I think it's time I had a bit of a re-think as to how I back up my laptop as I had a near disaster today (corrupted zip file - luckily for me I had an identical copy on the zip disk for the previous night).

Anyway, my current solution (as old as 100 meg zip disks - really, so feel free to laugh) is:

1. 100 meg zip disk drive.
2. 12 zip disks.
3. Numerous other zip disks that store stuff I archived off because I don't use often.
4. A script I run at the end of each day (just a dos script) that zips up anything important and puts it onto the three zips (no disk spanning used - just directories associated with specific disks).

At the moment, I'm beyond the capacity limits of this (I've had to archive off and start again with emails a couple of times recently.

As always, what I want to know is what do you all use and trust?

In terms of new hardware, I would prefer a device that's quite flexible in terms of USB/USB2/Firewire etc (looking forward to new hardware soon).

Generally, I like open things I can get at using the standard tools available to me (the reason I don't use proprietary system I probably wouldn't trust) but if anyone can recommend a "trustworthy" bought in solution, I'd be interested.

Regards
I

One option is to do what you're doing, just back it up to different (bigger) media. Brand new 20gb Iomega Peerless disk cartridges can be picked up for about $120 on Ebay.

I use Stomp! backup for NT/2000/XP(formerly known as Backup Exec) and back everything up to a 120gb USB 2.0 attached hard drive on a weekly basis. It works great, and I'm very happy with it. 120gb external USB/Firewire drives can be had for less than $175.

So, if you're comfortable with the system you have now, back it up to a big USB drive that you can transport to your new system when you get it.

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 08-14-2003).]

Yep, I backup to a USB external drive also. I have a 40GB Maxtor and I also am adding the 250GB Maxtor that I have on another computer. I don't bother to erase the old backups, just backup my major files to a new folder each time.

For a trustworthy, closed solution, look to Veritas. We just deployed Netbackup Pro here at our HQ office and it's just great, though I don't think you can buy in qty 1.

If you religious about keeping all of your personal data under Documents & Settings, simply copying to a disk connected elsewhere would probably suffice, like one installed in a dock or a separate firewire disk. The only thing you have to do then is remember to do your backups.

I think the key is a separate hard disk with its own controller -- firewire or USB assures complete separateness. As opposed to copying to another hard drive that has the same controller card as the first drive. That can be trouble.

Seperate external USB drive is good... Also the "Ghost" product from Norton is good to make a baseline Win XP OS image with all your apps installed (everything except music files, documents, other data files etc, etc)

I keep a bootable Cd with Ghost on it and a DVD-ROM that can be used to recover my notebook if for some reason the drive or something else dies. (and I replace the notebook)

A separate networked PC, a second hard drive, and plent of CD-R's (cheap and easy).

I am having a tough time finding this solution...how silly is that? Any link?

I do a full backup every couple of months to either CD or DVD if the DVD disks are cooperating (usually CD because they are free, and using 14 or them or whatever is no huge deal), then weekly do an incremental to CD.

I use the stomp product.

Backing up is cool but restoring is the object of the game.

Anyone had a disk crash or a lost/stolen/destroyed laptop and had to restore from a backup?

What were your experiences?

Restoring is the issue... That is why I ghost a known good image first to restore the OS first, quicker than a restore.

Yes, you and NickP have hit the nail on the head. I've worked on far too many testing projects where the restore is a case of "don't worry, the restore instruction will be with you sometime in the next phase". Also, I've witnessed a two week outage where the backups appeared to be working (Arcserve, I think) only for the restore to fail completely. I don't even test a backup until I know I can write a small file to the tape/cd/disk and retrieve it first and this is why I distrust proprietary stuff.

A good low cost USB hard disk (going to much bigger USB2/firewire2 one at some point after I replace my laptop) looks like the order of the day for me, perhaps with a CDRW drive or DVDR drive. Ghosting too seems like a very good alternative to installing XP from scratch so I'm actively looking at that.

As always, it's nice to go to work for the day and come back to all this good advice. Thanks everyone!

Ghosting is the way to go if you want a full restore, my hassle with it for home is I don't have any media that can support the full image (I know the PC has firewire and USB, so a second external drive isn't that much money, just never got around to it).

I would never try to restore the OS for the current versions of windows from backup, I would restore the OS first, then probably the applications, then bring back just the data from backups.

Remember 3.11 when you could just copy a programs directory to another machine and it ran just fine? Miss those days sometimes.

Stomp! Backup: http://www.stompinc.com/bump/bump-retail.phtml?stp

USB disk (120gb): http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/SaleSearch?satitle=usb+120gb&ht=1&so sortproperty=1&from=R10&BasicSearch=

USB Disk: (250gb):
http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/SaleSearch?satitle=usb+250gb&ht=1&so sortproperty=1&from=R10&BasicSearch=

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

I think USB is too slow. USB2 is faster but I don't know what's available in terms of devices yet.

I would buy an iPod and use the firewire connection. Just copy over whatever you need. It will cost you in the same ballpark as an external HDD and you get a cool music player to boot.


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-alan in sitges, home of Si-Do