Cyclone Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 Offsite is more than the people I'm aiming this advice at are likely to do, but it's good advice. Personally I use synchronising software between 3 machines and my NAS, a scheduled backup on the NAS to an external disk and the same on one of the PC's. I run an intermittent (ie manual) backup to another small external drive and I have one that I'm supposed to keep in the firesafe, but it's on the bed at the moment. Still, if the house burns down I have my data in front of me at the moment. What I should do is buy another NAS, plonk it in my parents house and set up a an incremental network backup to it. I feel secure enough that I haven't got around to that though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottf Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Offsite is more than the people I'm aiming this advice at are likely to do, but it's good advice. Personally I use synchronising software between 3 machines and my NAS, a scheduled backup on the NAS to an external disk and the same on one of the PC's. I run an intermittent (ie manual) backup to another small external drive and I have one that I'm supposed to keep in the firesafe, but it's on the bed at the moment. Still, if the house burns down I have my data in front of me at the moment. What I should do is buy another NAS, plonk it in my parents house and set up a an incremental network backup to it. I feel secure enough that I haven't got around to that though. see- this is why people don't back-up there data- to anyone who isn't computer savvy thats rather hard to understand. ;) The simple way is to just buy an external hard drive, plug into a usb port then drag and drop your files into the folder and it will back-up your data! Easy peasy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldo Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Manual Backup to external drive. Plus, Time Machine. Plus, SVN repo on external drive; and offsite mirror of SVN repo on server. And I still don't feel safe (fear of house burning down, burgulars etc). Need to do regular check (restore) of off-site SVN repo. Also, couldn't hurt to burn data to DVD and leave at friends houses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sccsux Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Offsite is more than the people I'm aiming this advice at are likely to do, but it's good advice. fbackup has some nice advantages (in that it's a case of set up and go) and can save to any available media, in the "windows standard" zip format - so you can retrieve backups, without the need for fbackup to be present, though restoration is easier from within the program. It allows browser and email clients to be backed up, office dox, "my documents", itunes, skype ... . Brilliantly simple for a novice, and all automated. The GF has it running (twice per day) with local and remote saving after she had a HD failure which resulted in the loss of half her emails - fortunately, I was able to recover all her work dox and another third of the "lost" emails. She now finds it reassuring when it pops up to inform her that a backup is in creation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 see- this is why people don't back-up there data- to anyone who isn't computer savvy thats rather hard to understand. ;) The simple way is to just buy an external hard drive, plug into a usb port then drag and drop your files into the folder and it will back-up your data! Easy peasy Which is what I already recommended. But as already discussed that won't keep them safe from the house burning down or someone robbing the whole lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 Manual Backup to external drive. Plus, Time Machine. Plus, SVN repo on external drive; and offsite mirror of SVN repo on server. And I still don't feel safe (fear of house burning down, burgulars etc). Need to do regular check (restore) of off-site SVN repo. Also, couldn't hurt to burn data to DVD and leave at friends houses. I considered SVN, but it doesn't deal with merging non text files very well and whilst it has some advantages like the history of changes, it's overkill to backup "my documents" and "my pictures". I don't often want to check the changes on a word document. I actually use Microsoft live mesh for syncing between machines, which comes with a 2GB cloud option as well (not enough for my photos, but everything else has the cloud option ticked). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waldo Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 I considered SVN, but it doesn't deal with merging non text files very well and whilst it has some advantages like the history of changes, it's overkill to backup "my documents" and "my pictures". I don't often want to check the changes on a word document. I actually use Microsoft live mesh for syncing between machines, which comes with a 2GB cloud option as well (not enough for my photos, but everything else has the cloud option ticked). Yep, I just use SVN for work stuff (source code, project files etc). Another good solution people may want to consider, is Drop Box. Which I believe also has versioned copies of files you backup (plus, it's free!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclone Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 I let work deal with backing up work, wherever work happens to be at the time. Currently we're using jira hosted svn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treatment Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 see- this is why people don't back-up there data- to anyone who isn't computer savvy thats rather hard to understand. ;) The simple way is to just buy an external hard drive, plug into a usb port then drag and drop your files into the folder and it will back-up your data! Easy peasy But how do you back up a hard drive which is divided, and it only backs up one section ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alchresearch Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Offsite is more than the people I'm aiming this advice at are likely to do, but it's good advice.. It certainly is. I remember a thread on here from a student who'd had her laptop stolen and the USB hard drive backup at the same time. Keep it at work, at a relatives, but never with your computer. A theft or fire and its gone. There's backup software out there for those not confident. But if you're not confident about backing up, then the same applies to your owning a computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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