Backing Up

[lee101]

Until recently i have never really thought about backing up any of my data, but recently since i almost lost my pen drive with all my school work on it it is made me realise that i do actually need to back everything up, also files are mysteriously going missing of my 7 year old brothers area on his computer, so it has made me realise that i need to start backing up all my stuff, i was just wondering what everyone on here does to backup and how often they do it.
At the moment i just copy some stuff onto a cd-r about once a month, but i was considering getting some a tape drive or huge HDD, and putting them into an old pc to run it as a file server/backup machine, or is this a but over the top for a simple home network?

Does anyone has anyone have any suggestions on what i should do, or what you do yourselves?
Thanks, Lee

 

[spacedude89]

just get a dual layer dvd burner. it can fit something like 8 gigs on a DVD.

 

[customholle]

External Hard Drive with norton ghost

 

[Holiday]

just get another internal HD and copy every thing to that.

 

[Qlutch]

I've set up a PC as a dedicated backup machine. I put Windows 2000 Pro on it, and it was very easy to set up. I just set up a shared directory for each of the computers I'm backing up. I then set up a network drive on the computer I'm backing up and use a batch file to copy everything each night before I go to bed.

 

[lee101]

Thanks everyone, i think i will do what Qlutch suggested, as when i have my new computer i will be left with a spare machine, i was justwondering if you could send me the batvch file, or tell me the code for it, as i would greatly appreciate it, Thanks

 

[Qlutch]

xcopy 'source drive' 'destination drive' /c /h /r /y

 

[Geoff]

xcopy 'source drive' 'destination drive' /c /h /r /y

it works, but it once you made the first backup, every time you execute the batch file, it only copies new files that have been added. If you delete a file, it wont delete it from the destination drive, and if you change something, it wont copy the changed file.

 

[Qlutch]

it works, but it once you made the first backup, every time you execute the batch file, it only copies new files that have been added. If you delete a file, it wont delete it from the destination drive, and if you change something, it wont copy the changed file.

True, it won't delete the files, but it will overwrite files. That's what the /y switch is for.

 

[lee101]

Ok, thanks for that, i will have a go tongiht when i get home

 

[s_m_w_d]

I recently bought a 160G western digital external harddrive for 130 euro my brother wanted to spend 150 euro one 40G harddrive!

 

[lee101]

Thanks for all the help, ui have got it working and copying to a network drive, i was just wondering if there is anyway to make it run automatically, whenever i plug in my pen drive with all the document si want backing up, as it is very likely that i will forget to run it after a week or so, thanks, Lee

 

[apj101]

it would be easier just to write a batch script that zipped all the files into a fully compressed zip archive, using a command like
"c:\program files\winzip\wzzip.exe" "g:\mdb\backup\cd.zip" "f:\mdb\cd\*.*" -ex -P -r -u

You could set the script to maintain the last 5 versions of the achive and delete any older one. or if you wanted you could just write the script to delete the older archive as soon as the new one is created (although that wouldn't be the best)

If you delete a file, it wont delete it from the destination drive, and if you change something, it wont copy the changed file.

This is where we can see the difference between backups and mirrors. In a backup we dont want the file to be updated or deleted unless we specifially say so, or else how will we recover the old data when our screw up was propergated to the backups.