# How Do Y'all...



## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

Happy New Year. How do y'all back-up your pc's or laptops? Have you ever actually had to use the back-up due to a crash? This is kinda funny - I am posting a computer question on a Paint forum. But, you know what, I've come to value the opinions of you folks. Real opinions from real users. Thanks and have a great 2k10.


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## johnpaint (Sep 20, 2008)

I use an extra hard drive, you can get them at the store like mine that you just keep a usb cable plugged into it. I just move my pictures and mydoc's and what ever I store on my desktop over to a folder named for whatever. If you have a problem and need to reformat, just move everything back over and it's back in place.


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

JP: Thanks for the feedback. I'm probably going to buy the HP Simple Save at 640GB. My wife saw it on the home shopping network for $150. Seems simple enough.


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## MAK-Deco (Apr 17, 2007)

I have an extra drive dedicated to backups. also back up once a month essential data files on a usb drive and place it in my safe. I have had biz data on computers since 95'


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## nEighter (Nov 14, 2008)

fresh that is way too much. you can get a terabyte for 100.00. Look around. Go to www.newegg.com


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## MAK-Deco (Apr 17, 2007)

nEighter said:


> fresh that is way too much. you can get a terabyte for 100.00. Look around. Go to www.newegg.com


I assume that price is for interior drive.. For backups IMo external quick type drives are better. easy to remove and store, hook up to laptop or other machine to transfer files as well. 

I would never buy and install a interior drive again get a good one for the machine when you buy it and be done tinkering with computers.. Just another hat I don't need to wear anymore.


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## ewingpainting.net (Jun 2, 2008)

Leo Laporte recomend to have 3 back ups 2 external drives, one at home and another at another location aswell as one online. he recomends CARBONITE, which I dont have, but is on my agendsa to do. 
Here is some show notes you can review. he also has a podcast here. 
.
Yes I have used my back up before. I kissed the hard drive when it was needed. 
Good luck


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## KLaw (May 8, 2009)

Currently, we use mozyhome online for our backup but my wife actually wanted to get an external. About an hour ago, she bought the HP one I mentioned earlier.


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## nEighter (Nov 14, 2008)

MAK-Deco said:


> I assume that price is for interior drive.. For backups IMo external quick type drives are better. easy to remove and store, hook up to laptop or other machine to transfer files as well.
> 
> I would never buy and install a interior drive again get a good one for the machine when you buy it and be done tinkering with computers.. Just another hat I don't need to wear anymore.


Well when you can add a terabyte of data to an external enclosure.. man you really don't need anything else after that. I didn't take my A+ cert, but damn good computer builder, and have my college equiv. That said it is *nothing* to hook up an external drive to a harddrive. You really don't have to be computer literate at all to do it. 

I like what you said about having an online backup also. I need to do that, I actually have a free 2.5 gig offered by my web host I need to do. That way my pics are safe. 

BTW I saw that newegg has solid state 64 gig for 250.00!! WOW they are still up there huh?!


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## MAK-Deco (Apr 17, 2007)

nEighter said:


> Well when you can add a terabyte of data to an external enclosure.. man you really don't need anything else after that. I didn't take my A+ cert, but damn good computer builder, and have my college equiv. That said it is *nothing* to hook up an external drive to a harddrive. You really don't have to be computer literate at all to do it.
> 
> I like what you said about having an online backup also. I need to do that, I actually have a free 2.5 gig offered by my web host I need to do. That way my pics are safe.
> 
> BTW I saw that newegg has solid state 64 gig for 250.00!! WOW they are still up there huh?!


yeah online is great I have 20 gigs but it does take some time to upload to it.

SS are pricey... Apple offer 200 gigs for 200$ upgrade fee on some laptops


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## Workaholic (Apr 17, 2007)

I have a couple external drives that i use.


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## BESMAN (Jul 15, 2009)

same...2 externals...everything gets double backed..triple if you count the PC it started from.


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## mistcoat (Apr 21, 2007)

This is something I must do.
I lost all my biz stuff about 2yrs ago. Along with 7yrs of my children/family photo's. Never backed up anything.
My wife was well upset, as was I.

Live 'n' learn.
Thanks to FC for bringing this up :thumbsup:


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## y.painting (Jul 19, 2009)

I double back up all important data on my computer (docs, pics, music, etc), so that in the end, I have 3 sets of all my important stuff (one internal HD and 2 external HDs)

Hard drives fail very often and I have suffered through one - it is not pretty. Cost me close to 1500 to get a professional data restorer to do his magic and recover at least some of the documents.

For my mac, I use something called ChronoSync to make it very easy to sync up between the hard drives. Just select your folders, click sync and it copies/deletes/updates names etc so that your two sets of folders have identical files in them.

There are similar programs for PCs that are free. One good one is allwaysync.

In my opinion, the online backup services are a waste of money. It takes too long to upload (if you have lots of data) and you usually have to pay a monthly fee. And, they do not do anything more special than you would be doing by putting your stuff on an external.


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## daArch (Mar 15, 2008)

Although I do not do it often enough, I have a ext hard drive. Pix and important data go on it. 

I try to buy a new internal HD every couple of years. They do not last forever.

Another option that I keep meaning to do, is a hard drive enclosure. I have some older, yet small HD's laying around. I could just slip them into the enclosure and copy data to them. They connect to the computer either by USB or firewire. 

One huge PITA if you have a major crash, is not only reloading the OS but also all the apps and proggies. It takes me DAYS to totally reconstruct a computer - yah I have way too much stuff. But, there is a software called Acronis True Image that makes an exact image of the computer which can be copied to rebuild. The image can be saved to another drive or to discs. And updates can be made on a regular basis.


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## Induspray (Dec 10, 2009)

Backing up to hard drives is fine but if you had some information corrupted at any point in time then the backup you do will also continue to be corrupted. 

I have always backed my data to DVD and recently bought a blue ray burner ($250) as the volume those discs hold is huge (50GB for a double disc). 

Always keep some of your backups offsite so that a disaster such as a fire or flood does not render all your backing up useless. 

As far as the online backups, I have not done that but dont the internet service providers give you a limit on the amount of data you can transfer per month before they have surcharges, I know that mine says 60GB per month downloaded , not sure of upload limits?? I have about 20GB of data I back up every few days so I am pretty sure I would get hammered. 

The other advantage to backing up to DVD or Blue Ray is that you can take a backup with you on the road so that if something happens with your laptop data you can quickly get access to your information to restore it.


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## PaintingContractor (Dec 24, 2009)

I've had numerous hard drives completely die on me. They typically only last around 3 years due to constant usage. So, I have always had a backup external hard drive. I have my computer set up with the operating system running on a 250gb hard drive with all my software running it as well. I also have a 500GB internal hard drive for all of my images, files etc. I don't' save anything on my primary hard drive with the operating system because it is most likely to fail. So everything is stored on the 500gb.. From there, I have an external 500GB hard drive that automatically mirror's the internal 500gb hard drive using Memeo's Automatic backup software.  Works perfectly


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## PatsPainting (Mar 4, 2010)

Programs like norton ghost, DriveImage and my favorite Acronis are great programs for back up - they make complete images of your hard drives, If you ever get a nasty virus, or a your hardrive fails, you can simply expand that image to your new drive or formated drive and be right back where you were when you backed up last. Could save you days of re installing things. Depending on your image size - 85gigs for example would take less then 40 minutes to restore.

You would save this image to another drive, either external or internal 

Pat


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