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View Full Version : Backups. How often?



Klaidas
May 23rd, 2006, 04:59 PM
Hello :)
So I'm interested.. how often do you do your backups? What sort of files do you backup? Where do you back the up? :)
I myself do a backups once a month for: photos, install files, my school/computer schoold work, /home, files on desktop and some misc data. I use DVDs

If I'm doing something important (like programming for my computer courses) I backup that important data daily to a USB memory stick :)

towsonu2003
May 23rd, 2006, 05:05 PM
Hello :)
So I'm interested.. how often do you do your backups? What sort of files do you backup? Where do you back the up? :)

I backup once a month /etc , /root , and /home to an external hard drive. Once every three months, I put everything to a DVD or two and a couple of CDs (harddrive is a harddrive, it's prone to failures) and shred the old DVDs and CDs.

If I add new pictures or important documents to my /home bf the backup time, I just put them to my backup out of my monthly schedule.

Getwild2
May 23rd, 2006, 05:16 PM
I also backup quarterly to an external USB HDD. All documents, music, source files, other, etc. Need to start B/U to DVD but I havent yet.

xtacocorex
May 23rd, 2006, 05:37 PM
I have a script I use to back up /home / and /opt to tar.gz files. I only do /opt because I have programs installed there that aren't distro dependent and it's a pain to reinstall them.

I put them on an external harddrive and then cd's.

I used to do them more frequently, but I need to work through the script to fix some stuff and figure out why my computer wants to shutdown when I run it.

Once I perfect it and maybe test it since I've never had to recover from a backup, I'll post it on here as a how-to or something.

YourSurrogateGod
May 23rd, 2006, 05:45 PM
Monthly or when I make a big enough change to the code that I write.

cbudden
May 23rd, 2006, 08:08 PM
When I buy a USB HDD i'll backup :).

BWF89
May 23rd, 2006, 08:30 PM
I backup my important files to my 1GB Flash Drive usually once a week. Files I backup are:

-School papers
-Firefox settings, bookmarks, and a screenshot of all my extensions
-DOOM demo for Windows
-Every Issue of Free Software Magazine (incase im somewhere and need something to read)
-Cool pictures saved from the internet
-Various cool videos from the internet

G Morgan
May 23rd, 2006, 10:56 PM
I voted other. I make backups as I do the work. First onto USB-MS then onto a CD/DVD when theres enough junk. This is messy but requires less thought on my part.

?????
May 23rd, 2006, 11:07 PM
I backup files on my Windows partition weekly and on my Ubuntu partition I'm thinking about every 2 weeks (I'm new to Ubuntu and linux, converted last week)

I would usually backup online (in a Gmail account for just file storage and not email), and for the large files, I would backup to a CD-RW.

23meg
May 23rd, 2006, 11:46 PM
Weekly for regular data, and more often (manual) for sensitive data and work in progress.

SeanTater
May 23rd, 2006, 11:52 PM
I usually do ~monthly, but not on a schedule -- but I'd like to get around to making a cron job for rsync to do it more often (weekly-perhaps?)

professor_chaos
May 24th, 2006, 02:14 AM
6 computers at work, backing up important work files daily, an 1 pesonal computer important directories backed up every night.

I'm very paranoid. :-k

ubuntu_demon
May 25th, 2006, 07:27 PM
I try to do it a few times a year. I'm very lazy and my data is not super valuable. But in practice I do it once in a year at best.

But the most important stuff : my e-mail is stored locally as well as on gmail.

If something would happen II wouldn't like to lose a portion of the party pics of the last year or so. My friends have most of them too so I would survive it.

My advice as a forum member would be : do it "as often as your data is valuable". Another tiny bit of practical advice to the average desktop user would be : try to backup your personal files at least once a month and also before avery major upgrade to a new release

Orunitia
May 25th, 2006, 07:35 PM
Whenever I feel like it really. I have another computer in my house that I keep my 160gig on and I keep it networked so I can use it. (Kinda hard to put the harddrive in my laptop. :p)

mostwanted
May 25th, 2006, 08:08 PM
Right now I don't have anything to backup because I just lost all my files; quit a way to learn that lesson. When I get new files I'll backup all the time.

megamania
May 25th, 2006, 08:26 PM
So I'm interested.. how often do you do your backups? What sort of files do you backup? Where do you back the up? :)
I hate incremental backups, so I decided to buy a second hard disk (same size/model as my main hd) and put it on a removable tray.

With a simple script, I backup the whole /home in a few seconds. It creates a mirror by just adding new/modified files and deleting the deleted ones, and that's why it is very fast.

I could backup the whole system the same way, but I don't really care about losing my Dapper install - I have the install cd.

mike998
May 25th, 2006, 08:34 PM
Whenever I need to...
If I rip a CD, it goes into my backup...
If I do some work on one of my documents, it goes into my backup...

I should really backup my backup...

Christmas
May 25th, 2006, 09:12 PM
I voted monthly. Actually I don't do all the back-ups at one time, for some files/logs I do a back-up even weekly, for others monthly or even only once in 3-4 month. I keep my hard disk very clean, I have a separate partition for files I use all the time (music, kits, kde stuff, pictures) and I never delete them or format that partition. The other partition includes the home folder, from which I take some configuration files, logs, c++ programs and downloads that I need before reinstalling the system. So far, I never lost important files. I only got drunk once :D so some important logs never saw the "disklight" again hehehe.

Bragador
May 25th, 2006, 09:14 PM
I don't back up my stuff.

I do have an external hard drive I not only use for extra space, but to also archive my school work from previous semesters.

Other than that, I don't back up.

jnev
May 25th, 2006, 11:02 PM
I have three hard drives in my system, so I kind of back stuff up from each hard drive onto the other ones.

dmacdonald111
May 25th, 2006, 11:09 PM
Er, back-ups? Come again? Never did it in windows so haven't done it here yet. Dunno how. The only thing that would need keeping really is the look of it all, but even then that changes so often, it wouldn't really matter if I had to re-install. Would be nice to have some scripts to re-install stuff again though when I do do a re-install. Setting up ati, java, flash, sun-java, themes, etc. takes time despite the fact that I have done it a million (okay, seventeen) times and I am quite quick at doing it. lol

Iandefor
May 26th, 2006, 12:58 AM
Backups? Closest I get is putting BUMPS into a tar.gz and sending it off to my gmail account if I think I'm going to do something that'll kill my Ubuntu installation.