems use a grandfather/father/son system.
That is you have three sets of backup media. Two are kept in safe storage, such as a media fire-safe and one is in use for writing backups.
To do a backup you overwrite the OLDEST one (the grandfather) and it becomes the SON. Also you periodically check that it really truly is possible to retrieve your information from the backups. It is quite common for backup procedures seem to work but actually to fail (such as due to the media being full) in such a way that the data cannot be easily retrieved. A common failing is that the Index of fles is written AFTER the data. If the media is full, the index does not get written and though the data is there, you cannot find it or the system cannot retrieve it.
Just remember the next time you feel tempted to economise on backup procedures:
"Hard disks can fail in less than five thousandths of a second at any time and Forensic Data-Retrieval Processes by specialist firms cost tens of thousands of pounds!" and even then may not succeed