How many backups do you have?

[Chris Blount]

So, you have this nice shiny home computer (or laptop) with a big hard drive.

How many backups of your data do you keep? I'm a backup freak myself. I have 1 backup drive next to the computer that does incrimental backups. Then I have a full hard drive image in a locked firebox that I update every week or so. My off-site backup is Carbonite. Then I have one more backup of important files in a bank safe deposit box.

Is that overkill or what? LOL!

[Stuart Sweet]

Hard drive backup
DVD backup, new disks added as they fill up
Separate audio CD backup of music
Flash drive backup of certain work in progress.

[johnck78]

I have my data on my laptop. I back it up to my Media Server and to two external Hard Drives. As those drives fill up, I archive to DVD which I make 2 copies of and store one off-site!

[spartanstew]

External HD that backs up once per week.
Portable HD that I use when I travel that has most of our stuff.

[deltafowler]

I have one ultra-critical file and it's backed up every time I use it.
The master copy is kept on a USB flash dive, but it is backed up on each use to my office PC and my home PC (two different physical locations).

My other unique files like pictures, e-mail, documents, etc. are backed up weekly to an external hard drive and replicated to the office.

I retain a base image (OS and drivers) of both systems on the external drive as well. That's all I need to get back up and running in a few hours if needed.

No need to backup music or other commonly available files.

[houskamp]

most files are backed up to server @ creation, which is backed to DVDs every 3-4 months
Checkbook is backed up to flash drive and sever as well as local copy..

[Hansen]

I'm running a Windows Home Server with about 4 TB of storage and WHS does a really great job of backups of all my computers in the home. You can set the variables on the back ups to whatever you really want but I use the default. IIRC, it backups up all clients each night, it keeps those daily backups for 1 week, then keeps 1 of those as a weekly backup for total of the last 3 weekly backups, then converts to a monthly backup and keeps those monthly backups indefinately. The WHS also has duplication enabled so that the backups on the WHS are also duplicated to one of the other drives on the WHS just in case of a drive failure. For really sensitive stuff (like family photos and videos), I also back up those regularly to a portable hard drive and put that at my office for safe keeping.

[paulman182]

No backup whatsoever.

I have nothing on computer that really matters all that much.

[Grentz]

It depends on what the data is as far as how it is backed up.

Documents - iDrive online storage, NAS in basement, External HDD every now and then, DVDs every now and then
Pictures - NAS in basement, External HDD every now and then, DVDs when big changes are made
Music - NAS in basement, iPod

[elaclair]

All "data" is backed up to LTO monthly, retained for 12 months, and I keep the latest backup offsite (at work). All my systems have a single system "snapshot" so if need be I can do a quick rebuild/restore. Additionally, just because it nags all the time, Quicken is backed up to a USB thumbdrive that I keep in a fire-resistant lock box at home.

[cmtar]

No backup whatsoever.

I have nothing on computer that really matters all that much.

Same here

[mhayes70]

Work:

Backed up every night to an external hard drive and that gets swapped out everyday and I take one drive home with me.

Home:

Just mainly checkbook, music, and photo's backed up too an external drive about weekly and kept in a fire safe.

[dave29]

HDD backup
NAS HDD weekly backup that also has an external backup
Server daily backup

I also have a bunch of thumb drives laying around for docs

[jerry downing]

Software is not backed up since I have install disks. Critical data is backed up to a USB flash drive about once a week.

[Michael D'Angelo]

I just got a Windows Home Server a couple of weeks ago and it automatically backs up all of my PC's every night.

Plus I have my music, photo's, etc. backed up in shared folders on the server and those folders are duplicated on a different hard drive on the server.

[xmguy]

I have 2 EXT HDD. 160 GB and 40GB. I store my PSP files there. I also have an 80 GB EXT that I store my music/videos on.

[Bardman]

Windows Home Server backing up all machines in the house nightly. Duplication turned on in the WHS to ensure if drive goes bad, files still live. Also monthly backup of irreplacable folders on WHS (Photos, documents) to an external that will be located off site (need to get a Safe Deposit Box)

Also, my work laptop (which also gets backed up by WHS), has Iron Mountain online backup installed and it backs up to an Enterprise server farm daily when I'm connected via VPN.

I've lost a hard drive before with critical info on it... won't happen again!

Brad

[BattleZone]

Windows Home Server backs up all of my data nightly (or whenever the client computers are on). Once a month, I back up the WHS on one of two removable drives. The drives go to my parent's house across town, and I rotate them.

I don't back up my VMC "Recorded TV" files, so I could lose those right now if something were to happen, but there's nothing life-and-death about TV for me. If the economy starts doing a bit better, I'll be able to buy a few more drives and then I can back them up too.

One of my older PCs had an old 60GB IDE drive that was dying, and finally did die. I pulled out a 100 GB drive I had laying around, replaced the 60GB drive with it, dropped in the WHS CD, and in 30 minutes, had fully restored that PC's image on the new drive. While that's not anything *really* new (I've used Norton Ghost for years), the fact that it's finally integrated and super-easy is really nice. MS did a great job on WHS, and hopefully they'll continue to add and expand on its features.

[tomkarl]

All computers in house backup hourly (incremental) to an Apple Time Capsule. My critical can't lose pictures, quicken data and taxes are synched up to moblie me every time my iMac is on.

Reading these posts makes me wonder about doing something monthly on dvd and take them offsite.

[elaclair]

Reading these posts makes me wonder about doing something monthly on dvd and take them offsite.

I started the off-site routine because of the recent fires we've had. I have a house in the San Bernardino mountains, and last year we were told to evacuate our house down here in the San Diego area, so we were going to go and stay at the mountain house....except there was a fire going up there as well so we ended up just waiting it out down here....with the car all packed and ready to go. It made me realize the fragility of "things", so I started taking my data off-site "just in case".

[Steve Mehs]

No backup whatsoever.

I have nothing on computer that really matters all that much.

Ditto for the most part. I don't need to back up. Only documents I have on my PC are my resume in Word and my cable TV line up in Excel. No pictures, no games. Only thing I keep a back up of is my iTunes purchased music, which I don't really need since I have a back up, it's called my iPod. My harddrive could explode tomorrow and it wouldn't be a big deal.

[Grentz]

I am surprised by how many do not have much that is not irreplaceable.

I have pictures, documents, and other files that would be very hard to replicate if lost. Now, I have plenty of other things that I do not backup (like my downloads folder) that would be a pain if I lost, but not the end of the world. Still there are a few things that I really want to make sure I have plenty of copies of.

[DCSholtis]

1T Hard Drive hooked up to my Apple Airport allowing all computers on my network to do incremental backups.