How do YOU backup your data?

[Malladine]

couple of cds usually

Looking into a usb hdd though

 

[Need4Speed]

rsync, ssh and hard links

 

[oog]

Originally posted by: bob4432
acronis true image to a mapped drive on the server, then that hdd gets backed up to another one in the server. in theory i would need 3 hdds to fail at the same time to lose all of my data.

like if you had a fire or flood at your place? i like the idea of multiple backups, but it may be a good idea to push one of your backups to an offsite location if you're paranoid.

 

[SGtheArtist]

oog, makes a good point.

I plan to do this in the future. Rotate out external HDDs from a safety deposit box or something 😛

 

[bandana163]

I burn the stuff I will need later on DVDs and keep my often changing data (family pictures, screenshot collections, etc.) on DVD+-RWs. I use 3 smaller HDDs (120GB each) instead of one large one to minimize damage upon a sudden hard drive failure.

DVDs are cheap and burning them only takes several minutes. I only use Verbatim discs, it would make no sense to use el cheapo class media when making backups. IMO, storing everything on hard drives would be stupid, discs almost always outlast HDDs.

 

[Hyperlite]

Every night at 3AM i have a very cool program called SyncBack backup my entire raid array onto an old seagate IDE.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: TechHead87
How do you go about backing up your stuff?

I bought a 200GB HD when they were on sale at Fry's for $40 after rebates. add an external HD case and I have offline backups.

My important files are on my file server which runs a Raid 5 array, and my email archive exists on both of those places + online

 

[jack1201]

dvd

 

[AllGoodNamesAreTaken]

Three hard drives:
1. OS/Apps
2. Data/Code
3. Media ( music, games, videos, backups )

Strategy:
1. Nightly backups of volatile data ( source code, e-mail, documents ) using Retrospect 6.5 (*) to DVD+RW.
2. Monthly backup of OS/Apps using True Image to Media, followed by burning to DVD.
3. Music library burned to DVD when new songs are purchased ( iTunes ).


(*) Retrospect has saved my skin enough times that I can overlook its unusual design ( re: snapshot performance ).

 

[BFG10K]

DVD+R and DVD+RW.

 

[xtknight]

I don't, lol. I'm not old enough to have anything important, but if I did, I'd use external media like DVD-R. However when I lost 160 GB of random crap and Visual Basic programs to a partitioning mistake, it wasn't a happy day.

 

[bdww00]

i just use my floppy drive ahahahhaha <----- that was a joke i dont have another extra stable hd so i have to use dvds

 

[Schrodinger]

I'm curious how you guys treat your vital data. For me, I have a pile of source code, bookmarks and documents/work from college. Some bits of my source archive go all the way back 13 years (!)

Luckily all of my vital data together still amounts to probably ... oh... 300 MB or thereabouts. I've realized though, that my backup strategy sucks. I have some CD-RW that I've baked over and over. Its just by luck of the draw that crap hasn't gone sour for me.

I'm thinking about keeping all my data on the hard drive, then doing nightly backups to a 512MB Flash Drive. And then once a week, on every Sunday evening, I'll burn CD-R (all my vital data not just the changes). I could drop off a CD-R at my parents house every couple of weeks, too, when I visit them. They're about 100 miles north of me (in case this house burns down/floods/whatever).

What do you think? I can't really justify putting in a drive on RAID mirroring for such small amounts. The same goes for a USB external hard drive.

(Keep in mind that I won't use CD-RW anymore, just a new CD-R for each weekly backup.)

In the event my drive dies, I still have the USB flash drive for a days worth of data. If that ever died, I'd still have a backup from 1 week earlier on CD-R. Then again I should do a cost-benefit analysis on the coding... if a drive dies and I lose a full days worth of programming that could very well suck 😛

How reasonable/sound does this strategy sound to you guys?

 

[xtknight]

Luckily all of my vital data together still amounts to probably ... oh... 300 MB or thereabouts. I've realized though, that my backup strategy sucks. I have some CD-RW that I've baked over and over. Its just by luck of the draw that crap hasn't gone sour for me.

Thought that said 'viral data'. 😛 Damn you, virus writer.

Usually my code 10 years ago looks like Spanglish so I don't care about it.