Backing up your stuff

[Wardy]

For pictures I back-up to external hard drive and then to DVD. I normally give a copy of the DVD to my mother when she comes down and also have a copy in my draw at work.

For music I again back-up to external hard drive and have also copied them to my laptop.

 

[Raphael Meade]

dont use dvd/cds at all... got 5TB of external drives so all my photos are backed up at least twice and one copy of everything is kept at a different address.

 

[Was not Was]

How about a small external drive that you can keep somewhere pretty incongruous that won't get burgled if there is a break-in?

I know this won't help if the house burns down, but even in the old days, if the house burned then so did your photo albums, so it doesn't seem like a backward step.

 

[Bozza]

Right I am thinking along the external hard drive route so one final question:

Is it worth waiting to get this in the USA as it will be cheaper than the UK ?

Given you can get something for £50ish, you'll not be saving much. If you're not backing stuff up at all, you'll be pretty gutted if you lose data between now and your visit to the US for the sake of a couple of quid.

 

[Bozza]

i dont see the value of online storage, its fairly expensive in the long term. what if your t'internet connection goes off, they go bust, lose data, or in 5 years time they charge hundreds for recovery? burn to dvd or even get a cheap extrenal drive, then put in safe deposit or in firesafe or at someone elses house.

I have a cheap external drive. Putting it at someone else's house if not very practical if you want to back stuff up reasonably frequently. I think the only real workable option is to burn to DVD periodically and store elsewhere.

Amazon S3 storage is 18c/Gb/month - I'm happy to pay that for complete peace of mind. They won't go bust, if they lose data (which I can't believe they will) I still have my 2 copies. The cost to retrieve data is 18c/Gb/mo - I think I can stretch to that. There are a lot of big enterprises using Amazon S3 storage.

 

[London Calling]

portable hard drive, not house fire proof but hidden away amongst books so pretty buglar proof,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[beorhthelm]

Amazon S3 storage is 18c/Gb/month - I'm happy to pay that for complete peace of mind.

that is alot cheaper than when i looked at it.

the other issues are more concern for business i suppose, and i wouldnt assume any company is too big to go bust or make a major f*** up. as for keeping (a second) cheap harddrive at another location, i was thinking in terms of a longer term archive.

 

[dougdeep]

I hope all you cautious people have smoke alarms.

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

I've got an 80gb external hard drive which does the trick. Although I do keep it in a desk drawer, which isn't the best protection against fires or burglaries, I suppose. I've got a locker at work -- thinking about it, it might be a good idea to keep it there.

I also use BT Openworld broadband, with which you get some online backup capacity called BT Digital Vault. Haven't looked at it, though -- has anyone?

 

[Dave the OAP]

Working in Business Continuity I could tell you some stories about businesses who do not back up data.

One major financial insitution's backups hadn't worked for 4 months we found!!!!

Always backup to disk if you can afford it.

Much easier to recall saved data than the lottery of tape and CD

 

[Couldn't Be Hyypia]

I wouldnt wait until you go to the US - big plug and play hard drives just don't cost very much. And with simple back-up software, you can back up automatically without even thinking about it.

 

[Cian]

One major financial insitution's backups hadn't worked for 4 months we found!!!!

4 months? Pah.

Customer called in to get a data recovery done, shipped us the tapes. Blank. Asked them had they sent the right ones, insisted they had. Asked them how they verified the backup schedule had run - response was "Sorry, what?"

It had run, once, after installation in August 2005. It hadn't run since... customer hadn't got a bloody clue. This was a medical centre and all...

 

[Norman Potting]

Back up. I do back up's of my whole laptop to external hard disk every couple of weeks (I know, still probably not frequently enough). Photos backed up to CD and when I upgrade computers someday will get one with a DVD burner so I can back up to that. I am with one of the previous posters on risk of fire, we didn't worry about losing our "hard copy" photos in pre digital days so don't get involved in hiving off the CD's elsewhere for custody!

Can't see that anyone has mentioned photo storage sites. I use "Flickr" which is part of the Yahoo empire. Pretty straightforward to use, you can set the access level so that your pics can be viewed by anyone, just yourself or invited friends and relations (different photos or sets can have different access levels). Basic version is free but as the full "bells and whistles" one costs a mere $24.95 a year it won't break the bank. Go to Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing if you want to learn more.

Other sites are available, ie Fotopic which a friend of mine uses. I do like the look of this one but don't have any knowledge of cost etc.

 

[Dave the OAP]

4 months? Pah.

Customer called in to get a data recovery done, shipped us the tapes. Blank. Asked them had they sent the right ones, insisted they had. Asked them how they verified the backup schedule had run - response was "Sorry, what?"

It had run, once, after installation in August 2005. It hadn't run since... customer hadn't got a bloody clue. This was a medical centre and all...

this customer had a portfolio bigger than a small west africand state!!!!!

 

[Bozza]

A small bounce on this sunny Wednesday morning as I seem to have just suffered my first hard drive crash on my Macbook.

I'm bloody glad I backed everything up or it could possibly all be gone now...

 

[Rangdo]

I've got 5 copies of all my digital photos. One on the internal hard drive, one on an external hard drive, one on CDs at my parents house, one uploaded to Truprint and the printed copies.

I feel pretty safe but still paranoid

 

[Rangdo]

For those that were interested in this thread originally I just found that Microsoft are doing a thing called Windows Live SkyDrive that includes 5GB of free online storage.

 

[Mendoza]

my hard drive packed up with over 1000 photos from the last 10 years of my life.

Luckily I found a guy who was able to restore it, only losing 5 photos.

And a bonus, he restored all my music too

 

[Arthritic Toe]

Right I am thinking along the external hard drive route so one final question:

Is it worth waiting to get this in the USA as it will be cheaper than the UK ?

They are a bit cheaper in the US, but not significantly so. Not really worth it IMO, when you take into account the increased aggro in replacing it if anything goes wrong.

I copy my important stuff like photos to another pc in the house and also burn to dvd at regular intervals and keep at a relatives house.

 

[Willow]

They are a bit cheaper in the US, but not significantly so. Not really worth it IMO, when you take into account the increased aggro in replacing it if anything goes wrong.

I copy my important stuff like photos to another pc in the house and also burn to dvd at regular intervals and keep at a relatives house.

Potentially, you could lose both PC's to burglary and find some of the DVD's are unreadable. An online backup at somewhere like Flickr would cover all bases.