HELP!!! Recently my friend across the street had a huge meltdown of her harddrive and consequently she almost lost years of financial records, pictures, files, etc. This was a big wakeup call for me since I haven't been especially good about backing up data. Last year I put loads of pics on cds, etc., but that also creates storage issues, soooooo, I purchased an external hd and did a complete backup of everything and am storing all my pics on the hd (I got a 250 gig). Is that the best way to keep files we reallllllly do not to lose ever? Now that I've stored all these pics and media files is it really okay to permanently delete them from my harddrive? I have plenty of hd space on my computer, but my computer is probably about 5 or 6 yrs old, so I'm expecting a crash could come without warning since I'm not sure what a computers lifespan may be. I keep it clean and run a really good av program and defrag whenever xp says it needs it and still have about 90 gig of unused space. I'd appreciate advice.
BTW, I'll be using the same external hd to backup my laptop as well.

 

PS: Should I backup weekly or is monthly sufficient?

 

It it;s stuff you don't want to lose, always have at least 2 copies. That external drive could fail anytime. Put older stuff on CDs/DVDs (and verify that the burn was good by trying to copy all the data off of them after you burn them), and newer stuff in at least 2 places at all times. Whether that means 2 external drives, and alternate using them for backups, or keeping one copy on your PC and one on the external drive is up to you.

Lots of backup philosophies - find a plan that you will use, and stick to it.

JonasM

 

Depends on how paranoid you want to be. Daily is not out of the question....

JonasM

 

I back up my important files on two hard drives (one of which is a raid 0 +1) each time I add something new to them.
The raid drive 0 means that it is mirrored so I have 4 hd's that think it is one, two are the main drives and the other 2 are a mirror of the first two. I have all my Quicken and Turbo Tax data that goes back to 1992, plus all my pictures. I would cry if I lost the pics.

It is always a good practice to back up your important files each time you update them.

 

Can't disagree with anything recommended. I burn to DVD and copy to a large thumb drive. I keep the thumb drive in the LOCKED fireproof safe. Hard drives fail, DVDs/CD fail (at some point)...thumbs will fail too.

Paper copies of important financial records....like quicken reports help you rebuild if necessary.

Battery backup and good surge protection also help with protecting your PC and hard drives against power surge/loss. UPS has save by a$$ multiple times!!!!!

The idea is to develop a routine and stick with it.

 

Dragon, that is one cool looking hood , who manufactures it with a scoop like that? Is it functional?

 

Thanks.

It's Mastergrade. I think I am the only one in the world with it (ok..a delusion of grandure moment). The scoop is not functional at the moment. It's filled with a CF plate currently. We've toyed with the idea of making it functional...at leas to the point of allowing air into the engine bay. Its heavy as all get out though.....


Sorry Val for 'jacking the thread temporarily.


-ski

 

Valentine, I have one of these:

http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS207/index.php

It has 2 internal disks and 2 USB ports for external drives. I have mine configured to operate in RAID 1 mode so that data is mirrored on the internal drives. I then backup the internal drives to one of the external USB drives - I have 2 copies of everything just to be safe.

 

Snake - you should check that RAID 0 provides no data redundancy, RAID 1 is disk mirroring...if your data is important, you should look into your setup.