Trying a new backup approach

[pcslookout]

Would like to know everyone's thoughts on it? Been wanted to do it but never got around to doing it. Hoping this saves me from losing anything ever again because we all know we have done it several times before and always said we would never lose all are data ever again. This is mainly for program settings and data. Like bookmarks in firefox, firefox extensions, all the settings for firefox, thunderbird emails, thunderbird settings, Miranda profile, etc.

I have changed all of the default directories for all of this information on these three programs to another totally different hard drive. That way if I ever need to reformat my hard drive and forget to backup all this information no big deal! Currently have a image of the operating system with all the settings for these programs pointing to the profiles that are on the other hard drive. That way I won't have to reset the place they point to every time. Even if my image does get corrupt thats ok because a fresh install of windows would still allow me to install the programs then repoint them back to the profiles on the other drives to restore all my settings and data. Now it doesn't stop either. After I pointed the default directories to another hard drive. Another tool not sure what I want to use yet will make a copy and put them on another different hard drive. That way if one hard drive dies no problem! Now if I want I can go even further and backup to a dvd-rw or cd-rw but I would make sure to make it been written on to like a hard drive so I don't have to burn it every few weeks. That way it will just be automate. Even if you get less space by making the cd-rw or dvd-rw where you can just copy , drag or drop information on to it I think its worth it for the automation.

The reason I am doing this is because I am so sick and tired of not having a up to the second backup copy of my settings and data. I hate having to redo everything as well. I have done that for to long.

 

[pcslookout]

Well so far its working really well! I have it backing up right now to a cd-rw cd directly every minute but only because these files can change by the minute or even by the second. It only transfers new files or deletes files if I add anything or delete anything. Like for example if I get a new email it will add just that one new email to the cd-rw cd if I delete one email it will delete that one email from the cd-rw cd. Pretty cool because I hated having to install the UDF reader or whatever it was. Slowed down windows so much. Hated directcd and incd as well. Only needed 40 MB on the cd-rw cd so far. Next step is to get by the minute backups to another hard drive as well. That way if the cd-rw cd backup doesn't work I have a backup with the second hard drive. The good thing to is at least I will always know the data will be up to date and never old. I would of set it for every second but I think thats a bit much.

 

[blackangst1]

I would suggest keeping all your preferences on your C drive and just copy and drag to the other drive every week or when ever you feel its changed. The slowest part of your PC as you may know is your drives...sooooo if your browser is contrantly needing to access a different drive, it'll slow things down. Noticebly? *shrug* but it would irk me personally knowing its not as fast as it could be.

And your backing up to DVD RW is a good idea for everything.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: blackangst1
I would suggest keeping all your preferences on your C drive and just copy and drag to the other drive every week or when ever you feel its changed. The slowest part of your PC as you may know is your drives...sooooo if your browser is contrantly needing to access a different drive, it'll slow things down. Noticebly? *shrug* but it would irk me personally knowing its not as fast as it could be.

And your backing up to DVD RW is a good idea for everything.

You have a point but what if a forget to backup all my current data before I reformat and reinstall windows or reimage my hard drive? This was my biggest problem forgetting to get a up to date copy of all my data so it would be recent.

 

[blackangst1]

Originally posted by: pcslookout

Originally posted by: blackangst1
I would suggest keeping all your preferences on your C drive and just copy and drag to the other drive every week or when ever you feel its changed. The slowest part of your PC as you may know is your drives...sooooo if your browser is contrantly needing to access a different drive, it'll slow things down. Noticebly? *shrug* but it would irk me personally knowing its not as fast as it could be.

And your backing up to DVD RW is a good idea for everything.

You have a point but what if a forget to backup all my current data before I reformat and reinstall windows or reimage my hard drive? This was my biggest problem forgetting to get a up to date copy of all my data so it would be recent.

Well, technically you'll have at least one backup which is better than starting from scratch. Dont take this the wrong way, but you should have a checklist before you reformat. What if you forget? Just dont forget

If you are using Vista I believe you can schedule shadow copies and backups...not sure if you are or not.

 

[pcslookout]

Yeah but I just went back to a previous image a few days ago and forgot to backup all of my current data. Luckily it was already backed up already sense I still had it set to back up every minute to the the cd-rw. Its pretty easy to forget to backup your latest data and whenever going back to a previous image the data at that time is all you get if you forget. I know I could of left the folders for Firefox in their original place but that would mean they would get replaced every time I went back to a previous image and could mess up the latest data on the cd-rw. I set backup on the cd-rw to keep only everything I keep like a raid array basically. If I kept everything as backup on the cd-rw without having the same changes that happen on my original data folders it would get very confusing. The cd-rw would fill up a lot quicker.