Backups

[Captain]

Ok, seeing as how I've never done any backing up of files (unless I'm about to reformat), what would be the best method to do so? Is it possible to create an image that could fit on a few DVDs for example? Or is it best to just buy an external HDD and call it a day?

Might as well do a backup to save myself grief and insanity if something goes wrong in the future

WD 250GB SATA-II
WD 500GB SATA-II

[AmIdYfReAk]

You know my stand, get a External Drive, power it on and dump shit to it, and turn it off.

then its safe keeping.

DVD's Rott, CD's Rott ( Eventually, but they do ) a harddrive sitting there and not doing anything wont just break..

[+JuggerNaut+]

yer, back up to an external (or internal if you have the room). the shit's cheap.

[AmIdYfReAk]

i see internal as just another drive.. and its contantly running as are the regular drives.

so it only becomes another HDD, Rather then a dedicated backup drive.

[Foo]

I just take a DVD of my documents every 6 months or so. Having the PC's main drive in a RAID array kinda ensures the data will be safe. The DVD backup is mostly there in case I screw up a document and want to roll back.

[+JuggerNaut+]

i see internal as just another drive.. and its contantly running as are the regular drives.

so it only becomes another HDD, Rather then a dedicated backup drive.

OK.

[Captain]

Hmm, maybe I should just stick another 500gig in there and call it a day.

Any specific programs that you peeps use?

[+JuggerNaut+]

http://www.acronis.com/ in windows

[Foo]

I have a script for occasional disk-to-disk if it's any help.

Just put this in plain text in a file called whatever.bat and customize the paths to your requirements. Robocopy.exe is easy to get hold of for XP and already present in Vista.

Code: Select all

robocopy "C:\Users\Chris\Documents" "I:\Backup\CHRIS-DT\Documents" *.* /MIR /LOG:CHRIS-DT_Documents.txt /TEE /NP
robocopy "C:\Users\Chris\Pictures" "I:\Backup\CHRIS-DT\Pictures" *.* /MIR /LOG:CHRIS-DT_Pictures.txt /TEE /NP
robocopy "C:\Users\Chris\Downloads" "I:\Backup\CHRIS-DT\Downloads" *.* /MIR /LOG:CHRIS-DT_Downloads.txt /TEE /NP

Syncback is also great.

If you're putting another 500Gb in and RAIDing the drives, you don't need to worry about any kind of script as it's automatically protected when in a mirrored RAID set.

On the other hand if you're putting in another 500Gb disk and just copying the entire contents of your primary drive occasionally.... you could use Ghost/DriveImage. Just make sure you go FROM the correct disk and not the other way round by mistake (oh such fun you would have)