Do you backup?

[Ky Lane]

So, my studio computer is pretty full.. I have 2 drives, a 200gb drive I install all my programs and windows on (its a 12000rpm drive) and a 500gb for all my data etc..

 

Theyre both chockas!

 

So, got another 500gb drive to raid with the other 500gb and essentially get rid of the 200gb drive.. and needed a 1tb external to backup to for the raid/format/reinstall of everything..

 

So, does anyone else here backup to an external drive? If so, do you use a program to automate backups?

 

Just after any advice

[BVI]

Check out: http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse-features.html

[WAcky]

I bought a 1tb drive with a simple backup utility which I do a backup of once a month.

 

Its gotta be worth the 5 mintues of bother to save yourself from some major greif...

[Jeff Mottle]

I second the app that Nicolas mentioned I use it as well. I backup a lot.

 

My network server is a RAID5 array, and I back it up to three separate external drives via eSATA connections. The third backup drive is always rotated out weekly to a safety deposit box at the bank, so there is always 1 copy offsite. I also mirror my C drive on my workstation twice a week.

[neil poppleton]

I second the app that Nicolas mentioned I use it as well. I backup a lot.

 

My network server is a RAID5 array, and I back it up to three separate external drives via eSATA connections. The third backup drive is always rotated out weekly to a safety deposit box at the bank, so there is always 1 copy offsite. I also mirror my C drive on my workstation twice a week.

 

We archive on a regular basis onto three external hard drives. Thought it was only me that was over cautious..

[mattclinch]

Another vote for SyncBackSE. Invaluable. Backs up my 1.5Tb project drive, to my 1.5Tb backup drive (both internal) + music, personal, max install folder and UI files etc etc, then SyncBackSE backs up the whole backup to a second external backup drive.

 

Also archive projects to DVD once complete.

[BVI]

I second the app that Nicolas mentioned I use it as well. I backup a lot.

 

My network server is a RAID5 array, and I back it up to three separate external drives via eSATA connections. The third backup drive is always rotated out weekly to a safety deposit box at the bank, so there is always 1 copy offsite. I also mirror my C drive on my workstation twice a week.

 

Jeff, thats hardcore!

 

We backup nightly onto a backup server with syncback - then we also do a daily offsite backup on a portable drive - I also do a complete ghosting of our business folders/email every Friday. I then do a total backup (incremental) of everything on a terrabyte harddrive every couple of months. I have 4 or so that I rotate.

[Ky Lane]

Also archive projects to DVD once complete.

 

Bear in mind that 99% of writable DVD's that you buy are rated only to last 2 years. Some 5.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. Perfect!

[neil poppleton]

I agree , dvd's are not worth archiving onto, we have had issues before retrieving data.... especially with external hard drives so cheap..

[DanGrover]

Whilst many hard drives are cheap, I also find they're pretty crappy. In my PC at home, I have a 750GB western digital sata drive that started off as an 80GB IDE many many years ago. It broke, I sent it to WD under warranty and they sent me back a new one, which was bigger. This has now happened about four time, so I've now got my monster 750GB drive. All for free, for sure, but I wouldn't trust drives like that for backup purposes.

 

Of course, if you spend more you get more quality, I'm just pointing out that the fact that hard drives are cheap isn't neccesarily a reason to use them to backup on!

[mattclinch]

a well stored DVD is more likely to retain data over a long period than a external hard drive IMO.

[BVI]

Solid state would be ideal - the price is come down more and more.

I also think it depends on the DVD make, some brands last longer than others - but I find 4.7 gigs is not really enough, then there is storage, and labeling etc.

 

Anybody using blueray?

[peterguthrie]

I back up locally using syncback SE and also to the other side of the world using mozy.com

 

mozy has been great, it backs up more often than I can be bothered to manually and I go to it first whenever I have lost something as its so easy.

[MortenOlesen]

I have a synology ds210j, which is an external network hard drive, that came bundled with some backup software. It did a complete sync when I first installed it, and since then I just connect it when I start my computer each morning and it automatically monitor the changes on my hard drive and sync it to the external drive. It also works as an ftp-server and I use it at home for my digital music and movie collections which can be accessed from all of my computers when plugged into my router. Very clever.

[CJI]

I used to backup to an external drive, and also to save space on my local drive so i could remove things to it that i wasn't using for easy retrieval later.

 

It recently failed, at about 1 year old and i lost everything on it. Luckily no work, pretty much just university files. So now the only record i have of my masters year work is the finished products, no working files nothing. I was going to go back and redo bits, which is now out of the question. I was totally gutted especially as it was down to my own ignorance and stupidity.

 

I'd never had a HD fail on me before, lesson learned!

 

I like Matts method, combined with jeffs method. Multiple back ups on External HDs and an archived hard copy. Im opting for a Blue Ray burner though, the amount of DVDs you would go through these days could get rediculous.

[BVI]

I used to backup to an external drive, and also to save space on my local drive so i could remove things to it that i wasn't using for easy retrieval later.

 

It recently failed, at about 1 year old and i lost everything on it. Luckily no work, pretty much just university files. So now the only record i have of my masters year work is the finished products, no working files nothing. I was going to go back and redo bits, which is now out of the question. I was totally gutted especially as it was down to my own ignorance and stupidity.

 

I'd never had a HD fail on me before, lesson learned!

 

I like Matts method, combined with jeffs method. Multiple back ups on External HDs and an archived hard copy. Im opting for a Blue Ray burner though, the amount of DVDs you would go through these days could get rediculous.

 

Sounds terrible! There is an app called http://www.piriform.com/recuva (recuva) that Ive had some good milage from - when accidentally deleting files etc. If the drive fails, I guess your data is screwed unless you are prepared to spend a $$$ on pro-recovery.

[alias_marks]

I'll chime in here for another option. I use Sync Toy on a regular basis to back up to a 2 TB external drive.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5-98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en

 

Free, simple and Lightweight from Microsoft.

[alias_marks]

I back up locally using syncback SE and also to the other side of the world using mozy.com

 

Hi Peter, I'm curious how long your intial backup session was to get everything to mozy? Did you find it bogged down your workstation for a while?

 

Thanks for the recommendation. Might give it a shot.

 

M-

[peterguthrie]

Hi Peter, I'm curious how long your intial backup session was to get everything to mozy? Did you find it bogged down your workstation for a while?

 

Thanks for the recommendation. Might give it a shot.

 

M-

 

It took a while, but doesn't slow your system down much. I left mine running over the weekend as far as I remember. That was over a year ago and its been great ever since, and has saved my ass on so many occasions.

 

My attitude to backup is that you shouldn't rely on just one method.

[Dave Buchhofer]

I should check again, last i checked we were mirroring all network project files across the two major offices nightly. I'm not sure how long that can realistically keep up however with the way data sizes are exploding upwards, with bandwidth staying the same, and being so expensive.

 

I also back up our own (3d) working directorys from the servers raid5 to a raid5 running on our farm manager, with monthly removable hdd backups offsite.

[Ky Lane]

Thanks guys. bought a copy of SyncBackSE and alls well.