How do you backup?? I need some help.

[George E.]

I use a portable HD and Syncback to make a mirror of "My Pictures" on the portable HD. My only problem is if my computer's HD gets corrupted, and I don't know when I backup, I might have two copies of a bad HD :(

Any thoughts or better ways to backup???

George

[nothsa]

Sounds like you need versioned backups, i.e. multiple versions of the backup. You cannot do this with Syncback, but you can apparently do it with SyncbackSE (their pay version). With versioning, you could create a one week (7-day) rotation, so that you have 7 days worth of backups. Couple that with incremental backups to keep the disk space usage down (because incremental only backs up the changes), and that should cover you.

I have a linux rsync backup script that does all of this for me, but it's for linux and involves creating hard links to keep the file space usage down, which I don't think you can do with Windows (definitely not with XP).

Also, don't rely on just your backup HD. Make DVD backups as well just in case. DVDs are cheap, and it's impossible to replace lost photos.

[nadtz]

Does syncback have the ability to verify files or something of that sort?

[George E.]

Yes, Syncback can verify the files. I have it set to only backup files that are not found in the mirror image or have been changed; so it's quick. Works great too. I guess I just need to have multiple versions of the mirror image. If my HD gets corrupted Syncback might make a mirror of the corrupted drive and leave me with two copies of a corrupted drive.

Maybe I can make a couple of folders on the portable HD and use Syncback to make multiple copies of the backup.

Thanks

George

[nothsa]

If you have the space, that would work. Set the backups to only run on one day of the week, and have 7 (or less) of them.

[SuzyView]

I have 2 hard drives on 2 different computers and back up if it's an important file. Then, if I have a minute I save on DVD's. If that doesn't do it, nothing will be enough back up.

[Mac]

I run a mirror RAID on my main system, backed up weekly to an external drive and monthly to the file server. Once a month, I also swap my external hard drive off with an identical drive at my offsite location.

[Riff Raff]

1. Download photos from card reader to computer's hard drive.
2. Copy downloaded photos to external hard drive.
3. Delete photos from original card.

And then periodically I'll take the external hard drive to work and sync it up to a web hosting account I have (which happened to have a large amount of free disk space available).

I have a linux rsync backup script that does all of this for me, but it's for linux

You can install Cygwin and use rsync under Windows.

[lungdoc]

I think the issue of a drive getting "corrupted" would probably only apply to operating system/registry/virus types of concerns; or to the type of backup where everything goes into one big file and not to backup of individual files in a directory as you describe with Syncback (which I also use).

If it has copied say 1000 pictures previously, when you add 10 more and do a backup it doesn't do anything to those existing 1000 files, it just looks at the list of files, says "there's 10 new ones" and copies those 10. I don't see how the files could possibly get "corrupted" - unless you are describing some incredibly destructive virus. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

I would also recommend other backups: I use Syncback to backup about weekly to another computer on the home network as well, I also send all my decent pictures to Smugmug at high jpg quality (2-3mb files) for offsite and I burn DVD's in a slightly haphazard fashion to move to my office computer.

[Riff Raff]

Individual files can become corrupted by a failing hard drive (I've had it happen before). If your backup process is to sync between your main drive and your backup drive, then it's possible for those corrupted files to be copied over the backup. RAID 1 should be fine in this instance since if one drive fails, the other takes over. Manually copying files to an external hard drive is fine in this instance also, since you only copy new files once.

[lungdoc]

But in a Sync process wouldn't it only copy over the prior version on the backup drive if the corrupted file was given a newer "last modified" tag/date? I suppose that's possible but I would think unlikely. In Syncback you can also set whether a source file that has changed should overwrite a destination file with same name; if you select "do nothing, skip the file" then it would avoid even that potential.

[M24]

George,

I do several things. First, I archive to DVD several times per year. Second, I have an external USB hard drive that I copy my images over to every two to three weeks depending on how much I shoot. Third and last, I pay for smugmug.com's service and upload all the images that I really care about. They have no size limitations so I take advantage of it. Yes, it can take hours to upload a lot of images, but I figure that unless the company goes out of business, I'll always have that as a last resort.

There is one thing that is for certain, if you have images or data that is critical or irreplaceable, you can never have enough backups.

Best,

Michael

[George E.]

I like the idea of copying the original camera files manually to another external HD. If I buy a second portable HD I can manually copy the files to it at the time of camera download. I don't see any way a virus could end up on that drive if it is used for this purpose alone. Right??

I'll continue to use Syncback with another portable HD since it works so well making a mirror image of "My Pictures" but I'll still have another backup of the original camera files on the second portable HD.

I guess a DVD backup every 6-12 months won't hurt either.

Sound good?

George