Backing up files

[Ronniebootwest]

I am a very unhappy chappy! I lost a complete hard drive recently and with it went most of my music and photo's. I had meant to get around to making a back up, but you know how it is with the time available and all that stuff.

Now I have made this back up thingy my priority, but what is the best and quickest method. I tried the Windows XP backup utility but it is so slow - there must be a better way of doing things! Any ideas?

Also, what about the file sizes - is it better to backup the original picture/sound file, i.e. tiff and wav or be content with jpeg/mp3 to reduce file size?

What do you all do? I would be interested in your views.

Ron West

[Ken Cox]

backup to cd or dvd

backup into separate folders - ex on a dvd mps3's should not be "loose" put them into folders by artist or type

- a bunch of software being stored on a dvd can take forever to open -file it in folders using the alphabet- been there done that

and always 2 copies

pictures i file individually by roll - ex "trip to see kids jun 16-19 05"

filing is a tough thing -- that is why we had secretaries

i have the the ms desktop search installed on both systems and once it gets indexed it is fast -- but things have to properly id'd -- digital picts must me be renamed as soon as you put them on the the drive if they are really important

i also use a free utility to document what is on the cd/dvd/folder

http://www.homestead.com/algor/

FolderPrint VER 332

Freeware utility allow save listing of directories(folders) and files on a hard drive or any removable media (local or networked) into the text file(comma delimited option for importing into database). Listing can be printed out in Standard Letter size ( 11 x 8 ) or in ZIP, CD, Jet, Jaz, etc... case layout; sorted by name, size, date, etc. Win95 ,Win98 , NT4.

Size 360 Kb (180 Kb compressed.)

Note: Ver. 5.11 is not completed , but runs under Windows XP, Windows 2003

ken

[alrobin]

Ron,

Buy yourself another huge HD and copy all your images and important documents to it - it's fast, inexpensive, and reliable. And also easy to find an image should you inadvertently delete it from your main drive.

When that drive is full, you could even take it out and put in a new one - nowdays you can even purchase external drives which only have to be plugged into a USB slot.

Or, when you get time, go through the images on the backup drive, weed them out, and transfer the rest onto DVD's to make room for more backup images. However, if you archive your images in RAW format, the DVD's get filled up pretty quickly, and you will soon find yourself in the same mess as when you backed everything up onto CD's - so many disks that it is difficult to locate the images you want, unless you are a very good librarian.

[DaveG]

Consider a USB/Firewire External Drive like the Iomega which comes with Auto Backup software - you don't have to worry about remembering to back up it does it every hour / 2 hours / daily etc. (USB is slightly faster than Firewire but the advantage of Firewire is that you can daisy chain them).

When your HDD starts to get full you can delete the files which you haven't touched for a while and the USB Backups become your primary copies.

When the USB drive starts to get full you can back up to DVD all the files you haven't touched for a couple of years.

Do frequent Defraggs on ALL drives even if they only contain data.

File naming: My prefered method is to file by DATE first in the yy/mm/dd format - that way they come out in a logical order - followed by any other reference you wish to make.

DaveG

[Ronniebootwest]

Thanks for the replies so far, I appreciate it. Seems that the best solution might be to buy an external drive - saw a Lacie on ebay this afternoon, 350gb and runs on a USB hub - think I might look further into this as a possibilty for both my photo's and also my music files.

Ken, your very detailed post is excellent and I will be studying it later to see what I can use. Thanks for taking the time to help.

Ron

[JRR]

backing up your files as described is good, but as BOXIG pointed out he lost his computer in a fire. So don't have your only back-up located next to your computer, store your back-ups off site.

STREAMLOAD offers an excellent service if you want to back them up online, but the glitch here is to find out what bandwidth your ISP allows.

Mine offers 60gb a month which might seem like way too much, but if you have a problem you may need to download that much and more, but in my case I can't go over 60 gb without having my account suspended until the next month, there is no option to buy extra bandwidth.