Your backup habits?

Backed up to external HD. I back up photos and my documents file which has any document I care about. Also my graphics folder and my music folder (which probably takes up most of space).

I also occasionally email stuff to myself if it's really important just in case (special photos etc).

No set time to do this, off and on, I'd say every few months-ish.
 
I use Time Machine on my Mac. Saved my ass on one occasion. I was doing a job for a relative that was very important. Hadn't worked on it for a few weeks when he got back to me with some new stuff to do. Discovered the entire folder was missing and the trash had been emptied. Was able to restore it via Time Machine.

Had a bad experience in the past where I lost an entire hard drive of files and photos. I've been religious about backing up since. I think I'm the only person I know who has photos on their computer going back for more than a couple of years. Everyone I know is just so blasé about backing up and transferring their files to a new PC. They buy new computers and simply don't even bother transferring their photos over. I've got photos on my computer and backup drive going back about 15 years.
 
JesseCuster said:
I use Time Machine on my Mac. Saved my ass on one occasion. I was doing a job for a relative that was very important. Hadn't worked on it for a few weeks when he got back to me with some new stuff to do. Discovered the entire folder was missing and the trash had been emptied. Was able to restore it via Time Machine.

Had a bad experience in the past where I lost an entire hard drive of files and photos. I've been religious about backing up since. I think I'm the only person I know who has photos on their computer going back for more than a couple of years. Everyone I know is just so blasé about backing up and transferring their files to a new PC. They buy new computers and simply don't even bother transferring their photos over. I've got photos on my computer and backup drive going back about 15 years.
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As they say: There are b10 kind of computer users: Those who have lost data, and those who will.

(Funnily enough, I seem to be a Schrödinger-mixture state of those two: My main hard drive with system, apps, and personal data I back up, and are unlikely to loose. But there is a lot of data I have that I simply do not care about enough, of which I only maintain a single copy, and I may loose it in the future.)
 
I clicked on this topic because Ian, who does anything technical on my cmputer such as downloading upgrades and things like that,ensures that he backs up the small amount of stuff I have on the computer on a memory stick. If there isn't room, he deletes the oldest. So, that's very simple compared with all the technical replies!

comfy slippers And just what have you done with your avatar?!! How is- whatever it is - supposed to represent your user name? tut, tut! :D I increased the magnification and it appears to be some letters.
 
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elgarak said:
As they say: There are b10 kind of computer users: Those who have lost data, and those who will.
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That had me confused for a few moments, as I initially read the "b" as being part of the number. This made me wonder why there would be b10(hex), or 2832(dec) kinds of computer user.
 
I keep reading everyone else's backup habits and thinking to myself "gee, that sounds excessive. Paranoid much?"

But then I kick myself and remind myself that some people actually keep important information on their computers, and I'm something of an exception in that I don't. So I apologise to all of you about whom I'm thinking that.
 
arthwollipot said:
I keep reading everyone else's backup habits and thinking to myself "gee, that sounds excessive. Paranoid much?"

But then I kick myself and remind myself that some people actually keep important information on their computers, and I'm something of an exception in that I don't. So I apologise to all of you about whom I'm thinking that.
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I have had, over my about 35 years of computer usage, complete failure of three boot drives. Lost some important data when it first happened.

Unlikely to happen again.
 
Never done it. Just copy data from old HD to new and then leave it for another ~7 years. I will get around to making a Win10 install USB (given I did the free update thing) but that's about as far as I go. But I'm a gamer and I buy expensive hardware on a semi-regular basis. Never had a failure and most of the important stuff is on Steam. Photos on Facebook. Passwords/username/receipts on Hotmail.
 
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arthwollipot said:
I keep reading everyone else's backup habits and thinking to myself "gee, that sounds excessive. Paranoid much?"

But then I kick myself and remind myself that some people actually keep important information on their computers, and I'm something of an exception in that I don't. So I apologise to all of you about whom I'm thinking that.
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Here in 2016, there's a generation of users who have never had physical media (paper correspondence, postcards, paper books, printed photos, CDs, LPs, 8-track tapes, VHS tapes...) so all their memories is on the hard drive.

Having said that, I think we may have reached Peak Backup as more and more storage gravitates to the cloud model. Who needs to store a copy of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs on their PC if they can just dial it up in Netflix?
 
blutoski said:
Here in 2016, there's a generation of users who have never had physical media (paper correspondence, postcards, paper books, printed photos, CDs, LPs, 8-track tapes, VHS tapes...) so all their memories is on the hard drive.

Having said that, I think we may have reached Peak Backup as more and more storage gravitates to the cloud model. Who needs to store a copy of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs on their PC if they can just dial it up in Netflix?
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Except when they only keep them for a period of time
 
blutoski said:
Here in 2016, there's a generation of users who have never had physical media (paper correspondence, postcards, paper books, printed photos, CDs, LPs, 8-track tapes, VHS tapes...) so all their memories is on the hard drive.
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I went through that phase, but I haven't used any physical media for many years. And I stopped storing things on the HDD of my computer about three years ago. I've had to wipe and re-install my OS several times since then.

blutoski said:
Having said that, I think we may have reached Peak Backup as more and more storage gravitates to the cloud model. Who needs to store a copy of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs on their PC if they can just dial it up in Netflix?
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Exactly. Why go to the bother storing something and backing it up when Dropbox's entire business model is built around reliably doing exactly that?
 
blutoski said:
Here in 2016, there's a generation of users who have never had physical media
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I seriously doubt it..........but I don't doubt it's a trickle (ie your overall point stands).


blutoski said:
Who needs to store a copy of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs on their PC if they can just dial it up in Netflix?
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Except storing it doesn't come with a monthly fee and you don't have to worry about connectivity issues. I can store one hell of a lot of movies on a single cheap external HD. :)
 
bigred said:
[...]
Except storing it doesn't come with a monthly fee and you don't have to worry about connectivity issues. I can store one hell of a lot of movies on a single cheap external HD. :)
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Me, too.

But I don't back them up, because they can be easily replaced (so far, legally).
 
My backup strategy: redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy.

I keep my core files (research, notes, and writings) on a local NFS file server (Ubuntu Server 14.04 currently running on a NUC), and those get rsynced regularly to a redundant folder on my main machine. I keep copies on my backup machines as well. Other files are usually kept locally in triplicate and rsynced every couple of weeks.

I have a stupid amount of redundant hardware, storage, and OSes, because I don't like being stopped or even slowed down. I was thinking of renting some server space to make my own cloud, because you can't really trust local storage due to possible theft or calamity. My data footprint is several terabytes, though, which has given me pause. I'll probably do it, one way or another, but I'll want to be the master of it.
 
Redundancy with local, NAS, and cloud copies of important stuff, only local and NAS for media files. Migrated Windows user files to another partition so OS recovery installs from backup are absolutely painless. Goal: 15-30 minutes maximum delay to full access to all files after a catastrophic failure on main machine.

Windows 10 is making me have to look at that again, though. Some Apps data is still on C: and could get lost, mostly for worthless little games, but still.
 
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