Do you back up your files?

[Scottish Business Owner]

Read an interesting survey today that says almost two thirds of us dont back up any of our files. It also seemed to suggest that using another hardware device to back up data was flawed and that the best way was to do it online.

Two-thirds don't back up files - Web User News

So how many people on here actually take regular backups and what method do you actually use?

From an IT perspective what do the experts feel about online backups is this simply the best way to go now?

 

[Former Member 1]

Read an interesting survey today that says almost two thirds of us dont back up any of our files. It also seemed to suggest that using another hardware device to back up data was flawed and that the best way was to do it online.

Roughly every 2-3 months I fill up a 1Tb external hard drive with old project files. And I only ever keep the actual captured video footage and any graphics and additional audio.... More mundane things get backed up in monthly rotation on a trio of portable hard drives....

Can't quite imagine where exactly online I might store that. Even if I didn't think it was a daft idea in the first place...

 

[Employment Law Services]

I back up my server files every day via Cpanel and download a copy of the backup files onto my desktop.

I also backup my desktop one a week.

 

[Jack Kane]

My web host does an auto backup every day and I do my own full backup at least once a month (I try for more than that though).

I back up my pc files to my external hdd. This is set to auto once a week. I can see the flaw in this though, i.e. if I had a fire, or a catastrophic virus that attacked all drives etc.

I also do periodic dvd backups of my essential files on the pc.

In fact, I must do that soon!

 

[Former Member 1]

I can see the flaw in this though, i.e. if I had a fire, or a catastrophic virus that attacked all drives etc.

I keep the external HDs off the system and in one of those little fire safes. It only gets attached at the end of a capture session (to make the backup) or to re-load old footage (i.e. restore)... There is also a 500Gb 'Archive' drive on the edit machine which in effect acts as a sort of 'live' backup. That material being semi-redundant as it's duplicated both on the external HD and on the A/V drive which is actually the material I'm working with....

Likewise with the hard drives that do the 'rotational' backup on the admin machines... Two are kept in firesafes in different parts of the building and the third is actually kept in a completely different building!

 

[stugster]

We back up Equiphase (all of the servers - which is about 700GB) to an external location up in Edinburgh, and an additional location in France - just in case - on a daily basis.

Having said that, ideally we don't want to have to use those backups unless there's a catastrophic failure, as recovering individual accounts is a pain in the ass.


For home users, there are online backup solutions you can use, which are good once you've done your initial time-consuming upload. The problem is, if you have more than around 4GB of data, even recovering that data can then take hours and hours.

Key points in backup: REGULARLY, RECOVERABILITY, LOCATION

Have your backups done regularly.
Make sure you can actually recover from the backups! Test to see if the files are REALLY there and you can use them.
Make sure you don't have them stored in the same room/house/city as the original data. Not much good if you're making backups in the event of a problem, and a fire hits both the original data and the backup data.

 

[Boxby]

I use a seagate external drive which automatically backs up all new and changed files at 7pm each day. My host also backs up daily the server files.

Though as mentioned I don't backup the PC files online. Have to have a think about this.....

 

[Canary Dwarf]

Backing up in-house protects against corruption, but not fire or theft.

We have developed our own solution, based on the low latency, ultra-scalable Amazon Web Services.

Try it free for a month at: Online storage | Canary Dwarf, Forres, Moray, Scotland, UK

 

[Former Member 1]

Backing up in-house protects against corruption, but not fire or theft.

True; Unless you actually store your backups elsewhere (like keeping copies both at home and at the office) and use fire safes... Which is something I've been doing with my computer records for well over 20 years now (who remembers the Amstrad 1640? And wondering how they'd ever fill a 20Mb hard drive?:001_rolleyes

 

[Jack Kane]

Any recommendations for a decent fire safe for hard drives?

 

[Former Member 1]

Any recommendations for a decent fire safe for hard drives?

The biggest danger in a Fire isn't usually from the fire itself but from the water used to put it out. So from that perspective getting a safe that's submersible is important.

We have a number of Sentry F2300 safes which will hold a few Hard Drives plus a few MiniDV tapes. And I actually know of one of these surviving a fire with cash in it which was quite unharmed. They aren't expensive at around £50.

But they come in both bigger and smaller sizes.

Personally I recommend everyone should have one for things like passports, birth certificates etc; Owning one could save you a lot of grief...

 

[Power Lunch Club]

The biggest danger in a Fire isn't usually from the fire itself but from the water used to put it out. So from that perspective getting a safe that's submersible is important.

We have a number of Sentry F2300 safes which will hold a few Hard Drives plus a few MiniDV tapes. And I actually know of one of these surviving a fire with cash in it which was quite unharmed. They aren't expensive at around £50.

But they come in both bigger and smaller sizes.

Personally I recommend everyone should have one for things like passports, birth certificates etc; Owning one could save you a lot of grief...

That is seriously good advice about the safe. Not just from a fire point of view, but more likely to prevent theft.

 

[Former Member 1]

That is seriously good advice about the safe. Not just from a fire point of view, but more likely to prevent theft.

Quite so Gordon,

Preventing theft is important of course; and there are some very good cheap things you can do these days. You'll get little safes for £20 these days that can be bolted to a wall in some obscure corner of the premises. A big improvement on keeping your favourite Rolex hidden at the back of your sock drawer!

The trick with preventing theft is to place as many 'layers' of obstruction as possible between the thief and the property. Almost nothing in impenetrable but anything that will cost a thief time will help safeguard your property.

SO if you keep the firesafe somewhere obscure and locked within another 'vessel' such as a steel cupboard or even a cheap floorsafe...

 

[Terry]

Once a hard disk has died on you backing up data becomes second nature.

I have almost every file backed up in two locations, so three file copies in all. Original HD, backup HD and online.

 

[stugster]

I lost my entire music collection once... Never got it back. Hard drives do die, and they will lose your data!

 

[Former Member 1]

I lost my entire music collection once... Never got it back.

This appears to be a compulsory experience for all students....

Personally I think they should bring back the wax cylinder. :001_tongue: Whilst I've certainly 'lost' SD cards with music on them. And my Daughter's ipod proved to be the worthless piece of overpriced rubbish I suspected it to be (yes: it died!) in all cases we had the backups in the form of the original CDs, tapes and even vinyl records!

 

[Scottish Business Owner]

So my idea of putting every CD I have onto my machine so I can access them from anywhere in the house and then chucking out all the CD's maybe wasn't such a good one :blink:

 

[Former Member 1]

So my idea of putting every CD I have onto my machine so I can access them from anywhere in the house and then chucking out all the CD's maybe wasn't such a good one :blink:

:lol: I'd at least have put them on Ebay! If you're short of space the best thing to do is put them in an album. It's the boxes that soak up space. Or I know one guy who keeps them in the spindle tubs left over from blank CDRs...

 

[profitxchange]

Yes - probably 2x a month - only personal pc but My main protection is drive/computer failure.

I clone my main drive to a duplicate . It enables me to startup on the cloned drive almost instantly. all software and data in place.

With the low cost of HDD a clone seems a good option in or outside the PC.