Randy Cassingham's Blog

Posted by Ken from Massachusetts on May 8, 2009:

I keep one external 1TB hard drive at each home and work, and I truck my laptop between the two locations, making daily backups at each stop. I also download everything on my hosted web server twice a week, all of which is then backed up again as part of my daily backups.

Something went wrong on my blog last year, and two years' worth of posts disappeared like *that*. Faced with such an insurmountable loss a decade ago, I would've called it quits and never blogged again. Instead, I just uploaded my backup and carried on like nothing happened, never breaking a sweat.

My concern isn't losing data to the ether, but losing it to thieves. What happens if one of those backup drives falls into the wrong hands? I need to investigate better security options.

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For that, my buddy Leo of Ask Leo! recommends Truecrypt, an open source encryption system. I'll be evaluating that myself Real Soon Now. -rc

Posted by Martin, shrewsbury, england on May 8, 2009:

i subscribe to Carbonite, it's well worth the $45 a year or so per computer, I have two. I just love seeing the tag on files i worked on half an hour ago change colour to show they are backed up. I don't have to do anything.

Posted by Kirby, Ohio on May 8, 2009:

Just three quick observations. I have heard of stories where people thought they had backed things up properly only to find they had a media problem of some sort that they were unaware of.

Secondly, I have a continual backup to a local external hard drive but I also do what you do, except I bring home a third external hard drive and do thorough monthly backup that I keep away from the house. So in the worst case, I would lose a month of my writing.

Finally, nothing can be done if your main hard drive or a data base gradually becomes corrupted. Your backup data will also be corrupted. Which is why the third copy is an absolute essential.

Posted by Dave in Lombard, IL on May 8, 2009:

I was just checking out your drive on Amazon and noticed they only have TWO left! Looks like your comment caused a bit of a run on their stock!

Talk about having some sway in the market!

Now I just need to convince my wife that we really DO need an NAS!

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By the time I approved this, there was only one. But it says more are on the way... -rc

Posted by Aria (Ridgway, CO) on May 8, 2009:

I run a computer repair shop.

I can tell you that more than half my customers don't know how to back things up. More than half the remainder don't bother.

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Well, since you run the computer repair shop I use, you can count me as among the tiny percentage of your smart customers! It has been too much work to create this stuff to just let it vaporize. -rc

Posted by Brad, Utah on May 8, 2009:

There are two types of computer users. Those who have lost data and those who will....

You aren't alone.

Posted by Fred, Texas on May 8, 2009:

We had a practice of backing up our work product (graphics) off site at the local bank safe-deposit box. On a whim we began sending backups to relatives in Dallas ... the week before Katrina.

Our studio was three blocks from the Gulf just west of Waveland MS.

Need I mention that we have yet to find the bank much less what was in the safe-deposit boxes.

Posted by Larry (Cornelius, ORE) on May 8, 2009:

I store my most precious files - pictures, home movies, irreplaceable docs - at a couple of online storage sites. I use more than one because like a lot of people I had a Yahoo briefcase, which was closed by Yahoo a couple months ago, and I don't want to find myself scrambling to find a replacement service. I use my Google mail account (used to use a program that managed that for me, but emailing to myself is just as easy), Google Docs (also allows for collaboration), and Mozy (2GB for free, unlimited space is very cheap).

Locally I do a full backup weekly and incremental daily to a dedicated file server so that if I need to I can fully restore my system. If I could afford it I'd go with RAID 5 for the local store so that even HD crashes cause minimal loss.

It would have to take a substantial disaster to lose my files.

Posted by Brian, Thailand on May 9, 2009:

About 10 years ago my son built me a marvelous computer, bleeding-edge current. It had twin hard drives built in, one for working, one for storage. You can see this coming, can't you??? One day, the working HD went to computer heaven. No problem, we've got the backup HD. Replaced the first HD, went to copy everything over from the backup HD, and the BACKUP drive went to computer hell. I put my Get Out of Hell Free card in the slot, but I guess the gatekeeper wasn't working that day. It took months to get everything back to the way it was. I now use a Western Digital outboard drive, keep that waaaaay far away.

Posted by Vincent - Auckland NZ on May 9, 2009:

Backing up is all very well one would think.... Many years ago I started a part-time job at a 'resources' company that had been backing up their files for only 3 years. I noticed that the backup files sizes were around 10k not the 10's of megabytes one might reasonably expect for an overnight process initiated just before leaving at the end of the day.

So I checked contents and the 'files' were just filenames!! On starting the typical backup as shown to me, total time to completion was about 10 mins. But no-one ever knew because no-one ever thought to check. Luckily they had never had a problem with discs crashing, probably due to the newness of the system. CHECK YOUR BACKUPS if you *can't* actually use your the backup then it was a wasted effort.

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Definitely good advice. Amazing they never knew -- I have to restore files all the time, usually due to an EBKAC (Error Between Keyboard And Chair). -rc