It is cumbersome if they are files that will be accessed and/or modified with any frequency.

I have smaller text files that are in this category. I actually still back these up to floppy. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...es/redface.gif

I used to do it manually. Weekly for my documents (doc files, etc.) and monthly for all my files (movies, music, etc.). For the weekly backups, I use a flashdrive and for the monthly backups, an external HD. But since I have a huge amount of data to backup (lots of music), the monthly backups took forever. The main reason why it took so long is that I wasn't using any backup program, so that meant full backups all the time. So now I'm using the backup utility that comes with Vista. I did my first full backup yesterday and it took forever. But the next backups should be a lot faster, since they're supposed to be incremental.

Originally posted by Wezil
It is cumbersome if they are files that will be accessed and/or modified with any frequency.

I have smaller text files that are in this category. I actually still back these up to floppy. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...es/redface.gif http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/lol.gif Floppies definitely are very low on the 'reliability' factor... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif

I doubt that that CD/DVD's are that more reliable than a good quality external HD. Maybe CD/DVD-R are more reliable, but I'm not at all convinced that CD/DVD-RW are. And people will most likely end up backing up their data on a CD/DVD-RW. Backing up on a CD/DVD-RW as always been a pain as far as I'm concerned. I'd rather use a flash drive. There's no fuss and they're a lot faster.

Oh, i'd definitely say CD/DVD-R, not RW. Multiple uses is always very questionable.

Flash drives are not all that reliable, themselves... they're probably reliable enough for 'normal' usage but not for anything you truly need to trust will survive. CD/R or DVD/R are the least likely to be damaged or suffer data loss of any solution by far.

External HDDs are in the scheme of things fairly good, if you are careful with them in terms of space, heat, etc. - but they will eventually have problems, particularly if you're using most of the space. I generally recommend them first for normal users because they're easy to use (and thus they actually WILL back things up), but someone like my GF (a PhD student with 5+ years' work all on her laptop) you can't afford any risks.

Originally posted by snoopy369
Oh, i'd definitely say CD/DVD-R, not RW. Multiple uses is always very questionable.

Flash drives are not all that reliable, themselves... they're probably reliable enough for 'normal' usage but not for anything you truly need to trust will survive. CD/R or DVD/R are the least likely to be damaged or suffer data loss of any solution by far.

External HDDs are in the scheme of things fairly good, if you are careful with them in terms of space, heat, etc. - but they will eventually have problems, particularly if you're using most of the space. I generally recommend them first for normal users because they're easy to use (and thus they actually WILL back things up), but someone like my GF (a PhD student with 5+ years' work all on her laptop) you can't afford any risks. My PhD thesis is on my flash drive, on my internal HD, on a couple of CD-R's and on my external HD. And I have even a couple of printed versions. The only flaw in my plan is that they're all in one place. If the terrorists nuke Montreal, humanity will lose something important http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif

Flash drives are great for daily or weekly backups. I wouldn't use CD-R's for that purpose, though. And my external hard drive is on only when I backup my stuff, otherwise its off. So there's no heat issue there.

I have my My Documents folder synced regularly to an external HDD.

Originally posted by Nostromo
The moral of the story: never ever backup your stuff on only one device. How much room do you need anyway? I have about 10g worth of pictures and music. Small compared to most I suppose. Another issue are games. I usually uninstall games that I have not played in some time and usually if I buy a new one, that means one must come off. I have a total of 30g on my laptop and I have about 6 that is free at the moment. My laptop has been a good one but I'm feeling the space crunch. My wife's has 160 http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/frown.gif but she is in school.

I suppose I could use Cd-R to back up pictures. They aren't super critical just memories.

In the end I suppose the only option is to bear it until I get another one but the issue of not wanting to lose things remains.

Originally posted by Wezil
It is cumbersome if they are files that will be accessed and/or modified with any frequency.

I have smaller text files that are in this category. I actually still back these up to floppy. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...es/redface.gif http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/lol.gif http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/lol.gif http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/lol.gif

I was going to answer floppies as a joke, but you've preempted that.

I have a Time Capsule that does automated backups for all the computers in our house.

You are wasting your time burning CDs and DVDs. All you'll end up with is a pile of discs and you won't remember what's on each one. The best option is to buy an external hard drive and find some sort of automated backup software. There must be some software that will do this for Windows. There's a free program called Synctoy that would probably do the job. No idea if it does wireless backups, but that would be a plus.

Automated backups are the best, since you don't need to worry about remembering to backup. I dithered a bit, but then I realized what a pain it was going to be to rerip all my music if I suffered a hardware failure. Plus, if I buy a new machine, I can use the backup drive to transfer absolutely everything to it automatically.

For the few really important files you have, burning a disc or online storage would be an extra insurance policy.

Originally posted by Sprayber


I have about 10g worth of pictures and music. Small compared to most I suppose. Another issue are games. I usually uninstall games that I have not played in some time and usually if I buy a new one, that means one must come off. I have a total of 30g on my laptop and I have about 6 that is free at the moment. My laptop has been a good one but I'm feeling the space crunch. My wife's has 160 http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/frown.gif but she is in school.

I suppose I could use Cd-R to back up pictures. They aren't super critical just memories.

In the end I suppose the only option is to bear it until I get another one but the issue of not wanting to lose things remains. Is upgrading your internal hard drive an option?

Originally posted by Nostromo


Is upgrading your internal hard drive an option? Is is possible to change update a drive on a laptop. I must profess ignorance on this matter. That would be a nice compromise if I could.

I'll look into that option http://www.discussworldissues.com/im...ons/icon14.gif


Thanks for all the information from everyone. http://www.discussworldissues.com/im...ons/icon14.gif

Originally posted by snoopy369


http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/lol.gif Floppies definitely are very low on the 'reliability' factor... http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif Definitely a more sensitive medium but I have yet to lose a file on a floppy. I have burned CD's however with files that became inaccessible. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/frown.gif

University Server, Gmail, External HD, Internal HD, and for the real important stuff, Hard copy.

Originally posted by Asher

It's trivial to transfer and expand/upgrade external HDDs every ~5 years. 5 years is more than the safe lifetime of a HDD, unfortunately... a CD is still by far the safest, because once verified as properly written (which is the largest failure point), a CD will be very secure in its functionality for 8 to 10 years; probably less than 1% failure rate over that period of time. There were some interesting articles about that I read a while back, probably on the fora somewhere (about the 50 year lifetime and how it was being tested now by the LoC and others). Can't recall where, though.

HDDs have a (relatively) high short-term failure rate - I'd estimate 10% within 2 years, if I had to guess (sure there are stats out there somewhere). Obviously a RAID array is (much) safer, though i'm not sure if it becomes as safe as a CD; but it is twice as expensive.

I'd still recommend a HDD for any non-critical backup, don't get me wrong, but for critical backups HDD is not good enough.

I use a NAS w/ RAID 1 for local storage and mozy for remote.

How Do You Back Up Your Files
 

I burn to CD but I'm a long way from being tech savy.