When was the last time you backed up your data?

[Adam]

I knew it.

Seriously, you should get on with that

[mikizee]

Thanks for the reminder

The only data I back up is data for my company, like financial stuff plus all video related data ie footage, editing sessions etc.

If I lost a whole drive's worth of footage i've lost tens of thousands of dollars.

I should really make 3 backups

I might do that

[trailerprincess]

Weirder than weird. I was only thinking about this yesterday as I was charging my ipod and it was going mental so I was thinking I need to back up the library on to the external drive soon. It's been about six months so I need to do it soon.

[ScarySquirrel]

Automatically every hour... the last time it happened was 10:07am.

[b i o n i c]

i was just reading about hard drives and backin up

i kind of want to get a couple of those little WD hard drives the size of an ipod, they're still not as cheap as regular external hdd's. im gonna try and get a 1tb book for under $90

[Adam]

Its all good reading about it - you need to do it!

[b i o n i c]

but do you keep an off-site copy? you havent truly backed up til youve swapped out the hard drive in the safe deposit box

[Adam]

What I do is is back up important data on a cloud as well as on external HDDs.

I can't really put all my movies and music on a cloud but they are easily replaced anyway. But your own personal data, like you say, should be backed up off site so using some online storage is good cheap way to do it.

But at the same time its a bad idea to have all your data just in a cloud, generally if you read the terms when you upload something they own that data (like face book with ya photos) and it doesn't take much for them to move the goal posts and make your data harder to manage.

[Adam]

reminder.

I swear, people come to me too often with a broken laptop crying because they don't back up their shit.

Just sayin'

[Bob]

can i make an embarrassing confession

i don't know how to do that

[Adam]

have you got a separate harddrive?

If not, get one, plug it in and then just drag the files you don't want to lose onto it.

[Bob]

oh, that's all it is? well that's easy

[Waus]

have you got a separate harddrive?

If not, get one, plug it in and then just drag the files you don't want to lose onto it.

If you're just backing up some files, that's fine. At the office I work at we keep a backup of both files and regular system setup backups too. It would take us too many un-billable hours to install all the software again.

So if you want to save the state of your OS you'd want something like Norton Ghost or Time Machine or...hell, I can't even remember the name of the program we use.

[Adam]

Its all true what Waus said.

I mainly mean for people with personal computer use - a company should have IT guys on the case with auto backups.

In my circle of friends I often become the guy who fixes their computer. When something really bad has happened I ask if they have backed up their important data - its 90% a 'no'. And there is often something really important on there. I normally explain to them if they see it as general house-keeping when owning a computer, you won't be wasting time (and my time) trying to get stuff back and panicking in the meantime that they've lost it all. It takes 5 mins out of your life a week to do.

Just because I'd generally do a fresh install of whatever Operating System they are using rather than trying to rescue a system that is always ready to collapse again.

I know its a rant but if I can stop one of you guys having to ask a friend a favour like this then its worth the rant in my opinion.

[faz]

I've backed up my music and documents about a month ago....and that was the only time.

Although I'm quite computer literate I used a basic free backup software (http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/) that I'm sure anyone could use

[Echewta]

Last week when I ate a lot of cheese.

[b-grrrlie]

I've got several external hard-drives. First I had two 200-250 Gb, one for music and the other for photos and other documents.
The one with photos crashed when I got a virus when playing that live on-line game with the Beasties :mad: ,
I had to use Explorer for that and I didn't want to and see what happened! It cost me 6000,- SEK to fix it and as I thought it
was the virus' fault everything was put back on the same hard-drive and it broke again... :mad: and I hadn't done any other backup for that,
and I didn't have anything of it left in my computer as I'ge got a really old one and hardly any space left.
Then I got another external, can't remember if it's 500 Gb or 1 Tb. Also I save all my pics on Flickr and videos on
You Tube and mail all my documents to myself (I've got dozens of different e-mail accounts).
I've used a free online backup, Diino, which saved everything automatically the times I've chosen,
but they've got limited space, and now since August it isn't free anymore. I haven't payed anything (was gonna change the backup
system, but it keeps saving anyway. Does anyone know any other, preferably free, online backup site?

[destructo]

Automatically every hour... the last time it happened was 10:07am.
Nice avatar.(y)

[Adam]

its as I said above - online back (ie cloud) often swap and change the rules so getting your data is not as easy.

You're ISP normally gives you some free space. I don't really know too much about free back up but I would say spread it about. (all examples below)

Like flickr for photos.
just email docs on mail.yahoo for small docs
but I would say just keep a main back up on a HDD you don't use all that much - they are pretty cheap considering. Music and movies I would say burn off some DVDs - 4.3GB for a 15p disc is pretty cheap - although time consuming but once you're on top of that shit it'll be easier.

[Adam]

another instance I had to deal with without data being backed up. We got it back tho.

Back up back up, what'cha gonna do now? Keep rollin rollin rollin...

[TurdBerglar]

i have like 600+ gigs of music i should back up

[Adam]

i have like 600+ gigs of music i should back up

Are you busy now? If not, do it now.

[TurdBerglar]

i'd need a new hard drive

[Adam]

i'd need a new hard drive

Are you busy now? You could order one.

[yeahwho]

Odd my laptop just got a SMART Failure prediction on my hard disk.... with a warning to immediately back up my data and replace the hard drive... failure may be imminent.

Timely topic.

[Bob]

so here's a semi-related question

i bought a new external hard drive, and i basically want it to replace my old one. is there any easy way to just sort of...do that without screwing things up? like right now my external is my F drive, and i've got games and stuff installed on there. if i just copied and pasted everything on my old one over to my new one, would i be able to call my new hard drive the F drive and everything would run just like it used to? nothing would be screwed up with shortcuts or registry keys or anything like that? or do i have to do something more complicated?

[jabumbo]

^ the registry screws you here, bob


do you have windows installed on the current drive? if so, you will definitely have to install it on the new one for starters

[Bob]

you have to install windows on storage devices? i got my old external HD ages ago, i don't remember that

[abbott]

in 2010 I made my office paperless regarding sales packages turned in by contracters in the office.

During the process we looked at several backup options and paperless managment options.

In the end, I said screw all this, lets make a file on the pc descktop and spend $50 a year with carbonite to back it up.

Other paperless companies wanted anywhere from $300 - $1000 per month to do the same thing.

So I back up about every 15 minutes now for $50 a year and love it.

[TurdBerglar]

why the hell are you installing games on an external hd

[Adam]

you have to install windows on storage devices? i got my old external HD ages ago, i don't remember that

No, you don't. I think there has been some misunderstanding.

So is your current F Drive external? And connected via a USB or something?

If you make a direct copy of what is one drive, to the other drive all your stuff should still work.

Like, my system is currently set up with two drives as my main working drives. Both are SSD (Solid State Drives - which means no moving parts and super fast but small storage), one run as a NAS (external but through the router so all devices can pick up the files) and one in my main computer. Both drives are small at 80GB and 60GB, but I can drag the folders for the games from drive to drive without losing saved progress. My system drive renders games better than my NAS drive (hardly notice it tho) but will still work. What I'm currently playing the most of I will generally have on my system drive - yours should work the same way.

Damn, I'm complicating this...

You can't just rename F: but you can make a copy by dragging them across is your best bet (and then waiting), windows will automatically call the drive something (probably G: ) when you plug it in and because all the registry files will be in already be in the folders you are copying then it won't interfere. If you have shortcuts to those files from your desktop or elsewhere on your system drive then you will need to update them only.

Makes sense? Didn't think so.

[TurdBerglar]

bob

you should only be using external hard drives for storage. seriously. not for games.

[Adam]

bob

you should only be using external hard drives for storage. seriously. not for games.

why? I've run WoW off external drives before. Sometimes you wanna game on PCs where your games aren't installed.

A mega transfer rate is not needed for most games I've come across and I would bet even USB 1.0 would meet that transfer rate. I haven't tried it but I bet I could run a game through a strong signal on my wifi connection from my NAS drive. I'll try it one day actually.

And if it works for ya, then roll with it.

Reminds me actually, I read an article a few months ago about the future of gaming might be running games via streaming. Like you have top of the range machines rendering the graphics at a central place and then you just stream the results to the shittest of PCs - like we stream HD media. All you need to make sure of is a good web connection which most 1st world people have and can afford but might not be able to afford a gaming PC.

[TurdBerglar]

well wow is an old piece of shit game. it shouldn't tax anything.

and a lot of external hard drives just aren't ment to be constantly running.

[silence7]

Running the site, I think people think of me as semi-responsible, so I do it about 4 times a week. Site stuff, personal data, other people's sites I run, music, etc. onto an external that get's locked up in another room. (If the place burns down, I'm screwed.)

Working in IT, I always have to remind people to save stuff on the network (It get's backed up nightly) and not on their local machine. It's pretty devastating to lose all your stuff, either personal or business.

BACK UP OFTEN!!!

I use SyncBack (http://www.2brightsparks.com/) at home.


the future of gaming might be running games via streaming.
Ya mean like this???
http://www.onlive.com
Oh, it's on now...

[Adam]

it's on!

oh no, it's on.

oooh, it's on.

oh yeah, it's on.

it's on!

Thanks for that link, I'll check it out. I already have a good gaming PC tho but still interested in the technology (y)

[synch]

so here's a semi-related question

i bought a new external hard drive, and i basically want it to replace my old one. is there any easy way to just sort of...do that without screwing things up? like right now my external is my F drive, and i've got games and stuff installed on there. if i just copied and pasted everything on my old one over to my new one, would i be able to call my new hard drive the F drive and everything would run just like it used to? nothing would be screwed up with shortcuts or registry keys or anything like that? or do i have to do something more complicated?What he said.

bob

you should only be using external hard drives for storage. seriously. not for games.

If you buy a new hard drive and for some reason it gets a different drive letter then you can assign the drive letter you want to it with the disk manager. The location of the disk manager depends on which windows you use but with vista/windows 7 you should be able to just type "manage disks" in the start menu search. I'm pretty sure everything would run as if you were using the same disk. Make sure that you are copying all files, even the hidden and potentially system ones.

Regarding backups, I panicked when a hard drive's file system containing my photo archive was giving symptoms of death. I bought a four disk NAS and filled it with 4x 2TB disks in RAID 5, which means that you get 6 TB of storage but if one disk fails you can simply replace it without losing any data. Paid through my nose for the 2 TB hard drives though. Now they cost about half of what I paid for them about a year ago.

I still have a second backup of that though, but I don't have it offsite yet. Will do that soon though. I might also set up a sync between my NAS at home and one at my mum's place. Just for photo's, documents and VERY rare audio/video stuff. Not for my entire mp3/video collection.

As for my work laptop, I'm going to set up a time machine backup with the same NAS, AND do the same with an external hard drive that I'll keep at work.

I also upload very important files to my mail server.

That should keep it safe-ish.

[Bob]

hmm. i've been using the same 120gb external hard drive for...6? 7 years now? running games off of it, new and old, hooked up via usb 2.0 to 3 different computers (2 laptops, one desktop) and i haven't had a single issue with it, it really hadn't occurred to me that you weren't supposed to do this? what's the problem exactly?

[TurdBerglar]

usb external hard drives are very slow and they're not as reliable as internal ones. you've been lucky...

[synch]

Loading times are much longer with a usb drive. If it would have been a s-ata drive it would be the same as an internal drive (at least in theory).

The biggest problem with usb is that it can't keep a sustained rate for too long. That's why digital video camera's have firewire ports and people that do video editing use external firewire disks instead of usb disks.

Whether you notice the speed difference depends on what kind of game you play I guess. A game like GTA4 that continuously streams from the hard drive might have hickups and a game that loads everything once and then pretty much leaves your hard drive alone is only slower while you start the game, not while you play it.

[Adam]

If you go to any computer forum it'll be full of people bitching at what ever set up you have because it hasn't worked for them...

You shouldn't use RAID. You should set up a cloud system, you should only have internal HDDs, you should make sure you have at least three external HDDs, Samsung are shit, LaCie are shit, I only trust Maxtor, blah blah blah.

The thing is, it depends on the luck of the draw. So many local factors to why this happened and that didn't. Everyone will of had a HDD fail on them generally or will do eventually and it's highly annoying. All the advice is talking from experience but it's not the same for everyone. For a lite computer use - no hardcore gaming sessions or major media editing but maybe several hours a day of gaming and web browsing for example - then the chances are you're not spending >$2000 on your home computing. This then limits you to a sensible work around within your budget.

Personally, I see no probs running games off an external HDD if the games you play aren't on the full throttle set up. When people say they are slower and less reliable they are right but the chances are, it won't fail too quickly and they are warning signs when it might. Like getting slower and noisier. External drives have the same HDD in a case that you'd put in your tower, it's only because it'll probably get moved and knocked around on your desk more is the reason it's less reliable. The reason it's slower is because you're using USB as the transfer. Another factor for both is that they'll be less cooling on the drive.

Weigh up the pros and cons and take advice on board but you won't get a set up that'll make everyone happy. Try to keep most of your computing on your system drive and you should be fine, but sometimes needs must and you'll be running games or programs off external drives.

You've had a system that has worked for you for 7 years, upgrading the parts of that system is the obvious sensible thing to do because it has worked. When you're starting from scratch that is when you might want to re-think your whole set up.

Again, all my opinion but I'm trying to be objective. First and foremost tho, your data is probably the most valuable thing out of it as the rest can be replaced so be satisfied that is safe first and foremost (y)

[TurdBerglar]

if you can, bob, avoid that external hd. you can get top of the line terabyte(1000 gigs) hard drives for like 80-90 bucks now.

[Bob]

here's the new one i'm getting

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148404