What is your back-up methodology?

[ElFenix]

i think i'm going to set up ftp to back up anything that has changed onto the other computer

 

[human2k]

CD-RW

 

[Sniper82]

I don't. I got cable so getting stuff back ain't a hassle IMO and besides theres nothing real important on my PC.

 

[wfbberzerker]

the only time i backup is right before i do a reformat, and then i just backup the stuff i need onto another computer on my network.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Every 1 to 2 months, I clean up all my files and put them in various directories in my home directory, I tar them all up, tar up my dotfiles, tar /var, tar /etc, and if needed /usr/local. I then burn all of these to cd. A few times a year I do a big mp3 backup, but that's alot of cd's, while a normal backup fits on 1 cd.

 

[yadda]

I have one PC in my home network with a shared drive where I save all my vital Quicken, wife's files, address books etc. Then every night through MS Task Scheduler it runs a Robocopy (utility in MS NT/2000 Resource Kit) job that mirrors changes to another drive.

I have used this method for 2 years.

;-))

 

[Davegod]

Im on ISDN but do little actual "work" on this PC so my backup consists of saving my "downloads" folder, game configs/savegames and My Documents onto CD's. Every single time i reformat & reinstall i tell myself that this time, as soon as everything is tweaked the way i like it (xp service tweaks, interface, XP updates, blah blah blah) I'll do a proper backup so anytime i can just chuck that back on and save LOADS of time. No doubt youve guessed i never bother getting round to doing this, and actually am not sure of a way of being able to reformat & then completely restore an entire setup

 

[cbuchach]

I have an extra hardisk which I back my system up to every week using the WinXP backup utility. I also archive important files to CD every 3 months.

 

[dpopiz]

2 years ago when I suffered my 4th complete hard drive loss, I finally set up a system where the entire drive is backed up daily to a server on the lan.

 

[Chaotic42]

I use tar every month or so. I back up to some free space I have, and burn important files to CD-RW

 

[LED]

Every 3 days Ghost from RAID0 to 3 alternate IDE HD's...most I've ever lost in 3+years since I started this method has been a week (2HD's) of DATA. Favorite stuffs I burn on CD's and/or DVD

 

[BFG10K]

I manually back-up all of my personal files straight onto CDRW once every few weeks.

At work I back-up the entire server every night onto magnetic tape.

 

[NumbaJuan]

i backup using Retrospect to an external hd & also Ghost to cdr. i'm running a raid 0 array so me likes to backup and backup often

 

[Shogun]

I run a differential backup each night to DAT tape. On Sundays I run a full backup, also to tape. Then once a month I archive my data to CD. And every time before I make changes to my setup I do a ghosting to a spare HD I have here. I can't afford to be down as this is my work machine.

 

[Hulk]

Wow, this thread runs the gamut from, "bah, who needs to backup?" to "I backup every day."

Amazing.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I back up stuff when i feel like it ... usually to tape or cd or another hard drive ...

 

[ScottMac]

At home, I'm using Retrospect to a 35/70 DLT drive.

It backs up 5 machines (four through the net) automatically. Full backup once a month, incremental backups every night.

Retrospect is nice; it will produce a bootable CD image for disaster recovery. You don't have to totally reload the OS ... just boot the CD. It loads enough of the OS and the necessary drivers to use the tape to put everything back, locally or through the net.

It's cheap too (US$86.00 for single server and two client licenses).

FWIW

Scott

 

[powerMarkymark]

GHOST

 

[Horsepower]

I back up every week at home and at work. I have removeable racks in both computers, and keep a separate backup hard drive. I use XP backup and backup the meat, not the potatoes. (my data)

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

I back up... about... never! Heh. Don't really have important stuff I can't lose to backup. If I lost all my music and video files I'm probably sick of most of them anyhow . And games can be reinstalled.

 

[ProviaFan]

I back up my documents and large downloads (stuff that would be a PITA to download again on dialup) to CDRs with some regularity. I probably should consider using GHOST for easier disaster recovery, but that's not happened yet. I'd like to get a tape drive, too, but those are so freaking expensive.

 

[madogvt]

GHOST 'C' drive to another partition. Also keep most everything in My Docs, so I sometimes just back that up to CD along with Outlook .pst file, maybe Explorer cookies and favorites and save game files.