I FINALLY got my computer fully backed up!

[thewayne]

Staples has a sale on right now on DVD writable media, 50 DVD+Rs for $18. It took a lot of hours, but I finally got all my music, photos, user data, game designs burned on to DVD and locked into a fire-proof lock box. So, theoretically, in the event of my utter loss of my computer, I can pick up a new box with XP Pro already installed and just start copying data down.

One thing that lets me recover quickly is that one DVD contains ZIP files that have all of Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, etc. So once the data is copied to the HD, I expand some archives, run some setup programs, and I'm back in business. Oh, I also have a text file that has the software registration key, so that is also covered.

And the DVDs are just copies of files, not in some backup format, so I don't have to worry about re-installing the backup software first.

So I'm happy. And since everything is now backed up and I've reset all the archive bits, I can do backups to single DVD+R/Ws and have a nice rolling set of backups. I'll probably do a full set of backups every six months and partials every month or two. I used to be pretty fanatical about backups but I've been really slack the last few years, I've also been insanely lucky that I haven't had a drive crash. Definitely must do a better job of keeping on top of this.


I would love to get a dual-layer DVD writer. The single-layer writer will record approx. 4.7gig on a single disc, the dual-layer will record 8.5gig. The drives aren't expensive, around $60+/-, but the media is still very costly, I saw a pack of three write-once discs for $15. Theoretically they'll be coming down in price, but I think the market is going to be a little weird in this segment with Blueray and HD-DVD looming in the future.

Comments

[neefsck.livejournal.com]

If you're worried about backing up and that kind of thing, you might want to investifate a rogram caled Ghost.
Now owned by Norton.

it'll create a compressed image of your hard drive (any hd or partition) and you can burn that across multiple cd's / dvd's
I used to use it a lot for work.

Maybe not the best thing to be backing up huge amounts of data like mp3's and whatnot, but for the restoration of an operating system and associated programs its damn nice.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with Ghost, we use it all the time for restoring network images and installing new machines. I don't really consider it acceptable for doing backups, the system that I'm using right now doesn't require any additional software installation once WinRAR is loaded. I can copy the DVDs onto any PC, they can also be read on my wife's Mac.

And when it comes to my photos and music, I'm not going to get enough compression with Ghost to be effective.