A friendly reminder....

[RachelMarie]

To all you folks who have lost things, I hope you too get them back. It's heartbreaking...to say the least. I'm working now to try and get this taken care of. I'm trying to find any back-ups I might have. Trying not to panic.
Also, thanks for all the advice. Once I figure out if I can get this stuff back....I'll follow the advice.

 

[HandK]

I'm so sorry to hear this, I hope that you are able to get your files back, there are company's out there that can retrieve you files on a hard drive but it is not cheap, praying all works out well for you.

 

[henktermaat]

Good reminder. I have lost data before, but now have seen the light and have been doing redundant automatic backups.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Ok, while we're discussing it, regarding backing things up.

Is there any software that makes this easy?

The problem I have with backing things up is that as I add to folders over time there is no easy way to backup new contents. So I just copy and paste the folder into the backup, this takes time, and causes problems. If files in drive #1 become corrupted without your knowledge, you just copy and pasted a corrupted file over a good one on the backup (had that happen once and it sucked).

I want a program that will automatically detect new files and create a backup of them on the redundant drives. Is there a program out there that does this?

Btw, I tried window backup wizard or whatever it is and I never could get it to work right, and it isn't automatic from what I could tell.

It would be ideal if it was something that detected when I connected my laptop to my external drives and it automatically just started backing things up (or at least had the option to do a 1-click backup or something similar). It would be cool if I could get an exact mirror of my drive that way I have everything.

 

[henktermaat]

I use SyncBack SE. It's $30 and does what you describe automatically at a set time every night, among other things (mirroring, etc).
I have used Window's built in backup tools, but it's not as nice. There might be a decent free program out there too, but this one comes very highly recommended by me.

Ok, while we're discussing it, regarding backing things up.

Is there any software that makes this easy?

The problem I have with backing things up is that as I add to folders over time there is no easy way to backup new contents. So I just copy and paste the folder into the backup, this takes time, and causes problems. If files in drive #1 become corrupted without your knowledge, you just copy and pasted a corrupted file over a good one on the backup (had that happen once and it sucked).

I want a program that will automatically detect new files and create a backup of them on the redundant drives. Is there a program out there that does this?

Btw, I tried window backup wizard or whatever it is and I never could get it to work right, and it isn't automatic from what I could tell.

It would be ideal if it was something that detected when I connected my laptop to my external drives and it automatically just started backing things up (or at least had the option to do a 1-click backup or something similar). It would be cool if I could get an exact mirror of my drive that way I have everything.

 

[UncleMike]

I use SyncBack SE. It's $30 and does what you describe automatically at a set time every night, among other things (mirroring, etc).
I have used Window's built in backup tools, but it's not as nice. There might be a decent free program out there too, but this one comes very highly recommended by me.

Another good backup program is "Acronis True Image Home PC Backup & Recovery"
I've used it for years and have never had a problem backing up my files.

 

[Bill of Rights]

I use the Windows automatic backup and once a month, every month, I backup to a DVD. It requires that I be there to manually put the DVD in, but it's a workable option for me, and at most, I might lose 30 days worth of stuff. If the last backup is corrupted, I can always use the one before it. Maybe my tinfoil's a little too tight, but I won't use an online service... If I can access it, so can the folks that work there. No thanks. If it works for you, more power to you.

I started doing this when I got this computer, after the HD on my old one took a big grizz and was inaccessible. I was able to recover some of my data, but not much. It was important stuff to me, but not worth paying that kind of cash to retrieve.

Having to manually swap out the disks is the only downside to this, IMHO.

Blessings,
Bill

 

[Griffeycom]

I use Dropbox to backup my most important documents + sync docs around multi-computers. You get 2gb free + referral bonuses. You can also pay for more space if you want to do pictures and stuff. It's a great program, you should try it out and use my referral link so I can get more space plus I believe you get 250mb more for using someones link.

http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTQ3MzEyMTI5

I feel bad for you, I lost 500gb+ of data once, however it was just backups of discs that I was able to re-copy to my computer. Such a pain, I hope you can get yours back though!!!

 

[OneBadV8]

My OS was recently corrupted, (and then magically uncorrupted itself ), we paid the local computer guy $60 to backup the HD onto a 2 TB external drive.

I should probably buy another external 2 TB HD to mirror the first one.

I also just finished burning all the pics and vids of our kiddos to DVD.

I tried to get the wife to do it, but she just looks at pictures for hours on end and doesn't get anything backed up.

Another option for cheap storage of files is to subscribe to an FTP service. Then you can backup files or whatever and they are stored on a server farm.

The problem with having duplicate storage devices is they can both fail at the same time. Or if there is a fire, or something like that.

 

[ATOMonkey]

Our HD is 300gb (was a big deal in '05!!) and was full to the brim when our machine took a dump.

 

[indyjoe]

Does anyone use one of the online backup places like Carbonite.com??

Ive often thought about using something like that for pictures.

I use SpiderOak, but it is similar to Carbonite. I think it is a better service than Carbonite and it offers a Linux client, which is important because that is my primary OS at home.

(I do agree that Win 7 is the best MS has done to date. They keep getting closer and closer to Unix, but without the truly useful features of Unix, like a REAL disk format that allows hard linking.) My primary computers at Ubuntu 10.4.

I pay $100 per year for 100 Gig storage, with versioning. No limit on number of computers that can connect.

When it gets fun is when you are backing up digital video for a full length movie. I've got 2.5 TBs of drives with archival footage from the raw shoots still. All in 200-300 Gb sized drives. Now you can get that on one drive.