How often do you back up your stuff?

[bsfins]

I'm wondering if I'm a little too anal about this,But I back up to an exteranl hard drive every week (My Documents) and burn off to DVD's monthly....

I'm of the thinking, I spend hours drawing,and doing projects in photoshop,iillustrator,and other 3d programs...I don't want to lose them because something happens.....I overwrite the old data each time I save to the harddrive,and add the new stuff...

[Brian Fein]

I'm really bad at doing stuff regularly.  I use external hard drives almost exclusively as my storage method so I hope I don't need to back them up.  I'm probably foolish for thinking that, though.

[StL FinFan]

I have lost stuff doing refrags and such.  I back up my music and photos, but that's it.

[SportsChick]

I've got my photos backing up now. I used to be better about putting them onto DVDs, I think I need a new set.

I have my photos on my laptop HD and on 2 EHDs. My digi-scrapbooking supplies are on the 2 EHDs and so is my music

[Phishfan]

I don't save anything so I don't back anything up.

[Frimp]

Music, and photos...about once a month

[run_to_win]

I'm glad you broached this subject.

I think it's wise to back up as often as you can.

How often to internal non-boot drives and external boot drives go bad? 

"C" is my boot drive.  I save all my files to my "D" drive.  I periodically back them up to a external drive. 

I've had boot drives go bad but never an auxillary drive. 

When my boot drive goes bad all I lose is email and my email settings (such as sending emails from certain senders to specific folders rather than my inbox).  Is there any simply way to get around this? (I back up my address book periodically so that's not an issue).


Now to put Lil B's claims of being anal to shame...   

I'm strongly considering burning files to DVD and storing them at relative's homes in case of fire, theft or natural disaster.  I'm also going through and our scanning all our pre-digital camera photos for the same reason. 

[Buddhagirl]

I don't really back up anything other than my Quickbooks files and my website files that I have on my computer. All of my pictures are uploaded on my server and all of my music is on my iPod.

[Dave Gray]

I back up very infrequently, which is dumb.  I'm all set up for it, but I rarely do it.

Probably once every 6 months or so.

[cyan]

B, just set up a Raid 1 drive array. Infinite automatic backups.

[SportsChick]

Does anyone use Carbonite or a similar service?

[fyo]

B, just set up a Raid 1 drive array. Infinite automatic backups.

Two identical drives in the same computer are VERY likely to die within hours of each other, so make sure you pull the data off your second drive immediately if the first one fails!

You're also not protected from theft, fire, flooding etc.

There's also the risk of accidentally deleting something important and not discovering it in time - or maybe getting hit by a virus of some sort.

RAID 1 really isn't a good backup policy.

[bsfins]

Now to put Lil B's claims of being anal to shame...  

I'm strongly considering burning files to DVD and storing them at relative's homes in case of fire, theft or natural disaster.  I'm also going through and our scanning all our pre-digital camera photos for the same reason. 

I've already done that Twice...All the old family albums I scanned in,burnt to DVD's, and Mailed them to my sisters...I've got My Truck titles,My insurance Policies,and stuff Scanned in also,and burnt to DVD's...

I'm not sure If I'd want to go with a Raid Drive I've looked at things Like Drobo before...I'cve Got lot's of old hard rives that I've wiped with lots of space,I consolidated all of them into one drive recently...Now I have Back up space Galore!

Hmm I'm suprised, I figured there would be more people,back up more often....