I'm ordering you to take a backup!!!

[Diatribe]

Thanks for the reminder, a lot of people need it. I for one already have a backup plan that I follow vigorously.

Daily:
backup of important files, prefs, docs, etc. to my iDisk

Weekly:
backup of everything to my external HD

Monthly (now more semi-anually since I live some place else):
backup of everything to an off-site location HD

 

[WildCowboy]

Thanks Q...I just backed up my PB for the first time ever. (Having never had a hard drive die...knock on wood..., I never got in the habit of doing it.) Started with just a simple DVD burn of my home folder minus my music. I'm trying to decide whether to invest in an external drive for storage and backups (don't really need the storage at this point), or split up my current iTunes library onto five or six DVDs for backup. Of course, I could not do anything with my music and just have to re-rip all of my CDs if my HD suddenly fails and takes everything else with it...not a pleasant thought.

 

[hana]

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.

Thanks EGT!
I change stuff weekly - taking pictures and such.
So I should probably do a weekly full back up...I'd think....

 

[atari1356]

I try to back my files up fairly often, although I should probably do it more than I do now.

At work there is no provision for backing up files... so, I back stuff up off of my work computer onto my own personal external hard drive. I'm not about to lose a bunch of work to a hard drive failure and have to redo it all...

 

[jlgrafix]

Great reminder!

Does anyone have any recommendations for back-up software? One that only backsup files that have been edited. I deal with very large files and have about 60 gig of current work that needs to back-uped regualary, not just when ever I think about it.

I see someone uses retrospect but at $90 I think it's a little pricey.

Jen

 

[Palad1]

I see someone uses retrospect but at $90 I think it's a little pricey.

How much do you value your data?

There's a nice shell script for backing-up incrementally here: http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/ and see the osx faq here : http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/FAQ.html#OSX

(basically : use sudo fink install rdiff-backup )

 

[Applespider]

Does anyone have any recommendations for back-up software? One that only backsup files that have been edited.

Superduper! makes incremental backups very well if you buy the full version of it. I think it's $25? Before it's registered, it will only make complete clones.

 

[Lacero]

Does anyone have any recommendations for back-up software?

I use SilverKeeper. And it's free.

 

[MattG]

Good advice, Doctor Q.

I try to keep a current backup of my most important personal stuff, and I backup the contents of our Xserve each week. You can never be too safe.

 

[Sark]

"take a backup" ?

It would sound much better if you said simply asked (or in this case told ) everyone to backup their files, not to take a backup.

Sorry, I'm just being picky

As far as backing up goes, using some cheap CD-Rs or CD-RWs always does the trick for me.

 

[grapes911]

"take a backup" ?

"Take a backup" is a well-known and much used phrase in the technology world.

You take a snapshot, take a screen shot, take video, etc. You are preserving something in some format. "taking a backup" is not different. You are preserving files on you system.

Plus, you should never question Doctor Q. I believe that is like the twelfth or thirteenth commandment.

 

[Lacero]

"Take a backup" is a well-known and much used phrase in the technology world.

What about in the porn world?

For a moment there after glancing at the thread title, I thought Doctor Q had lost it.

Here's to the Crazy Ones ​

 

[grapes911]

What about in the porn world?

I like your thought. In the porn world, anything goes. Especially when we are talking about getting anything back up.

 

[2nyRiggz]

thanks Q...backed up my HD lastnight with silverkeeper and plus put some important apps on CDR & DVD.....you just got to love MR.

Bless

 

[iGary]

Just got a second FW Drive.

One backup on one partition, run weekly.

Aperture vault on the other partition.

One HDD totally dedicated with a bootable backup.

I'd be out of business if I lost data.

 

[Diatribe]

Just got a second FW Drive.

One backup on one partition, run weekly.

Aperture vault on the other partition.

One HDD totally dedicated with a bootable backup.

I'd be out of business if I lost data.

Yeah but now the most important question... do you also have an off-site backup?

 

[atari1356]

I use SilverKeeper. And it's free.

I recommend SilverKeeper as well... it works great, and you can't beat the price.

 

[EssentialParado]

I had been getting a lot of signs to take a backup recently. Then seeing this thread just caused me to spend $300 on a firewire external drive I'd been meaning to get for the past 2 years. Heh. I guess I should thank you... yeah, thank you for maxxing out my credit card. Whoever says he's not getting paid royalties by HDD manufacturers is lying.

 

[Sark]

"Take a backup" is a well-known and much used phrase in the technology world.

You take a snapshot, take a screen shot, take video, etc. You are preserving something in some format. "taking a backup" is not different. You are preserving files on you system.

Plus, you should never question Doctor Q. I believe that is like the twelfth or thirteenth commandment.

Really? I feel stupid, lol. Oh well, the logic makes sense, even if it is terrible english. Thanks for the explanation.

I must also commend you your avatar, what an excellent choice (mega-man).

 

[dops7107]

<snip detailed instructions>

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.

Thanks Trev/CanadaRAM for that - most useful and easy to forget. May I please point out that it is the Option key you should press while starting Entourage, not the Command key.

Otherwise Doc Q.: consider back up done. Upgrading to 10.4 soon anyway so it was on my to-do list

 

[Abulia]

I do a complete clone onto my FW LaCie 500 GB drive weekly. The drive is even bootable should I have to. Takes about 20 minutes so I just go do something else.

 

[emw]

"Take a backup" is a well-known and much used phrase in the technology world.

To paraphrase (I believe) George Carlin - "why is it 'take a backup'? Don't you really leave a backup?"

 

[atszyman]

I should have listened to Doctor Q. Luckily Karma is being somewhat nice to me this week, although nice is a subjective term.

Saturday afternoon/evening/night was spend running and re-running virus scans and spy ware sweepers on my PC due to a recent infection from either a bit torrent download or the fact that I had opened a router port for bit torrent (of course maybe that's my punishment for the questionable ethics of what I was downloading). After 8-9 hours everything was scanning clean.

Last night after getting home very late from work/school I was hearing a strange noise from my PC which sounded like one or both of the hard drives. So I set up the 300 GB External drive to do a back up and sure enough it won't let me backup one of the drives. Luckily after a series of shutdowns, boots, with various combinations of the hard drives connected I managed to get the drive up and copy the contents to the external drive. I also managed to get copies of some of the hard to re-create information to my wife's computer as well.

Realizing I am/was lucky not to lose any of the data on the drive I have over-engineered a solution to be as bulletproof as I can make it, assuming I can get funding approval from my wife.

I'm going to put a mirrored RAID array into my PC at home consisting of 2 250 GB drives. My laptop and wife's PC will be backed up to my PC weekly. With a monthly backup of my PC to the external drive which will be stored at my workplace. I know this is complete overkill but I have been too overconfident in the past and thinking about it last night and the data that could have been lost, I am now in complete "prevent" mode.

 

[Whigga Spitta]

after having my harddrive fail on my two weeks ago, i've been more consciencious of backing my files up. after reading this thread (and looking at my backup) it seems i'm doing something wrong...i'm simply backing up my 'users' folder, should i be backing up my whole harddrive?

i don't neccessarily want to back up OS X (it's a USB 2 harddrive, hence not bootable) but i would like my programs, etc. can someone recommend a useful method for this?

thanks (i've been using Silver Keeper)

 

[iPhil]

Thanks Doctor Q for ordering me to do a Back-up of my Mac .. I'll do another back-up today,trying do 'weekly' back-up routine on the mac..


Something that my dad said was 'Why do i need do a back-up on the mac?'



My answer was so if my internal hard drive fails i can quickly restore my files etc without trying using the windows to retrieve the files again and re-import them in Tiger..