How do you handle the data on your computer? Do you back it up, or take the risk of losing it in the event of hard drive failure? If so, what are your backup methods?
Also, how much data do you have? Do you like to have a huge hard drive and keep everything, or do you like to keep things simple and clean?
As for me, I have a somewhat monstrous hard drive, at 500 gigs, but I use it mostly for dual/triple/quad booting Windows + some Linux distributions. I also keep a moderate amount of photos, documents, videos, and music. I occasionally back up to a DVD or two, but I sometimes feel that a nice hard drive wipe every once and awhile can be refreshing, granted I keep have my most important photos, documents, and music.
I had 140 Gig internal and a 500 GB external. Then one day right after I reformatted the external from Fat 32 to NTSF the 120 inside died. I lost everything except what was on my mp3 player (which had also been recently reformatted) now I have 100 in my computer, and most stuff is backed up either onto DVDs or on the external.
I backup to an external hard drive and then periodically save some of those backups to DVD.
I use disk imaging for backups. Disk images are easy to restore from. Just make sure you use a disk imaging program that allows you to extract individual files from the image otherwise you’ll find it very inconvenient to recover a file that has been accidentally deleted.
I only worry about backing up Windows. I don’t worry about any Linux partitions I may have cause Linux is just for fun and I don’t keep any data there. I make a disk image of the Linux partition after I get it set up, but that’s it.
I’ve been experimenting with the backup utilities and features in Vista Ultimate. The Ultimate version includes a disk imaging backup feature and shadow copy. It also has the backup features that are in the regular versions of Vista. So right now it’s been Vista features experimentation time. Just to be safe I’m also using my old disk imaging technique.
I’m not as good about backups though as I should be. I could do better.
Most of the data that is on my Windows system drive is the My Documents stuff, email, browser stuff, and documents and projects. I have a data partition where I keep data files that are in an archive type of state and not regularly changing. That includes my MP3 collection, videos I’m saving, digital camera pictures, downloaded programs archives, and things like that. I try to keep the Windows system drive from getting too bloated with data files that don’t regularly change. That way the system drive is easier (and smaller) to backup. The data partition gets backed up less often than the system partition.
A backup to a partition on the same hard drive is not a reliable disaster recovery backup. It is a very good idea to make sure you have a recent backup saved on an external hard drive and/or DVDs. I’ve had hard drives crash and lose all data on the drive. If you use computers for more than a decade it is going to happen to you, almost guaranteed. Best to be prepared for when it happens.
I run a 160 and 320 gb HD, the later was an add-on mainly for storing movies and stuff I record off the tv (those 800mb simpsons episodes really add up). When I go home i back it all upon my dad’s seagate external. Vital work stuff I also stash on my univeristy account, which has got some prety heavy backup and archiving going on .
i dont backup my stuff but i know my dad is so paranoid about how computers are the devil that he backs his whole computer up to a massive external drive quite regularly
Well, I like to keep it clean, but maybe not simple. I have about 12gbs of pictures, and 6 gbs of music. I think there’s 5gb of videos too. And then 44.5 gb of err… Downloads!!
So, everything amounts to 126gb… and is growing rapidly with all the photography i’m doing atm!
I love to have everything sorted into it’s separate folder, renamed & dated, the lot - then I feel really good when someone asks me to show them the original uni crew that I taught (most of which have now… given up?) on one of our little newbie outings, and can go straight to the folder and tell em the date etc., or just a random picture or something. I like to know where everything is.
I would back up my hard drive I don’t have an external drive yet. I think i’m getting one for xmas tho, as If I lost my data, I don’t know what I’d do…!
Currently I don’t have my data backed up but I have around 15 gigs worth of my photography and 35 gigs worth of music and movies I’d desperately like to back up. I’ll be getting an external harddrive hopefully for Christmas so lets just pray my laptop won’t die until then.
This thread did turn out pretty interesting… I like it! It also shows how many people could be devastated by a simple power surge, virus, or other HDD failure. At least I am free from contending with the virus threat.
Sounds like you’ve got a pretty slick backup routine going on, JC. Now, just remove the “just for fun” label from Linux and you’re set.
I’m sure you are aware that splitting a drive into partitions doesn’t make you any safer in the event of a failure. EDIT: Well, I suppose if Windows itself just screws up your data will likely be safe. But I guess the main reason I think of backing up data is because hard drives inevitably fail on a physical level. Moving parts and all that.
I’ve got a 320GB 7200.10 that I use as my main Windows drive, and I’ve got an older Maxtor 80GB that I keep all my music and documents on (by changing the default path of the My Documents folder to a folder on my Maxtor rather than on C:[something ridiculous] like Windows normally puts it).
That way if Windows screws up fatally my pictures, videos and music are all relatively safe on my Maxtor.
I also have a 250GB drive that I use to back up my documents.
When it comes to school work, I’m even more anal. I put assignments and notes on my thumb drive, on my external backup, on my main PC and on my laptop.
I have lost data in the past, and know from experience that it is well worth putting a bit of effort into a backup solution to prevent such a loss from reoccurring.
Do you think laptops are more prone to a HDD failure though? For some reason I just don’t trust it as much, due to mine being taken nearly everywhere with me and carried around at school etc… Well, the CD drive has already buggered (after 6 months)!
I have two desktops and a laptop networked together. The main desktop has a 60Gb C drive, 200Mb D drive, 2 DVDRW drives and the big backup drive which is a 320Gb external. The D drive is used for mass storage and doesn’t change much except for some circulating .ISO files. The external holds backups, registries, and images for all of the computer C drives and the main computer’s D drive.
The slower desktop is a 1999 eMachine and now has a 20Gb C drive, a 40Gb D drive, and two CDRW drives scavenged from old computers. This one has two configurations, one for my son when he was in college and the present one which is my wife’s rendition. The D drive holds the C drive images for both configurations as well as photo and music files so it doesn’t change much.
The laptop has two configurations, one for my wife and one for my daughter who presently uses it for school. The backups, registries, and images for both configurations are on the big external drive.
Every Friday or Saturday I run CCleaner and then clear the restore cache and set a new restore point for all the computers. Then I do the backup, registry export, and C drive image copy to the big external drive using the wireless for the laptop and slow desktop. I have saved the original configuration for each computer as well as two or three of the most recent weekly backups. The main D drive I may backup every couple of months. I have recovered the laptop and the main computer from image files successfully.
I owe everything I do to save data to JC who is the only main man.
The only thing I backup is my data. I have a DOS script that runs automatically every time I shutdown my computer (which is daily, I don’t leave my computer on all the time). The backup script copies my data files to an external harddrive. The script only copies new and changed files so this is very quick. I also have an old PC that I use to peridically archive data files and photos.
If (when) my PC harddrive crashes, I will have to re-install the operating system and programs but I am willing to deal with that.
