Seriousness How do you back-up your 'stuff'?

desertgrandma · 10-29-2009, 08:57 AM

So.....its time to do a little backing up. I have over 700 books on Calibre, also in mobipocket reader, plus all my other unimportant to anyone but me stuff on my laptop.

How do you back up your data? Do you use a program like Carbonite or do you use a external drive? Or..something else?

Is it easy? Worth the money? Pros and Cons?

Love to hear everyone's opinions. Thanks!

zelda_pinwheel · 10-29-2009, 09:05 AM

so far i just use an external HD, but i'm seriously considering looking into cloud solutions or similar, if only for my work archives. i might slip my ebooks in there as well.

as for specifically my ebooks, from time to time i just copy the entire calibre folder over to the other HD.

pros of this method : easy, costs only the price of a hard drive (not much).

cons : depends on you remembering to do it, so is unreliable, and not the ideal solution for maximum security since it's right next to my computer, so in case of theft or flood or whathaveyou i could easily lose the main drives *and* the backup in one go.

HarryT · 10-29-2009, 09:08 AM

Two external 1TB drives. One is my primary backup; the other backs that up and I keep it at work.

Sweetpea · 10-29-2009, 09:10 AM

An external HD. We'll need a new one for our pictures only, though.

I use DoubleImage for the backup of my books to that external HD. It's a nice 2.5" formfactor, so, I have it with me at all times...

kennyc · 10-29-2009, 09:10 AM

I've been in this business for over 20 years and am generally not comfortable unless I have three backups on different media. Currently I have an external 500G USB hard drive, an external portable 320G hard drive that I use to back my critical files up to. I use Beyond Compare to copy and validate my directories and files. I also back up everything to CD or DVD. I also have a lot of things duplicated on my netbook.

Greg Anos · 10-29-2009, 09:17 AM

Multiple external HD's, stored off-site.

pdurrant · 10-29-2009, 09:22 AM

I have an external hard drive doing an incremental back-up every hour. (Mac OS X Leopard's Time Machine - excellent)

I also have an old Machine running as a Retrospect server, backing up the user folders from every machine in the house every day to a monthly set of tapes.

Every so often, I take a set of tapes off-site. But perhaps not as often as I should.

And I really ought to be backing up some of the most important data (source code, photos, created documents) to DVD-R, but I'm not doing so on any regular basis at present.

My tape backup is currently to SDLT tapes - 110MB per tape + compression. But tapes aren't getting much cheaper and hard disks are - I've given serious though to moving over to just using a hard disk. A 250MB hard disk is only a little more than two 110MB tapes, and a lot faster access!

The one certain thing about hard disks is that they all break down at some point. You need to be sure that when yours breaks, you won't lose much.

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

So.....its time to do a little backing up. I have over 700 books on Calibre, also in mobipocket reader, plus all my other unimportant to anyone but me stuff on my laptop.

How do you back up your data? Do you use a program like Carbonite or do you use a external drive? Or..something else?

Is it easy? Worth the money? Pros and Cons?

Love to hear everyone's opinions. Thanks!

Sparrow · 10-29-2009, 09:37 AM

I use DVDs for backing up.
Luckily, I don't have huge quantities of stuff I'd be heartbroken to lose.
Stuff I absolutely couldn't do without gets backed up regularly to different DVDs.

KarenH · 10-29-2009, 12:27 PM

Most of the stuff I have isn't particularly important, and wouldn't be much of a hardship if I lost it. For my books and the small amount of other stuff that I REALLY wouldn't want to lose, I back it up to an external hard drive. The most critical of what's on the external drive I also have copied onto 2 SD cards, one in our fireproof safe, and the second that will be stored somewhere else, I just haven't figured out where it's going to go yet.

HarryT · 10-29-2009, 01:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I use DVDs for backing up.
Luckily, I don't have huge quantities of stuff I'd be heartbroken to lose.
Stuff I absolutely couldn't do without gets backed up regularly to different DVDs.

I have a huge collection of audio books, etc, recorded from BBC Radio 7. Unfortunately it's way too big to back up to DVD, hence the hard disk.

frabjous · 10-29-2009, 01:22 PM

Large things like media are on DVDs. Smaller things I'm working on at the moment I just keep mirrored on both of my computers (laptop/desktop) with Dropbox as the third back-up and intermediary. The 2gb you get free there is enough for this purpose. I've also started using Ubuntu One as a secondary back-up for this stuff, though it seems a bit glitchier. I imagine they'll have it sorted out soon, though, since it's new. Both are easy as pie, and work on all kinds of OSes. Makes sharing easy too.

Xenophon · 10-29-2009, 02:45 PM

I use a rotating set of external drives, as follows:

As a Mac user, I let Apple's Time Machine do it's hourly backup thing -- it's the path of least resistance. I direct my Time Machine ("TM" hereafter) backups to a separate backup drive. In theory this could be an external, but I had 3 free drive bays, so I use an internal drive.
I use SuperDuper to clone my TM backup drive to an external drive once a week. This external drive is not connected to my system except during the clone operation. The rest of the time the drive lives in the media-rated fire-box in the basement.
Once a month, I swap the TM clone drive for it's mate that lives off-site.

The initial TM backup is my protection against shooting myself in the foot by deleting the wrong file or otherwise hosing my system. The usually-offline clone is my protection against serious hardware failure, theft of my entire computer system from the study, etc. It's also protected from house fire (as long as it isn't too catastrophic) and isn't obvious for a thief to grab unless they do a careful search of the house. Meanwhile the drive that lives off-site is insurance against any catastrophe that levels my house, but not the entire city. (I figure that if the city is gone, I have bigger problems than preserving my data...)

I plan to switch to a mirrored raid with offline members for the TM backup drive once SoftRaid 4.0 is released. It'll provide a bit more redundancy with faster cloning to the off-line and off-site drives. I also plan to start cloning my boot drive similarly. Disks are much cheaper than my time.

Xenophon

phenomshel · 10-29-2009, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kennyc

I've been in this business for over 20 years and am generally not comfortable unless I have three backups on different media. Currently I have an external 500G USB hard drive, an external portable 320G hard drive that I use to back my critical files up to. I use Beyond Compare to copy and validate my directories and files. I also back up everything to CD or DVD. I also have a lot of things duplicated on my netbook.

Pretty much what Kenny said, except I go one step farther and store a DVD copy at a friend's house.

desertgrandma · 10-29-2009, 02:51 PM

Thank you everyone for your input so far.

What an awesome place to pick peoples brains!

Xenophon · 10-29-2009, 02:52 PM

I should note that the above scheme isn't the cheapest. In order to preserve a decent amount of history, TM needs about 1.5x more space on the destination drive than the amount of data that is being backed up (in my experience, for the rate a which I change data). And I need three drives that size once we count in the off-line and off-site disks.

Right now, that's 3x 750GB. Before the end of the year, it'll be 3x 1.5TB (and some of those 750GB drives will become current storage and/or clones of my boot disk).

ON the flip side, however, remember that there are only two kinds of hard drives -- those that have crashed, and those that will crash. And you'll fumble-finger-delete the wrong file with distressing frequency. Or need to recover from installing the wrong thing (or an upgrade that doesn't work, or...).

If you have important data, good backups are not just a luxury. They're a necessity.

Xenophon

10-29-2009, 08:57 AM	#1
desertgrandma Enjoying the show.... Posts: 14,270 Karma: 10462843 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Arizona Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir	How do you back-up your 'stuff'? So.....its time to do a little backing up. I have over 700 books on Calibre, also in mobipocket reader, plus all my other unimportant to anyone but me stuff on my laptop. How do you back up your data? Do you use a program like Carbonite or do you use a external drive? Or..something else? Is it easy? Worth the money? Pros and Cons? Love to hear everyone's opinions. Thanks!

10-29-2009, 02:45 PM	#12
Xenophon curmudgeon Posts: 1,487 Karma: 5748190 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Redwood City, CA USA Device: Kobo Aura HD, (ex)nook, (ex)PRS-700, (ex)PRS-500	I use a rotating set of external drives, as follows: As a Mac user, I let Apple's Time Machine do it's hourly backup thing -- it's the path of least resistance. I direct my Time Machine ("TM" hereafter) backups to a separate backup drive. In theory this could be an external, but I had 3 free drive bays, so I use an internal drive. I use SuperDuper to clone my TM backup drive to an external drive once a week. This external drive is not connected to my system except during the clone operation. The rest of the time the drive lives in the media-rated fire-box in the basement. Once a month, I swap the TM clone drive for it's mate that lives off-site. The initial TM backup is my protection against shooting myself in the foot by deleting the wrong file or otherwise hosing my system. The usually-offline clone is my protection against serious hardware failure, theft of my entire computer system from the study, etc. It's also protected from house fire (as long as it isn't too catastrophic) and isn't obvious for a thief to grab unless they do a careful search of the house. Meanwhile the drive that lives off-site is insurance against any catastrophe that levels my house, but not the entire city. (I figure that if the city is gone, I have bigger problems than preserving my data...) I plan to switch to a mirrored raid with offline members for the TM backup drive once SoftRaid 4.0 is released. It'll provide a bit more redundancy with faster cloning to the off-line and off-site drives. I also plan to start cloning my boot drive similarly. Disks are much cheaper than my time. Xenophon

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10-29-2009, 09:05 AM	#2
zelda_pinwheel zeldinha zippy zeldissima Posts: 27,827 Karma: 921169 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Paris, France Device: eb1150 & is that a nook in her pocket, or she just happy to see you?	so far i just use an external HD, but i'm seriously considering looking into cloud solutions or similar, if only for my work archives. i might slip my ebooks in there as well. as for specifically my ebooks, from time to time i just copy the entire calibre folder over to the other HD. pros of this method : easy, costs only the price of a hard drive (not much). cons : depends on you remembering to do it, so is unreliable, and not the ideal solution for maximum security since it's right next to my computer, so in case of theft or flood or whathaveyou i could easily lose the main drives and the backup in one go.

10-29-2009, 09:08 AM	#3
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Two external 1TB drives. One is my primary backup; the other backs that up and I keep it at work.

10-29-2009, 09:10 AM	#4
Sweetpea Grand Sorcerer Posts: 9,707 Karma: 32763414 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Krewerd Device: Pocketbook Inkpad 4 Color; Samsung Galaxy Tab S6	An external HD. We'll need a new one for our pictures only, though. I use DoubleImage for the backup of my books to that external HD. It's a nice 2.5" formfactor, so, I have it with me at all times...

10-29-2009, 09:10 AM	#5
kennyc The Dank Side of the Moon Posts: 35,891 Karma: 119230421 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Denver, CO Device: Kindle2; Kindle Fire	I've been in this business for over 20 years and am generally not comfortable unless I have three backups on different media. Currently I have an external 500G USB hard drive, an external portable 320G hard drive that I use to back my critical files up to. I use Beyond Compare to copy and validate my directories and files. I also back up everything to CD or DVD. I also have a lot of things duplicated on my netbook.

10-29-2009, 09:17 AM	#6
Greg Anos Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,520 Karma: 37057604 Join Date: Jan 2008 Device: Pocketbook	Multiple external HD's, stored off-site.

10-29-2009, 09:37 AM	#8
Sparrow Wizard Posts: 4,395 Karma: 1358132 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: UK Device: Palm TX, CyBook Gen3	I use DVDs for backing up. Luckily, I don't have huge quantities of stuff I'd be heartbroken to lose. Stuff I absolutely couldn't do without gets backed up regularly to different DVDs.

10-29-2009, 12:27 PM	#9
KarenH Addict Posts: 281 Karma: 37762 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: NW Washington State, USA Device: K3	Most of the stuff I have isn't particularly important, and wouldn't be much of a hardship if I lost it. For my books and the small amount of other stuff that I REALLY wouldn't want to lose, I back it up to an external hard drive. The most critical of what's on the external drive I also have copied onto 2 SD cards, one in our fireproof safe, and the second that will be stored somewhere else, I just haven't figured out where it's going to go yet.

10-29-2009, 01:22 PM	#11
frabjous Wizard Posts: 1,213 Karma: 12890 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Amherst, Massachusetts, USA Device: Sony PRS-505	Large things like media are on DVDs. Smaller things I'm working on at the moment I just keep mirrored on both of my computers (laptop/desktop) with Dropbox as the third back-up and intermediary. The 2gb you get free there is enough for this purpose. I've also started using Ubuntu One as a secondary back-up for this stuff, though it seems a bit glitchier. I imagine they'll have it sorted out soon, though, since it's new. Both are easy as pie, and work on all kinds of OSes. Makes sharing easy too.

10-29-2009, 02:51 PM	#14
desertgrandma Enjoying the show.... Posts: 14,270 Karma: 10462843 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Arizona Device: A K1, Kindle Paperwhite, an Ipod, IPad2, Iphone, an Ipad Mini & macAir	Thank you everyone for your input so far. What an awesome place to pick peoples brains!

10-29-2009, 02:52 PM	#15
Xenophon curmudgeon Posts: 1,487 Karma: 5748190 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Redwood City, CA USA Device: Kobo Aura HD, (ex)nook, (ex)PRS-700, (ex)PRS-500	I should note that the above scheme isn't the cheapest. In order to preserve a decent amount of history, TM needs about 1.5x more space on the destination drive than the amount of data that is being backed up (in my experience, for the rate a which I change data). And I need three drives that size once we count in the off-line and off-site disks. Right now, that's 3x 750GB. Before the end of the year, it'll be 3x 1.5TB (and some of those 750GB drives will become current storage and/or clones of my boot disk). ON the flip side, however, remember that there are only two kinds of hard drives -- those that have crashed, and those that will crash. And you'll fumble-finger-delete the wrong file with distressing frequency. Or need to recover from installing the wrong thing (or an upgrade that doesn't work, or...). If you have important data, good backups are not just a luxury. They're a necessity. Xenophon

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