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I'm ordering you to take a backup!!!
- Thread starter Doctor Q
- Start date
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I have my B&W Pa-pa-pa-Powermac G3 B&W with 190gb of storage that I use for backups.
So far I have an Automator script that backs up my important files from my G5 to that system, and kicks off a small terminal script (basically a copy) that backs up whatever iPod I have attached, then zips the ipod backup into a handy cartable size. The iBook's home directory gets put into a DMG and placed on both of my ipods. Not too secure, but I don't have anything in my portable home that is worth anything to anyone.
Works well for what I do, and I even have off site backup of important files
.
So far I have an Automator script that backs up my important files from my G5 to that system, and kicks off a small terminal script (basically a copy) that backs up whatever iPod I have attached, then zips the ipod backup into a handy cartable size. The iBook's home directory gets put into a DMG and placed on both of my ipods. Not too secure, but I don't have anything in my portable home that is worth anything to anyone.
Works well for what I do, and I even have off site backup of important files
.
Blue Velvet said:Nightly backup of home folder to internal cloned drive... but, but...
I'll do it right now.
See, I love this option. Backing up to another internal drive which is also cloned is just brilliant.
I hope Apple make a new low-end Intel desktop. Bring back the Quicksilver case! Then I can full it with hard drives and backup 'till my heart's content!
(God, I'm so sad
)
My major activity yesterday was maintenance on the Outlook Express email database.
First threw a 60 Gb drive (thanks, Duff) into my work machine (Beige G3) and copied over everything from the main drive. Then, I did a Compact Database on the Outlook Express.
If you are running Microsoft Outlook Express or Entourage, you should know that the database can get corrupted at any time. You need to include the email databases in your backup strategy.
Also, when you Empty the Deleted Items folder of all the spam and greeting cards misguided friends send you; your Email Database DOES NOT get any smaller. It stays bloated. (BTW: Apologies if any of you did send me any email greeting cards -- by policy they are all trashed without opening.)
Also: if your MS Outlook/Entourage mail database size hits 2 Gb - all #=!! breaks loose and you may end up with unusable mail. I hit 2 Gb about every 3 years worth of mail.
The solution is to rebuild, or Compact, the database.
First quit Outlook/Entourage and find your Outlook or Office or Enrourage identity folder on your drive. Confirm the size of your database and messages file(s).
(The folder may be in Documents: Microsoft User Data or it may be in the Outlook Express application folder itself.) Make sure by checking the modification dates that this is actually the real mail data -- I have seen machines with 4 and 5 different copies of mail, only one of which was the one in use.
May be a good idea to backup the Identities folders to DVD or CD at this point. OK, done?
Now MAKE SURE that you have more free space on your hard drive than the largest mail database file. If you do not have enough room on the drive it will not show you an error, it will complete the job and DELETE some of your mail-- and it wont tell you.
OK, now open Outlook/Entourage and weed out your spam, delete unneeded attachments, messages, etc, EMPTY the deleted items folder, then quit Outlook/Entourage.
Now open the program again while holding the Command key. It will ask you if you want to compact the database. Say yes. Go away for 2 hours.
When you come back, it will have saved your old databases with OLD on the names, and created new ones, which should be smaller, faster and more reliable. Check and see that all your most recent mail is there, and if it is good, you can throw out the OLD database files. If it is not good you can quit the program, and roll back by throwing out the newly created ones, and renaming the OLD ones back tot he original names.
This is a good procedure to do at least once per year, (which is why I do it first day back from New Years) and also if your MS mail program is getting flakey.
Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
First threw a 60 Gb drive (thanks, Duff) into my work machine (Beige G3) and copied over everything from the main drive. Then, I did a Compact Database on the Outlook Express.
If you are running Microsoft Outlook Express or Entourage, you should know that the database can get corrupted at any time. You need to include the email databases in your backup strategy.
Also, when you Empty the Deleted Items folder of all the spam and greeting cards misguided friends send you; your Email Database DOES NOT get any smaller. It stays bloated. (BTW: Apologies if any of you did send me any email greeting cards -- by policy they are all trashed without opening.)
Also: if your MS Outlook/Entourage mail database size hits 2 Gb - all #=!! breaks loose and you may end up with unusable mail. I hit 2 Gb about every 3 years worth of mail.
The solution is to rebuild, or Compact, the database.
First quit Outlook/Entourage and find your Outlook or Office or Enrourage identity folder on your drive. Confirm the size of your database and messages file(s).
(The folder may be in Documents: Microsoft User Data or it may be in the Outlook Express application folder itself.) Make sure by checking the modification dates that this is actually the real mail data -- I have seen machines with 4 and 5 different copies of mail, only one of which was the one in use.
May be a good idea to backup the Identities folders to DVD or CD at this point. OK, done?
Now MAKE SURE that you have more free space on your hard drive than the largest mail database file. If you do not have enough room on the drive it will not show you an error, it will complete the job and DELETE some of your mail-- and it wont tell you.
OK, now open Outlook/Entourage and weed out your spam, delete unneeded attachments, messages, etc, EMPTY the deleted items folder, then quit Outlook/Entourage.
Now open the program again while holding the Command key. It will ask you if you want to compact the database. Say yes. Go away for 2 hours.
When you come back, it will have saved your old databases with OLD on the names, and created new ones, which should be smaller, faster and more reliable. Check and see that all your most recent mail is there, and if it is good, you can throw out the OLD database files. If it is not good you can quit the program, and roll back by throwing out the newly created ones, and renaming the OLD ones back tot he original names.
This is a good procedure to do at least once per year, (which is why I do it first day back from New Years) and also if your MS mail program is getting flakey.
Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
Aye, aye, Dr Q, Sir!
Yessir, backing up on a daily basis, Sir! [snappy salute, clicking of heels]
4:00 PM sharp each day my backup software kicks into gear and does an incremental backup onto the external LaCie drive.... and once a month I will be doing a full backup and getting rid of all the incremental stuff. Haven't done that yet since this system has only been set up for a few weeks. Oh, I guess it IS nearly time for that next full backup....
Learned the value of having an external backup with my old PC and when I moved to the Mac, after a few weeks (when the pocketbook permitted again after my big plunge into Mac) I went out and bought the LaCie and set it up for regular backing up so that all my data would be covered and protected.
Absolutely it's important to have some sort of backup system in place, especially when one has (as I do) a substantial photos folder and an ever-growing iTunes library....
OTB
Yessir, backing up on a daily basis, Sir! [snappy salute, clicking of heels]
4:00 PM sharp each day my backup software kicks into gear and does an incremental backup onto the external LaCie drive.... and once a month I will be doing a full backup and getting rid of all the incremental stuff. Haven't done that yet since this system has only been set up for a few weeks. Oh, I guess it IS nearly time for that next full backup....
Learned the value of having an external backup with my old PC and when I moved to the Mac, after a few weeks (when the pocketbook permitted again after my big plunge into Mac) I went out and bought the LaCie and set it up for regular backing up so that all my data would be covered and protected.
Absolutely it's important to have some sort of backup system in place, especially when one has (as I do) a substantial photos folder and an ever-growing iTunes library....
OTB
The backup is bootable, instead of just being a load of folderskwajaln said:
My PC: RAID 0+1 0wnz j00
Mum's PC: Every time I try to back it up using their tool, bad happens
A backup of a 40GB HDD somehow becomes 250GB, and I can't be assed to wander round dragging/dropping, so I haven't touched that one in yearsCube: Never backed it up, but I may do what someone I know did and take out the internal DVD drive (which doesn't work too well anyway), stick another HDD in it and use a FW DVD±RW/DL drive
PowerBook: The important stuff (music, pr0n... oh, and the occaisional bit of coursework
) get's backed up every so often
And while you're at it, make sure you have a way to restore the stuff! If you use some odd backup software that doesn't store everything as regular files, or it's on a specialty device that requires drivers, make sure you have that software handy for a reinstall.
If you have old backups that you think might be important in the future, but need a drive you don't have any more, don't wait until you need the files to get them transferred onto something more modern. You could easily discover that the hardware is really hard to find once you need the stuff.
In the Mac world, 400/800K floppies, Bernoulli and Syquest cartridges come to mind. If you have such things hidden away, now would be a good time to hunt down a pack rat who has leftover toys that still work and can copy them onto something more current like CDs, while the old stuff still works.
If you have old backups that you think might be important in the future, but need a drive you don't have any more, don't wait until you need the files to get them transferred onto something more modern. You could easily discover that the hardware is really hard to find once you need the stuff.
In the Mac world, 400/800K floppies, Bernoulli and Syquest cartridges come to mind. If you have such things hidden away, now would be a good time to hunt down a pack rat who has leftover toys that still work and can copy them onto something more current like CDs, while the old stuff still works.
I got so scared of Doctor Q's booming, God-like voice that I even backed up my Address Book and Mozilla Firefox bookmarks. *looks around scared*
Backed-up my personal data on the 1gb memory stick in my new treo 600.
Synched my address book as well. Lost all my contacts (the treo's memory was blank)
I suck.
Synched my address book as well. Lost all my contacts (the treo's memory was blank)
I suck.
Okay....
I was mulling over what to do about the silly new version of backup and the way it puts all those incremental files up and down my LaCie firewire drive.
Looks like I will need to run a full back up instead of the incremental back up every time???
I back up iphoto libraries every week on a DVD. When it gets too big for a DVD, I make up a new library (iphoto library manager) (my libraries are mostly chronological)
I should probably back up the Documents and Mail at least monthly.
I got a CD shredder to get rid of real old back ups.
The consequences of not doing back up....I had a flashback to the Northridge earthquake where my homebrewed PC tower fell from the desk to the floor....clunk.....dead drive.....a month's work gone!
I was mulling over what to do about the silly new version of backup and the way it puts all those incremental files up and down my LaCie firewire drive.
Looks like I will need to run a full back up instead of the incremental back up every time???
I back up iphoto libraries every week on a DVD. When it gets too big for a DVD, I make up a new library (iphoto library manager) (my libraries are mostly chronological)
I should probably back up the Documents and Mail at least monthly.
I got a CD shredder to get rid of real old back ups.
The consequences of not doing back up....I had a flashback to the Northridge earthquake where my homebrewed PC tower fell from the desk to the floor....clunk.....dead drive.....a month's work gone!
I've never bothered backing up for a few reasons - I don't have anything THAT important in the first place and secondly I don't have anything to back up onto (the thought of having to use about 15 DVDs to back up all my files seems like a bit of a waste). HOWEVER, if you do have important stuff on your comp then back up!!!!
My cousin had 2 HDs in her PC, one had windows installed and on the other she kept all of her files etc. She did multimedia at uni, so she had about 3 years worth of designs, movies, photos, projects and assignments (all of which she needed for her portfolio when going for jobs and stuff). When Windows got a virus ( ) she tried doing a reinstall of Windows, but somehow she installed it on the drive with all of her data on it! So she ended up with NONE of her 3 years of work and possibly even worse, Windows installed twice on her PC.
As we can see the moral of the story is BACKUP! and get a Mac of course, to avoid the possibilities of viruses in the first place!
My cousin had 2 HDs in her PC, one had windows installed and on the other she kept all of her files etc. She did multimedia at uni, so she had about 3 years worth of designs, movies, photos, projects and assignments (all of which she needed for her portfolio when going for jobs and stuff). When Windows got a virus (
) she tried doing a reinstall of Windows, but somehow she installed it on the drive with all of her data on it! So she ended up with NONE of her 3 years of work and possibly even worse, Windows installed twice on her PC.As we can see the moral of the story is BACKUP! and get a Mac of course, to avoid the possibilities of viruses in the first place!
Yea, Best Buy usually has pretty good deals. A few weeks before X-Mas I bought a Seagate 300GB internal HD with an 8MB Buffer for $70!iSaint said:
hana said:
The incremental backups only contain files/folders that have been changed from the full backup. That way, you aren't doing full backups all the time which would take up a lot of space.
Do the full backup every now and again, or if you've added/changed a lot of information.
I finally managed to back up again today, having finally managed to finish, archive, and delete a 40GB iMovie project. In its place went a lovely disk image with my whole iBook's contents. Much better.
Much better.
Littleodie914 said:Yea, Best Buy usually has pretty good deals. A few weeks before X-Mas I bought a Seagate 300GB internal HD with an 8MB Buffer for $70!
Cheapest I can find for one of those over here is about £80, around $130-150. Mr Value Added Tax, I hate you with a passion.
yeah it probably wasnt the smartest thing I ever did(or never didsushi said:Imagine loosing everything that you have.
Now would the third floor be high enough for ya?!
). But I am doing it as we speak. Sadly I dont have an external hard drive so I am putting it all on DVDs...YAY meEdit: When I say all I mean just my songs and photos. The documents are usless to me now and nothing else is that important.