Comments for I hate to harp on backups, but

Comment from Bob Seeley on 2007-08-17

2007-08-18T04:30:55Z

Hi Leo,
Keep harping on backups, because it's really important. It's a very sad day when a friend loses all their data for lack of a backup, and it's really hard to just be sympathetic and bite your tongue when the urge comes up to say, "I told you so!".
Over many years of trial and error (and too many CDRs to remember), here is what I finally settled on: First of all, because rebuilding a system from scratch is way too time consuming what with all the updates to Windows and applications that have come out since what came on my Windows installation CD, I decided I needed an image of my system drive. After quite a lot of reading up on most of the available products that do that, I settled on BootItNG because it also handled a second part of my backup equation (read on). However, not wanting all the data that is constantly changing to be a part of that image, I decided to create a seperate partition for that data. I used BootItNG for that task also. In order for all that to reside in a safe place, I purchased a second (smaller) hard drive to contain both the image created with BootItNG and also the regular backups of my data partition. For the regular backups I use a freeware solution called SyncBack. It has a number of options which include both synchronizing and backing up. I set it up so that it'll copy anything that isn't on the backup drive yet or that has a newer date than the same file that's already on the backup drive, and to delete any file found on the backup drive that isn't on my main drive. I know this sounds like synchronization, but it's not as it's done only once daily. Oh - one other thing: I also run a little batch program ahead of running SyncBack that backs up those loose ends (address book, bookmarks, etc that change regularly on my system drive) over to a zip file on my data partition. To a beginner this all may sound complicated, but it doesn't take long to see what's going on and why it's happening that way. Also, once it's set up it can be easily automated (although I don't have a problem remembering to do this every night as I am somewhat a creature of habit, plus I don't like having task scheduler running constantly).
Best regards,
Bob Seeley

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-08-13

2007-08-13T16:50:16Z

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Versioning's a problem, and I'm with you ... I know of no package that just
does it in a way that is similar to what you describe.

The closest I can get are the incremental backups performed by standard backup
tools that simply record differences from one backup to the next.

I think most backup software is still designed with the mindset that each
backup you do will be saved, off-line, separately. Thus to get a previous
version of a file one would go to the backup at the time of that previous
version and recover it from there. With storage expanding to dramatically in
recent years, that's not what a lot of people are doing any more.

Leo

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A comment on: I hate to harp on backups, but

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Comment from Jeff on 2007-08-12

2007-08-13T07:37:37Z

Hi,
I'm a regular listener and love the podcast. Your a valued "stickler" so here's a stickler of a question. I DO back up to alternating odd/even ext USB drives every month or two and would like to back up more often but still can't find this no brainer feature...
I would like to simply put all my sacred stuff in one directory for a one click backup, BUT I need to be assured that full dupe checking is always performed AND append the name to a new name if found to be a dupe. This simple approach also safely handles versioning on my files. MANY vendors claim to do this, but I still need a good recommendation on a product that has this kind of aproach down to a few clicks and not all the expensive bloatware/suites. BTW, I'm in the process of migrating everything to Linux, so xplatform would be great. Most backup software is intimidating. If it was dead simple or "built in" your poll numbers would probably go way up!
Many thanks!
Jeff in Orlando

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-08-12

2007-08-13T01:14:49Z

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Your comment is a *perfect* example of why I do what I do with respect the URL.

It's NOT askleo.com. A domain squatter has that.

It's ask-leo.com - with a dash.

So, when I'm doing something audible like the podcast, I use "askleo.info",
which redirects to the right place: ask-leo.com. It's easier for people to
remember, and easier for people to get right. The alternative would be to say
"ask dash leo dot com" which is clunky and error prone.

Leo

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A comment on: I hate to harp on backups, but

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Comment from Just 'J' on 2007-08-12

2007-08-12T15:58:14Z

Thats it....I have finally cracked & simply need to know!!!
On your Podcasts,you tout your site as 'askleo.info', but it is not....I see it as 'askleo.com' in my address bar. Am I missing something? It's been bugging me for a while, so, yes I have cracked...and asked the question.

As for backing up, I choose to just back-up my files, e.g. Documents, Pictures, Music etc to a DVD.
Should my HDD die, I face the laborious task of re-installing my software, but all my 'files' are safe.
(I also have a external drive, which I 'soft' back-up to, but find it safer to 'hard' back-up to a DVD.
(That was incidental to my 'other' point, by the way).

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A comment on: I hate to harp on backups, but

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