I tempt fate.

I've never backed up.

Ever.

Seriously, not once in twenty years of owning a computer.

Does everyone really do this? Is it all that worthwhile?

I have a CD-ROM writer, but how would I set it up if I wanted to start backing up?

[This message has been edited by robb (edited 08-15-2003).]

Well it depends on whether you would mind losing all the data on your computer. Even if you only use your machine to check email, wouldn't you like a copy of those if the machine goes tits-up? Could be as easy as downloading Nero (www.nero.com - free trial edition) and dragging the files you want backed up onto a CD-R.

ME: Raid5 with 120GB U3W SCSI drives, 110Gb SDLT streamer and weekly DVD copies of all files (not my apps). Also, synced copies of "my documents" to my notebook en bi-daily copies of my active Outlook PST file.

I don't bother ghosting Windows as it changes so often it wouldn't make sense. Reinstalling all my apps is a 2 hour job.

ScottC; nice thing about being at a larger company is we have full and incremental backups done of our Exchange mailboxes. We've had two systems die in the last 2 years, causing downtime. In each case our IT folks had us restored within 45 mins with no loss of mail.

PST's "suck"... I've seen problems past 1GB of file size. Yeah I know... I shouldn't have a PST that size... But who has time to archive

Fair enough. I never used to back up myself (other than the odd vital doc to a floppy) before the PC started becoming a lot more than just a toy to me.

Also, I'm a bit more paranoid these days (currently patching my laptop up as if my life depended on it) given the more uncertain world we live in.

Also, for the past few years, my PCs have travelled with me (I haven't owned a desktop for a while now) so I have to manage the risk of my laptop breaking (or being forcefully taken off me).

Edited to add: Help!!!! Where did my quote go????

[This message has been edited by Internaut (edited 08-16-2003).]

I also used to have just 2 PST's, one outlook.pst (1.2Gb) and one archive.pst (several Gb) but now and after lot's of hard work I've split them. Outlook actually told me that my PST file was TOO LARGE

I backup my documents, pst's, mp3's and jpgs. I can't replace the docs, pst's, and jpgs, and I don't want to re-rip all the mp3s.

The Stomp backup will write to cd-r's. If you have drive letter access (DLA) installed, the MS backup that comes with XP can be used too, you just write the backup to the cd-r driv as a file. In addition, You should have some free software that came with your cd-r that will backup too.

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 08-16-2003).]

USB 1.1 is plenty fast enough for backup, especially on restores (compared to tape or CD-R's).

USB 2.0 is pretty ubiquitous now for extenal drives. If you don't have a 2.0 port on your desktop, you can pick up a pci adpter for about $6 (plus shipping). Cardbus adapters for laptops run about $10

By cardbus you mean a PCMCIA card with a USB2 port????

I've been wondering about backups now, too. Basically, I don't want to backup, I want to image.

I have a networked desktop in my office. Critical files are located on the network, but mirrored using MS Briefcase on my C drive, my 256MB pen drive, and an external 2.5" HDD. So, at the end of the day, all get updated, and I effectively have one original (server) and three copies of my data. Programs are not a problem for me because my employer provides me with what I need.

At home, have a Thinkpad R32. The USB Pen Drive (containing what's on the server) gets mirrored onto the R32's HDD. So that's another backup.

I want, however, to be able to image the R32, if only because it will save on doing a full restore. I wouldn't be out anything if my HDD failed on the laptop, because my employer would outfit it again. Anyway, I'm doing some online research on imaging options. Will report back if I decide to go with anything.

Cardbus adapters are PC-Card's supporting a 32bit interface. All NEWER notebookes support this... May also be called "32 bit PCMCIA, etc.." Older PC Cards (think 5+ years back) only support standard 16-bit PC Card.

16 bit PC Card basically used ISA technology
32 bit PC Card basically is a PCI interface

Has anyone ever played with a bootable USB pen drive? I'd like to make one with a full XP image on it...

I have a 2001.pst, 2002.pst, 2003.pst...

Much easier to manage...

Stomp is a funny name for a backup product.

The history of that backup program goes as follows.

It is a Seagate origin. Seagate sold lisence rights to Microsoft, who incorporated a watered down version in Windows. It is still there. I do not know if it is still under license rights.

Seagate sold the whole program to Veritas.

Veritas sold the program to Stomp, where it went nowhere until stomp started selling it as backup program by Veritas.

The program is excellent for the small user, and has the feature of considerable backward compatability. It also writes directly to CD-R's which is a safe and cheap way to back-up and grandfather. I restore frequently from them, as I do not allow any excess interconecting or networking of any of the office computers. We transfer with the CD's.

Once you backup, store the backup or the prior backup in a different location. I had a breakin, and all computer equipment was stolen, including the oddball tape machine we were using for backup. The tape from a week ago was not taken.

Zip drives are too fragile for backup.

I think maybe smart cards, etc will suffice for the casual laptop user. compact flash cards are now 500mb big and the reader is tiny, making them ideal for a laptop

I've been playing around here and there with something similiar. You can start and get pretty close with a bootable CD-ROM connecting to a network share and mounting a RAMDISK. Problem with the PEN drives it two fold at this point - you really need to have USB2.0 and the largest I'm able to find USB2.0 in person is 512 (found it in HKG for about $100 USD). When I head back to HKG in two weeks hopefully they will have the new 1GIG ones in. I was last there three weeks ago and they said they were expecting them soon.

The only other catch is ensuring your motherboard supports booting from USB.