Well the house inspection passed, so we'll be buying the house! But unfortunately another inspection is failing. Backups!
My post yesturday morning (which didn't mail out till this morning ARG!) I was going through my advertisements. Now I'm going through all my paper documents and cd piles and am finding something scary.. Many of those dvds and cds clearly labed photo backups, file backups, etc are showing up blank when inserted into the computer.
Good thing is I switched to backing up on my Drobo and Amazon, so these photos are all backed up elsewhere. But I was shocked because you can see clearly the data is there (and I always check the backups when I make them). I've heard of cds or dvds not working after time, but the number that aren't is amazing.
Anyways - I really encourage you to think about your backups. You want at least two backups - 1) a local backup, 2) a remote backup. By local backup I don't mean your hard drive. That is your primary storage. A second hard drive, or a USB hard drive, or cds/dvds are a local backup. Now from what I'm experiencing I wouldn't recommend depending on cds/dvds lol.
For a remote backup you can copy to another drive, USB hard drive, etc and keep it at a friends house or a family member's house. Just remember to encrypt it so if someone breaks into their house they don't have your important documents. Personally I use Jungle Disk, it backs up my files to Amazon S3 automatically. Every 6 hours it checks for new files or changes, and uploads them without me having to worry about it.
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You are right about the CD’s and DVD’s not working after a certain period of time. I’ve lost information because of them. Now we use multiple harddrives for storage. So far we haven’t lost anything because of them and usually everything is backed up twice.
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I have lost hard drives a couple of times, and it IS a very painful thing! Now I backup to an external hard drive, and I thank you for the reminder that an off-site backup would be ideal too. I really hate losing treasured pictures and files. ARGH>>>
Hi Linda,
Well, I guess that was painful… I believe that in order to really backup and encrypt your files you should also think of the consequences of others finding the external encrypted flash drive. The option to save data and control it anywhere is very simple now. The storage options are also various, and the comfort of using and carrying has no price…
Yeah Ann, very true and i am sure you would also agree that you are trying to spam everywhere on the internet including on my blog at blog.dataresolve.com with another name (Reuven Altman ) but similar comment where you placed a link of some product, which we later changed it to something else.
Cd’s and DVD’s are known to lose data. Get them to close to a magnet and kiss your data goodbye. Don’t lay them near speaker, a tv or anything magnatized. I have a EZ dub external DVD writer from LiteON that lets me make duplicate copies of the cd’s or dvd’s and I then store then is a safe shielded environment nd I send a backup copy to different computer on my network. I also use Cabonite.com to make a remote backup just in case the first two options fail. It’s both secure and encrypted. For $130 you can have bckup protection for 3 years or pay $55 for a year. It’s worth it to me.
BTW Congrats Tim on the house purchase. You couldn’t bought at a better time. Enjoy it! Post some pics for ll of us to see.
Rich Morris, Administrator
Traffic Heroes TE
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Hello Tim and All
I have found. . .by accident I may add, that CD’s burnt with xyz software on zyx burner. . .often do not work when trying to view with an alternate burner or drive. Especially if I l have an alternate burning software installed.
At one time known as the king of burning (perhaps as many as 25,000 CD’s and several hundred DVD’s) I learned a trick or two.
Trick 1. Make certain that the disk is finalized when you finish burning, if not they are difficult to make alternate drives read them
Trick 2. While cataloging the disk, make note of brand, version and type of burning software, and drive used.
Trick 3. Keep the software on hand for times like this
Trick 4. Now that they are inexpensive, purchase a couple 500 GB external HD’s and back up to those.
Trick 5. Occasionally trying to re-finalize the disk with the new drive and software also works.
Thanks!!!
Maybe I know about disks. . .but the paper organization could use some work :-(
Believe me, this is soooooooo important. I lost everything because of one of those nasty e-mail viruses last fall and it is a serious error I am still recovering from. My videos are not recoverable. What a loss. Great learning experience though. Fortunately my 500 GB usb drive contained the majority of my important files. Since I lost my Adobe Premiere Pro, I am unable to recover the videos. Can’t find the files.
Bee
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I use Carbonite for my offsite backup. Its cheap, and it’s automatic.
Check it out athttp://carbonite.com/aff/cj/lp2.aspx?cmpid=BA_CJAFF_1_LP2
Great advise Tim…thanks. I have a local backup but not a remote one thanks again for the fyi and reminder to get one soon!
When I was experiencing some problems with my aging laptop a couple of weeks ago, I went out and spent $70 (cdn) on a Maxtor BlackArmor external (USB) harddrive. I’m just starting out and the money was painful to part with, but it is THE BEST MOVE I’VE EVER MADE! Two days after I backed up my lappy files – all my website stuff, pics, blog, etc. – the beast crashed. I would have lost everything except a few files I have put on CD. Which I don’t trust as I have had trouble with reading old ones. Not to mention, there’s just not enough room on them.
The remote backup is something I’ve never considered up until now and that is a great idea, as well.
good tips Tim, I actually need to get more diligent on backing up stuff
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Back up is almost an art in itself. Takes me back! ‘Grandfather, father, son was the rule’ and to some extent still needs to be.
Rule of thumb – if you can’t face re-entering a whole days’ work – then you must back up at least daily.
Once a week, do a full backup, and keep it until the following week’s has been done.
Then monthly a mega backup – kept at least until following month’s.
Easier said than done though as these days you need loads of space because files can be so much bigger.
L
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Ditto for Carbonite! It’s saved my bacon numerous times and it is UNLIMITED in storage space!
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How much space have you used on Carbonite?
I have not backed up anything. And I use GMAil to save all my documents. I, like Tim, do have 1000 CD’s. I will have to check them now.
I don’t really know what to back up. I keep everything on CD and Gmail. However I have been through 3 computers this year alone.
My son has had to install all sorts of junk to fix my computers.
Tell me, what do you use back up files for if you can save everything in GMail??
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