Should you backup your data?

[Chacala_Nayarit]

Just remember, if you have huge hard drives, have a reasonable means to back it up. Burning hundreds of CDs or 50 DVDs is a pain in the ass. Definately get the external hard drive that has enough room to back up your home folder and other critical data. My 2 cents!

 

[plasticparadox]

I save my documents directly to my iDisk's Document folder, and there is also the local copy that is synced. Is this a sufficient backup plan? I also use .Mac Backup for my purchased music and photos.

Have .Mac's servers ever lost backed up data in a crash or likewise?

 

[EGT]

How long does it take backup to sync your purchased music and photos?

I find .Mac too slow for important stuff like music or photos. It would be best to backup regularly to an external drive of some sort. It doesn't have to be very large, just big enough to store your "must have" data should the worst happen.

Its probably not a good idea to depend upon .Mac as your main backup. Even using a DVD or some CDs every so often will help you be well covered.

 

[EMKoper]

... hundreds of CDs or 50 DVDs is a pain ...

But you can physically distribute your back-ups this way.. I give a full copy of my digital photos to my parents every year to maintain a separately geographic update. A natural disaster could impact all back-ups whether they are hard-drive, CD, DVD, or tape that are all in a single location if it were to occur (a lesson from 9/11 for many businesses and some govt. organizations, unfortunately).

Does anyone know how long a DVD-R lasts? I typically us them for "archival" back-up and keep them in a controlled climate (that is not in the hot/cold attic) and don't expose them to light (could UV impact their longevity?)... how often should one back-up their back-ups?

 

[plasticparadox]

How long does it take backup to sync your purchased music and photos?

Well, I only take a few photos at a time and purchase a song at a time. So .Mac Backup only has to add a few megabytes of info each backup. It's not bad.

 

[FFTT]

But you can physically distribute your back-ups this way.. I give a full copy of my digital photos to my parents every year to maintain a separately geographic update. A natural disaster could impact all back-ups whether they are hard-drive, CD, DVD, or tape that are all in a single location if it were to occur (a lesson from 9/11 for many businesses and some govt. organizations, unfortunately).

Does anyone know how long a DVD-R lasts? I typically us them for "archival" back-up and keep them in a controlled climate (that is not in the hot/cold attic) and don't expose them to light (could UV impact their longevity?)... how often should one back-up their back-ups?

This is a real important question.

I would revise my backup disks once every 2 years at a minimum.

If any of your disks were labelled using a Sharpie, you need to verify and copy those as soon as convenient using a CD safe marker.

I'm pretty sure the Library of Congress has a few data storage recommendations too, but fro what I've heard CD's and DVD's
will deteriorate over time.

Most of us have numerous CD's that could use a bit or reorganization anyway.

If you need to copy the files on your older CD's anyway, you might as well
organize them in some way to help you keep track of everything
and toss the junk you'll never use again.

 

[EMKoper]

... If any of your disks were labeled using a Sharpie, you need to verify and copy those as soon as convenient using a CD safe marker...

From the Sharpie web site ... but they don't sound too confident, do they?

Is the SHARPIE marker safe for writing on CD's?

Sanford has used SHARPIE markers on CDs for years and we have never experienced a problem. We do not believe that the SHARPIE ink can affect these CDs, however we have not performed any long-term laboratory testing to verify this. We have spoken to many major CD manufacturers about this issue. They use the SHARPIE markers on CDs internally as well, and do not believe that the SHARPIE ink will cause any harm to their products.

Also, found a good resource on this topic ... no hard data on how long things last, but some good info ... Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists. It implies that markers with corrosive agents may not impact DVD's in the same way it may impact CD's.

 

[FFTT]

Sharpie ink contains petrolium distillates and that's the problem
over time.

I can't find the link, but what I read indicated that those chemicals can
etch the disc and corrupt your data.

I also heard an interview on NPR a while back about data storage
with a representative from the Library of Congress and he recommended
re-verifying and reburning every few years as well as uploading to an alternate storage server.

 

[wPod]

backing up is good. but who really needs it? i mean all data is recoverable in one form or another. to seriously truely delete data to government standards the data must 1st be deleted. then whatever is left is deleted another couple times, then whatever section of the disk was used is written and re-written with random sorts of data so that nothing can actually be recovered from that part of the disk. (in finder select Finder>Secure Empty Trash, and this is essentially what happens) so, as long as you dont do that your data can be recovered. even in a worse case scenario of a head crash on your HD, the platters can be pulled out and most data can be recovered (except for likely a small section where the head actually scratched the disk) and something like that only costs a few thousand dollars (generally more than the price of a new computer) even data that has been formated can generally be recovered, as long as its only been formated once. BUT in all honesty, its much much easier to keep a backup of all of your data! i do a full backup about once a month (to an external HD) then on imporant documents im working on for class or such i will backup up frequently to my shuffle so i will likely have it should M$ office die and decide to delete the file (ive had that happen before, and was able to recover from my 1st gen iPod (before the shuffle) ) so yeah BACKUP!!!