How do you back up your books?

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I bow down to your backup superiority!

Why don't you back up your Windows Home Server to the cloud rather than the PC?

BOb

I actually had my PC backing up to the cloud before I built my WHS. What I plan on doing for the WHS is to purchase an IoSafe and back up my critical files to that. My WHS has 10TB storage (yes that's tera) but most of it is recording space for my HTPC and isn't considered critical. Once I add the ioSafe I will most likely discontinue Cloud backup because it's painfully slow both backing up and restoring.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

IWhat I plan on doing for the WHS is to purchase an IoSafe and back up my critical files to that.

Hmm... looks interesting if you can get back to your house after the mud slide.

Of course, it doesn't solve the theft issue.

BOb

[Shaggy]

I've got a NAS RAID array on the home network that most of my PCs use as a backup. My wife and I each have our own "ebook archive" directory on it that we copy stuff to.

Other than that, just burn them to CD/DVD. If you're really paranoid, make a second copy on CD/DVD and store it at your parents house, etc.

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Hmm... looks interesting if you can get back to your house after the mud slide.

Of course, it doesn't solve the theft issue.

BOb

No mudslides around here I used to do the burn to CD/DVD method but it wasn't something I could set up to do automatically. And then you still need a different safe place to store your media.

Personally, I'm more concerned about losing data through losing a hard drive or user error than I am about theft.

[alecE]

Although I've got multiple locations for my ebook files (My Digital Editions, the DRM-stripping directories, the base library for editing (Three loud cheers for Sigil) and finally the Calibre directory) this can't be considered an adequate backup as it all resides on just two disk spindles - laptop hard-drive and and USB 1Tb drive - think what could possibly go wrong...

I'm on the cusp now between continuing with CD/DVD archiving or using memory sticks/SD cards - cheap convenience versus volatility.

Having seen many instances of hardware failure (and experienced a couple myself) I completely agree with whoever said "Back it up, and test the backups".

Oh, and how nice to know I'm not the only anal retentive here :-)

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by alecE

Oh, and how nice to know I'm not the only anal retentive here :-)

That's a good insight.

I think that it's really not the method itself that counts so much as matching the right one to the correct personality. If it floats your boat to have multiple solutions to cover every conceivable eventuality then there's doubtless a great deal of pleasure to be had with tinkering with your system, polishing and fine tuning it all. It's all good.

But if that isn't your style, then it can be just a pain in the arse and an outlay of time, money and effort for not all that much return. If I lost every book on this computer right now I could get them all back from the Internet fairly quickly and easily. Some I wouldn't bother with (they can stay right there on someone else's server....) and if there were any actual losses, well "c'est la vie" - there's plenty more to buy and read.

The extent to which I still do back stuff up probably just reflects my current rating on the Anal Retentive Scale. And the older I get the more my ARS slips.

Chris

[ChrisC333]

Here's a back-up story, provided by our local computer shop.


One of the nearby businesses called my friend at the shop to say they'd had a drive failure that needed sorting out. The techie went out and was assured that it should be easy to fix as they had religiously backed up every night (for over two years) and kept the disks in their safe.

However, when he looked at the disks the file was surprisingly small. Tiny in fact. So he asked if they could give him a demo on their other computer, and show him exactly what they did. Sure enough, they were rigorously doing a backup at the end of every single day...... of all the icons on the desktop. Nothing else. :

It cost them more than they had bargained for to retrieve the data, but if you want it back badly enough you can usually get most if not all of it back.

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I am wondering how everybody backs up their stuff. I have some of my books on the Kindle and some not, but I am still concerned about backing them up because a) not all of them are from the same source so if I ever had to re-create my whole collection from scratch, it would take ages and b) some of them have had work done on them such as conversions that would take ages to re-do. So, what I had been doing was backing up everything using Time Machine onto a backup drive. But then I started thinking I needed a second back-up not at home. I thought about sending them all 'into the cloud' as attachments in my email and storing them there, but again, tat would take forever as each book would need to be emailed individually. So what I did was bu an 8 gb USB thumb drive (my collection is not even 1 gb even though it it over 800 books) and backed up the whole Calibre library folder onto that and I have attached it to my keychain so it is with me when I leave the house.

As far as original files go, if the book was eReader and I converted it to HTML, I am keeping the HTML in Calibre but I am not keeping the original eReader anywhere. If it is a mobi or a Fictionwise multiformat, I am keeping the mobi original in Calibre since I am using mobi right now and since I can easily convert them in Calibre later to something else. And if it was originally an epub, I am keeping the epub backed up in a separate folder since they gum up Calibre if I leave them in there. People told me epub loses a little in conversion to mobi and if I want to convert them to something else later, to keep the epub just in case so that's why. I have not yet backed up this 'mobi originals' folder onto something else though---I am just backing up my Calibre library for now since I may want to put some other backups on the thumb drive and don't want to run out of room.

So does this sound like enough backing up? If not, what do you recommend?

Me, I toss 'em the keys to the truck, tell them to be careful, don't drink, try not to run over anyone and go have fun. They usually do just fine backing up.

Derek

[GhostHawk]

Well with the low cost of fairly hefty SD cards you can get a lot of storage for 8 - 10 $.
I don't know how well they stand up over time compared to say a DVD in a good case.

But they do have the advantage of being small, and many devices use an SD slot so you can just drop it in and go.

[jduvall]

Automatic weekly backups to home server
Automatic monthly back ups to back up server (stored in a different location)
Important files (IE Military files) get backed up once again to a thumb or sd card and that gets store at my safety deposit box

[ctol]

I generally do a full backup about once week of complete system to 500g external drive.
All of my book files go onto three external harddrives as well as three usb drives, my internal lexar 8g drive, and onto a dvd disk. I will soon begin using dropbox and windows livedrive as well.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I've got a NAS RAID array on the home network that most of my PCs use as a backup. My wife and I each have our own "ebook archive" directory on it that we copy stuff to.

Me too; one of the most useful things I've ever bought. I also use mine as a media server for streaming video and music to a set-top box for my TV.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by alecE

Although I've got multiple locations for my ebook files (My Digital Editions, the DRM-stripping directories, the base library for editing (Three loud cheers for Sigil) and finally the Calibre directory) this can't be considered an adequate backup as it all resides on just two disk spindles - laptop hard-drive and and USB 1Tb drive - think what could possibly go wrong...

The only practical method to back up a 1TB drive is onto a second 1TB drive - they are sufficiently cheap now that it's really not an issue to do so, and keep the second drive off-site (I keep mine in my desk drawer at work).

[mikaelalind]

I do a general backup of my computer, regularly, and my books are included.

[Jack Tingle]

In re-reading this thread, I realized I hadn't done a good backup of my laptop in a while. (Sigh) I also noticed an empty 4 Gb thumb drive sitting next to the laptop, one of two I bought just because they were cheap, and my wife moves around a lot of photos that run 3-7 Mb each.

Hmmm.

Suffice to say, after a little (Ha!) cleanup, like moving all ebook files to one folder, moving all zips to one folder, moving all photos to one folder, moving all music to one folder, etc. I fit everything on my User account in 3 Gb.

Next step, hooking the external drive to my wife's laptop and saving all her photos. (Aaagh!)

Busily,
Jack Tingle