What's your experience with backups?

[Dee8go]

I have just bought and hooked up a Western Digital My Book 500MB external hard drive for backing up my laptop. I don't remember this ever taking so long before. I used to back up onto Zip (remember those?) disks, and it didn't seem to take so long, nor did it seem to cause the computer to bog down like it is today.

I can just schedule backups for a time when I'm not using it, I guess. I wondered what the rest of you have experienced.

[John Doe]

I am very computer illiterate (ask Howi if you doubt this) and bought a Maxtor One touch and it takes seconds to back up my laptops. Most of my files are just text documents though, and I understand these use little memory (although I have over 3K pictures of my family on there too....)

[TMAllison]

I have an external drive also for archiving/backup.

My approach is more simplistic. I just grab My Docs (where I save most data I create or need) and another directory or two and dump them into the ext drive periodically rather than mess with backup software. Click overwrite all and walk away.

[Mistress]

It's all your photo files, their huge.

[Dee8go]

Yeah, I forgot how big those are. Also I have a huge I Tunes file. I guess I need to think about how I want to do back ups and then schedule them to run when I'm not going to need the computer for a while.

[WVOtoGO]

DJ bumped a light pole in a parking lot once.
I’ve hit a dumpster while backing.



(Sorry, but that just sounded like something the originator of this thread would have posted if it wasn’t his. So I pinch hit it for him.)

[iwrock]

Originally Posted by WVOtoGO

DJ bumped a light pole in a parking lot once.
I’ve hit a dumpster while backing.



(Sorry, but that just sounded like something the originator of this thread would have posted if it wasn’t his. So I pinch hit it for him.)

Not cool either. I backed the G-Wagen into a rock while offroading, and it left a nice scrape on the spare tire cover....



I had it fixed though, so we are all good.... (Sorry Dee....)



On a more serious note, if you have your hard drive plugged into a USB hub thats not 2.0, it may take a while to transfer files. That, or you got tons of other USB stuffs plugged in.... Or you need a reboot... Or you have something else accessing the drive.... Or the filesystem on one of the drives needs to be checked.... Or.... A few other things.

[Jeremy5848]

Yeah, my first experience with a "modern" car with day/night rear view mirror (a '65 Olds, shows you how old I must be) involved backing into a dumpster 'cause the mirror was on "night."

As regards computer backups, I also have a Maxtor Onetouch external hard drive although I use Microsoft's "Windows Live OneCare" software. I buy the software on eBay for about half of the $50/year that Bill Gates wants for a subscription. Every Sunday night I leave all three [networked] computers on overnight and in the morning all three have been virus checked, software updated, and backed up to the external drive. It then goes back into the fireproof (2 hours, they say) safe until next week.

Backups do you no good if they burn up with the house or office. Consider taking the home backup to work, keep a copy in the car, or give a copy to a trusted neighbor. I occasionally will back up selected files to a DVD and put the DVD in a storage container that lives outside, hidden in the landscaping.

The key to all of this backup stuff is to make it simple and inexpensive enough so that you will do it regularly. I'm as lazy as the next guy -- if it takes too much effort I won't do it.

Jeremy