How do you backup your computer data?

[Gomboman]

I recently had a hard drive failure which has caused me to come up with a better backup routine at home. I ended up getting a 300GB Seagate (USB 2.0/Firewire)Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive for $130 at my local Frys store. This will work fine for my low tech system at home. http://www.seagate.com/products/retail/external/usbfirewire

What system do you use to backup your data? Do you backup your entire system(s) or data files only?

[geekd]

At home, I copy my important stuff to my other computer, which is my file server, among other things.  An added advantage to this is I can get to this computer from work, too.

At work, (I'm a computer programmer) we have a system (called Subversion) where we "check in" our files and they get stored on a separate computer.  Then if someone else needs them, they can "check out" the files.  This system also keeps track of all changes, so I can go back to yesterday if I decide all the the changes I made today were junk. This is pretty common for programmers.

At a previous job, we all had remote home folders on a server.  These folders were automatically backed up each night.  So if we had something important, we'd copy it there (or create it there in the first place) and it would get a nightly backup.  This was cool because it was easy to get to these folders from home, too.

You might want to set up some kind of automatic nightly copy of certain folders to your backup drive.  However, if you remember to do it once a week or so, that's probably enough.


-geekd

[wmccall]

Data files only to an external USB drive.  Pictures are copied off to CD.  In order to not slow my system down, I don't have it instantly copy the files, it does a sequential update every night while we are in the hot tub.

[GoBlue]

We back up data files only.  You really dont have chance of restoring a complete system from tape or an external drive.  
You might want to look at Symantec Ghost to create am image of your drive.  Use that to restore your system, then restore your data files from your external drive and you are good to go.

[badval]

I use 2nd & 3rd internal HDDs & copy the folders where I store data, overwriting the old folder.  It depends on me doing the copy & paste function & sometimes I really don't think about it for a few months (I'm the weak link in the chain )

For important stuff or things I want to get to from work too, I save it to my online storage accounts.  I use ZFTP.com & onlinestoragesolution.com.  ZFTP costs more, but has been 100% reliable for me.  The other is realy cheap & has unlimited bandwidth, but has lots of DT & I don't trust for "important" things.  Good for sharing pics & stuff though.  Free programs like CuteFTP & SmartFTP make using online storage options easy.

You can use the WindowsXP backup utility to schedule automatic backups for you. [ Start --> All Programs --> Accessories --> System Tools --> Backup ] Go through the wizard & select the folders you want backed up, tell it where to put the backups, & tell it how frequently & at what time to do it.  You'll have to remember to leave your system and your external drive powered up on "backup night", but otherwise should be a good solution that doesn't require a lot of interaction once it's set up.

[badval]

We back up data files only.  You really dont have chance of restoring a complete system from tape or an external drive.  
You might want to look at Symantec Ghost to create am image of your drive.  Use that to restore your system, then restore your data files from your external drive and you are good to go.

If you're going through the trouble of making ghost images, why not include the data files too?  If you're going to restore your OS and programs from the ghost image, may as well let restore the data files too?

Or do you mean you only ghost it after the system is set up initially & afterwards only backup data files?

[NE-Phil]

I use a usb drive enclosure and DriveImage XML about once a month to create a copy of my primary hard drive. I'm not creating too many documents at home, so once a month is fine.
Simple and quick.

Phil

[GoBlue]

We back up data files only.  You really dont have chance of restoring a complete system from tape or an external drive.  
You might want to look at Symantec Ghost to create am image of your drive.  Use that to restore your system, then restore your data files from your external drive and you are good to go.

Or do you mean you only ghost it after the system is set up initially & afterwards only backup data files?

That's what I mean.  I only ghost after I do a major system change and everything seems to be working correctly.  But I do data backups almost daily.

[svspa]

gombo,

Secondary internal drive for routine backup of data only. Important data files (family pictures and videos) copied to DVD.

I am also in the process of copying the family pictures and videos over to my media center PC. I still have about 120 DVDs of home video that are housed in a 300 disk DVD changer that need to get copied over to the external HDDs attached to the media center pc. Then I can stash the DVDs in a safe place.

Steve