PC backups

Backing up onto another machine is really the only sensible option. Who needs to be faffing around with CD-Rs?

Write a short shell script to do the backup for you. You're on win, so you'll need to use xcopy. Use the task scheduler to run the script every night. For increased protection, put a raid array in your backup machine. That way you have redundancy for all the data backed up from all your other machines.

All of this is much simpler than it sounds. If you haven't done it before, google and ask questions, but anyone with basic skills can do it.

I use a second HDD which is permanently installed in the machine, but is only used for backups of important files. The operating system is on its own removable disks, so if the machine goes down, I can at least reload the main bits. But having the second back-up drive is ideal because the machine detects it and will use it like any other driver it has, so it makes back-ups directly without having to copy through software then on to removable media.

The regular back-up is scheduled for the early hours of the morning, and it works really well. The drive is only 20 Gb capacity, which, after nine years (yes it's been in three machines) is not even a third used and it also holds some of my needed software programs which you can't anymore. The other bits and pieces are all on floppy.

If it's that important then splash out on a tape drive, keep a tape at home and another at a relative's house. As additional security I'd also consider a RAID array on the workstation.

Rgds

Andy R

Same with me. However, if the machine was stolen or devoured by fire...

A while ago I picked up a Sony AIT-1 tape drive - typically 150-200 quid on Ebay (often a lot cheaper in the US, even after postage) This will get about 50 or 70 gig on a single tape with the internal compression. New price of tapes is ludicrous but new and slighty-used ones crop up regularly on Ebay for well below a tenner each (either from the UK or US).

The ability to back up a whole disc on a single tape makes backing up a lot less hassle, and therefore much more likely to be donbe regularly. as you can just start it off and then leave it to it (e.g. overnight). No messing with tape changes or incremental backups.

I use Nova Backup from

You also need to consider all the possible risks to your data - crashed discs are often the first thing that springs to mind, but other risks are often more likely - accidental deletion/overwriting, and theft/fire risk to equipment. A tape (or hard disk) regularly stored offsite protects against most eventualities.

I use a 2-stage process. Step 1 is an automatic backup over the network to a dedicated hard disk in one of the other PCs. The second step is a once-per-week backup from the hard disk to DVD. With the falling price of DVD writers and the capacity of the media, I can't see the point in messing around with either multiple CDs or unreliable tape drives.

If you're backing up over the network, you might want to consider a wired connection rather than wireless. The realistic bandwidth with 802.11b is less than stunning and the new 802.11g, although having a quoted max bandwidth of 54mb, hasn't in my experience lived up to the hype. And while you may think that you don't need the bandwidth, just wait until the first time you're sat there grinding you teeth while a multi-megabyte file restores. Wired network would work out cheaper as well.

hth Clive

I agree with the final post about the lack of speed on wireless,

Also watch out for damp and other envir>

Lawrence

usenet at lklyne dt co dt uk

Use XP's backup. Then use WinZip on the output from XP's backup (which in my case reduces the size by about 50%). Then use WinZip again to split the ZIP file into 650MB chucks (this is one of the standard options).

Rob

How extraordinarily painful.

Buy a decent tape drive from eBay. Use any of about a zillion backup utilities to copy the whole disk onto tape. (I can't advise on Winblows stuff, since I'm entirely Unix based here, apart from the wife's NT PC, which uses a Sun as it's server.)

The moment you have more than one computer, network them all, start using one as a server, keep all your files on that one and attach the tape drive to it.

Back up as often as you like (at least weekly) and keep the latest tapes "off site" (I take them to work.)

You need a "differential" backup then.

Look at some form of "off-line" media such as tape or DVD-R as both machine's discs could be taken out by a powercut/lightning strike etc - It's happened to me. I use DDS-3 DAT tapes to backup data, which I find as long as I don't keep re-using old tapes more than about 10 times is fine. Each tape holds 12GB native / 24 GB compressed (realisticly about 16-18GB each). Plenty of backup applications out there, or windows own is OK. DVD is very cheap now and has loads of other uses also, and you can get

Alan.

This only covers the situation when you have a disk failure or similar. It does not help in the event of total loss, such as fire or theft.

Christian.

A second machine or a second HD would be advisable. Try

-- Alan G "The corporate life [of society] must be subservient to the lives of the parts instead of the lives of the parts being subservient to the corporate life." (Herbert Spencer)

If you read my complete post you will notice that I did advise that you can send the backup to writeable CDs.....it's a bit slower and you have to change the CD when requested, but it works fine.

Possibly the better option with that approach might be to write the backup to the hard disk in 650Mb chunks - this means the files are created automatically without having to change CDs, and then once the backup is finished you can store elsewhere.

Don't forget that some online services allow you to store your backups on their servers, and will provide a CD copy on request if you happen to lose everything. When I looked at that option a while back it was relatively expensive so I didn't go down that route, but it is an option if your PC is mission critical to a business.

PoP

In article , Mike Harrison writes

You'll get as many opinions as there are readers on this (probably), but the key thing about using tape and proper backup software are these:

1. The ability to take data off-site - if the house burns you have at least got your data.
2. The ability to restore everything (disaster recovery) simply and easily. Boot from the DR disks, restore off tape, reboot, done.
3. The ability to easily keep multiple versions of your data. This is crucial for recovering from viruses - roll back to the latest virus-free version as your recovery point.
4. Speed: tapes are up to 3x faster than typical disks.
5. Robustness: tape isn't perfect, but in the worst case, you've a better chance of getting data back off tape than from any other computer medium. Hard disks which fail mechanically are usually scrap metal (but head actuator magnets are cool!), and CD-R and CD-RW are notorious. Magneto-optical disk is probably the longest-lived format, but it's uncommon and very expensive.
6. Lowest cost/GB for the tapes over the alternatives (but the drives cost more).

I've used umpteen backup products from all the major vendors - Novastor is one of my personal favourites for just those reasons. It's a much tougher choice in a commercial environment though.

HTH...

Regards,

Simonm.

Only if you mean CD/DVD. Tapes are orders of magnitude slower than hard disk drives.

I backup weekly to an external HD - 120 gb in a Belkin housing - a complete partition image. This should allow me to simply plug this into a different computer if need be.

I also back up "My Documents" and other critical system files to 2 DVD-RW's - the same data to 2 different disks.

I also back up live documents to CD-RW or DVD RW or may store a copy of the file on an email server temporarary.

It is important to make at least 2 copies of the data, and store these in different locations - together with copies of emergency boot disk.

I use PowerQuest drive image, but am trialing Vertitas Backup and the Norton product.

Archival files and photos I am transfering to DVD, after reading some concerns on the life of CD-R media

dg

although i simply use nero and cdr's and back up every week(i download often) Jeff :-)

Get another HDD and one of these:

Backing up:

Beware of virus problems. A 2nd HDD in your machine gives zero protection to your data if a virus gets it. Many viri can be removed, some can't.

When you back up off the machine, again if you get a virus then backup, and thats the only backup you have, youre stuffed. So always keep 2 generations of backups, with the older one being say 2 weeks old, not 2 days. That gives you enough time to spot any heavy handed viri, and still have good clean data.

Regards, NT