Quote:
Originally Posted by speedlever
Jeannie,
I'm curious what your backup plan is for all your data?
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Right now, I'm using Carbonite to back up all my data online. I've been copying irreplaceable data to a 160GB Western Digital External Drive. I would image but my computer has outgrown the capacity of the external drive. Being the cheap, old bitch I am, I do not want to buy another external drive because I've been working on a new case with a larger power supply to swap the innards of my computer (except for the marginal PS) into that will allow me to add up to 5 HDDs (6 total). It also has an external hot swap bay I can use to plug internal drives into for backups. Internal drives in an external hot swap bay are less expensive, smaller, and faster (since they use a SATA interface instead of a USB) than external drives. The case is also "future proofed" because I can replace components as existing one become obsolete. There is also room for an SSD that I will be able to use for a boot drive once I upgrade from XP (the present MOBO is incompatible with Win7 and I'm too cheap to replace it until I get my money's worth out of it).
What I will do is repartition my HDD so it has a boot partition and a data partition. I'll have to farm that job out (possibly this April while I'm out of town for a week) since I do not have disks for my OS (I will never make the mistake of using an OEM OS again) and Office 2007. The recovery disk that came with the computer (I'm also never buying a computer again; I'll build my own) is a piece of crap loaded with crapware and a few faulty drivers. It is an image of the newly built computer integrated with a recovery disk so I can't just install the OS and Office 2007 by itself. The shop will have the necessary disk to reinstall the OS, Office 2007, and needed drivers. I have a service plan so it will cost me only $30 to have it done. I won't have any programs installed.
When I get it back, I make an image each of the boot partition on the external harddrive I have. I'll then install the programs onto the boot partition and, once they are all configured and working correctly, I'll make another image of the boot partition. This way, if my OS and programs go wonky, I can jusr restore the image. At worst, I may have to delete or add a program or two. If I delete very many programs, I'll restore just the OS and reinstall the programs I want to keep. That will keep the registry from getting too junked up. If I add very many programs, I'll make a new image of the partition. I'll have to do that every so often anyway to keep up with updates. I'll also just keep critical data only while I'm using the external drive.
Once I finish prepping the case (cutting a couple more holes for wiring, repainting the case interior, extending the front IO panel wiring, making up new, neater cables for the PS) and move everything into it, I'll start making versioned images of the data Partition using the external drive bay, probably weekly. When I get close to filling up the present HDD. I'll start adding internal drives. Since all they will hold is data, I can make a clone of that drive, again using the external drive bay, by just copying files from one drive to the other. I'll move the boot drive images presently on the external drive to an internal type drive and start keeping versions. I'll also keep a copy of the boot drive images on another drive and keep that offsite (probably a bank safe deposit box). I'll also keep a copy of the data partition image and copies of any additional data drives offsite.
Seems like a lot of hassle but I'll be keeping all my music, videos, books, personal records, etc. basically my whole life, on my computer and I don't want to take any chances of losing it all.