What are the different ways you guys back up your data?

[tigersty1e]

Do your have an external HD?

Separate computer?

Do you use multiple HD in your rig?

 

[ForumMaster]

i burn some things to DVD-R every now and then. i don't have to many things that i can't get again. all my serials are written down. in the worst case scenerio, i could d/l with utorrent and use my legit serials.

i do believe that the best way is to have an external drive. fastest and safest.

 

[Curr]

I have a 500Gb HDD in my current rig that I fire up about 1x a month and put things on it that I don't want to lose. Games, Email, Pics, Music, etc. When I'm done backing up I shut down and unplug it. Things I deem irreplaceable I burn to DVD.

 

[airhd823]

400GB External

 

[tkistre]

I use a NDAS. Works pretty much like a NAS, but more secure. I back up important documents, email, pics, video, music and downloaded programs about once a week. Things that are absolutely irreplacable, I burn to DVD like "Curr."

 

[airhd823]

NDAS interesting

 

[Boyo]

I have a 250GB HD Enclosure that I back my data up with Acronis True Image 10. It's worth the investment.

 

[oog]

rsync to another machine

 

[KoolDrew]

There's not much stuff I have that I couldn't afford to lose. All I do is backup the few important things I have on a flash pen and DVD-R's.

 

[Navid]

I run this free program (Cobian) on my machine.
http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

I have scheduled it to create a daily incremental (only the files that have changed during the day) backup of the partition containing my data files (about 2GB). Those are data like program keys, pictures I do not want to lose, any documents I cannot recreate.

The backup is made on a secondary internal hard drive.

It also is scheduled to do a differential (everything that has changed since the last full backup) backup once every month. It also creates a full backup every quarter.

I copy the quarterly backups onto DVDs as well.

I do not backup files that I can download or re-install from a program CD.

 

[Jiggz]

I'm probably the only person who does this unorthodox back up method. I always have a spare hdd of the same size and what I do is clone my main hdd about once a month. After cloning, I test the spare hdd by disconnecting the main hdd and make sure it runs. If it does, then I disconnect the spare hdd power molex and reconnect my main hdd. During a crash or main hdd failure, I switch hdd and then re-clone again as soon as a new hdd is available. This puts me back online in no time but the back up data is not up to the minute. Of course, sensitive data will always be written to DVD's or CD's for safe keeping. Of course this is a home computer and not a business one, so up to the minute back up is not necessary.

 

[Jeff H]

Jiggz, what do you do your cloning with?

FWIW I use a "multi-pronged" approach. I use an external HD w/ Acronis TrueImage 10, to create back up images of my system. I also use DVD/RW for incremental back ups of important data. I also have DVD-R's for my most important data, and off-site those discs.

For cloning I use xxclone. This thing is, in my experience, simple and effective.

 

[Blain]

I only backup specific files or folders.
I backup to different locations...
1GB USB drive
Different partition on same HD,
Different HD in same PC,
Different PC,
DVD+R

There's not much rhyme or reason to how I backup. I mainly copy data to wherever it fits and how I might use it in the future.

I'd really like to get a nice NAS unit for storage.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
(1) Do your have an external HD?
(2) Separate computer?
(3) Do you use multiple HD in your rig?

Yes to (1). That is especially useful on my laptop and my SATA RAID 1 data array.

Yes to (2). I have a backup computer loaded with all the same stuff as the primary. It is now my Vista testbed.

Yes to (3). Each computer has two HDDs - only one of which is normally active. The other is a clone - ready to go just by shifting power connectors. I re-clone and rotate the drives weekly.

 

[beaulanger]

I use the free MOZY 2GB online backup http://mozy.com/ every few weeks.

For things that change daily like my calendar, appointments, and documents I use a SanDisk Cruiser with the free U3 RoboForm2Go for my passwords and automatic logons.

All my programs, photos, music, video, etc. I burn to either CD-R or DVD+R regularly.

I even use GMail sometimes to back up small things to the space there.

As you can see I like free and several methods to be safe. I recently bought a new HP Pavilion, put in one of my backup CD-R s, and the drive immediately broke destroying my disk. Luckily I had the data over on Mozy. Don't get me started on HPs. I always built my own systems until this one. Big mistake!

 

[piasabird]

Lately I just hope for the best. Woo Hoo.

I use to have 2 working computers but my newer computer gave up so I went to the backup. However having a cheap computer you can use that as a backup server. This does not require any fancy software. Just 2 operating systems. You could just take an older computer and use that for a backup server.

 

[j00fek]

if i want to keep it for a while ill burn it to dvd or DL dvd

if not ill just store it on the nas

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: Jeff H
Jiggz, what do you do your cloning with?

FWIW I use a "multi-pronged" approach. I use an external HD w/ Acronis TrueImage 10, to create back up images of my system. I also use DVD/RW for incremental back ups of important data. I also have DVD-R's for my most important data, and off-site those discs.

For cloning I use xxclone. This thing is, in my experience, simple and effective.

Lately I use DriveImage XML. Before that I use Casper XP. Both runs very well although Casper XP runs inside Windows but also cost about $40.00 while XML is free.

 

[bwatson283]

back up to a spare 120g of just the windows folders and the system state. Then transfer it to a 320gb external, yes im paranoid.

 

[bob4432]

my homer server has a 500GB storage drive in it that all the other machines drop an image to using acronis. the machines that are one 24/7 create a new image every week, the machines that are not on 24/7 usuelly get it done at the very least every 2wks, or if i am going to do some stuff on a particular machine, then i will run it on that particular machine.

we are set up pretty good - our phones also get backed up to the machines and also have synced contact/calenders along with a sync to outlook on the laptop.

i am really contemplating one of those 5 drive sata hotswap interal cabinets and a decent raid 5 pci-e card as soon as i build my new home server and would put in probably 5x500GB in raid 5 or 6 so 1.5-2TB of storage. should last me for quite some time. or even 5x250GB, whichever gives me the bang for the buck...just need to do my research on which cards and drives are truely hotswap....but will use acronis. in addition to that i have been contemplating a 1TB hdd when they come down in price in an external usb/1394 enclosure to be able to grab all the data should the condo catch on fire....just quite a bit of $$$ tied up in hdds and controllers, but i am sure it would be worth it if the worst happend.

 

[billyc]

I have 4 partions. Weekly backup to 2nd HD.

Monthly image backup of XP and file backup of other 3 all on DVD using Nero Backitup.

 

[Special K]

Large files get backed up to DVD+R. All of my school work gets backed up to filespace on my school's server. I have a script that automatically runs rysnc every morning at about 5 AM.

I also have 2x250GB hard drives in RAID 1 as my primary drive, although I realize RAID isn't truly a form of "backup".

 

[boomerang]

A second internal drive devoted almost exclusively to backups. I have Acronis scheduled to image my boot drive to it every day.

 

[Madhattan]

Hey Navid. Im currently looking into Cobain because it seems to be a great alternative to that retrospect software that the external Maxtor one-touch comes with.
Im basically looking to back up a handful of folders every night onto the one touch.
I just wanted you to elaborate on your experiences with this software. Is it buggy? Would you be confident in installing it on a clients office computer?