Do You Guys Back Up Your Files? If so How exactly?
 

I have my whole life basically on my computer. If i ever lost my files i dont know what i would do.

So what i do now is just back up my important stuff on a external HD. And i also have 2 USB flash drives. And I also copy my important files to another computer. But i still think this is not good enough.
i thought about maybe backing my stuff up and put it in a bank safe deposit...what do you think about that?

What if there is a fire? what if house gets robbed? etc
What do you guys do? Or what would be a good way to have your files in a safe place?

Thanks, i hope to get some tips.

I have the most important stuff on DVDs at my parent's home and more copies at my place

I also have 2 hard drives on my main PC and again the most important data copied on both of them

I store it in my mattress. :thumbsup

Actually I use backuppc.sourceforge.net with a vpn connection to a co-located box about three states away.

You could always store some stuff on a server.

I just went through a bad crash and loss lots of my personal pics and all last month :( I went to tiger direct and go t a 500 gig external drive with auto backup .. I also have a program that scans my pc every night and sends new stuff to my Ded box .. I lost opics of my son, anaimal and lots of other stuff ...

External USB hard drives are dirt cheap now. Unless you are doing anything with raw video, a few hundred dollars should be able to cover everything.

I have 4 external drives. I use two for daily backups and 2 to archive stuff that years old.
I also make a full backup of my p.c's hardrive every few weeks with Acronis True Image.

Have couple of drives and a rack and I use DSynchronize (google for it) to sync the data.
It's small application, easy to use and best of it - it's free.

always keep your data in 2 locations

I use a external drive and made a cd also a online service

rsync, rsync, rsync.

it's something that is easy to take for granted and forget about

got too many projects on the go on too many different servers, it is a big job just to keep it all organized

not to mention home computer stuff, external hard drive is here but not used often enough

Main storage: Network Attached Storage (NAS) with a 3TB RAID3 array made up of 5 x 750GB drives. One drive failure can be tolerated without losing any data, and I have a spare drive available for immediate replacement (an extra $150 is worth it for peace of mind...)

Backup storage: 2 x 1TB drives in a removable caddy, one stored here, one at my mum's place. They are swapped & updated regularly.

Tip: if you have more than one external backup drive, try to use different brands and/or models to protect against a fatal flaw in firmware or hardware (eg dodgy power supply) possibly taking out both of your drives at the same time. Keep them disconnected when not in use (including USB/firewire/network cables) to avoid a power surge instantly killing everything.

Remote storage is becoming more popular, although it's still quite limited for a "consumer" - these days a few gigs of data storage isn't going to be enough to keep all of your important pics and docs, but paying for a commercial service is going to cost big bickies. For the moment, an extra HD and sneakernet to an alternate location is probably the best bang for your buck.

Oh yeah, if you store a backup onsite consider a fireproof safe in another room... that way a fire which doesn't completely destroy the building is less likely to affect your backup...

While you're at it, install a smoke detector and fire extinguisher in your computer room.

I have a couple of external drives and once a day each pc has its important data copied to them

i rent a sketch artist to sketch each page /document i view at all times , then i rent another sketch artist to copy the first sketch artists work ( i dont trust photocopiers )

I backup everything to DVD, because harddrives can fail and because of misc. Internet viruses.

Remember that DVDs are not an infallible medium either

Ignoring the mechanical side of it, neither is magnetic media... I don't know if there's any benefit in periodically reading and REWRITING every sector on the HD... like regularly copying a master CD to a casette to stick into the crappy radio in your hot car.