Backup your computer!!

[CairnsDuc]

It has been a long night and day.

Decided to upgrade my Mac to the latest OS (Leopard) ordered the Disc from Apple and while waiting I decided I'll do a backup of all our photo's, movies, iTunes and the Wife's assignments.

Simple upgrade to the Mac, no need to backup, but better to be safe than sorry.

Good thing I did!

The Leopard disc that Apple sent was corrupted, Spent many hours trying and retrying to install Leopard, ended up with a Leopard/Tiger hybrid, Liger, Nothing worked, could not shut the computer down, could not do anything.
Rang Apple this morning, spent an hour and a half on the phone trying to convince them of this fact, they finally agree to send a new disc.....in 10 to 14 make the beast with two backsing days!!!!     Faaaark!!

Well, give me a refund, No, they won't do that as the software has been opened, I advise I need this done by Friday so the wife can print off her Uni assignment for hand in on Monday Morning, No worries, we'll send a copy today...
It should be there tuesday! 

I suggest giving me a refund again, No we will replace, but not refund. 
So I advise I'll go and buy a copy from a local store and then when there new copy arrives I'll return it for a refund as it will be unopened. (Insert thinking music)
After 10 minutes on hold they agree Retards just didn't see the logic of saving the money of sending this thing all the way to Cairns and then back to sydney 

Went out mid morning and bought a new copy of Leopard.

Well after about 5 hours today, I'm back up and running again, I've finished loading in all my data, lost a few things, but nothing drastic, but I would hate to think what would have happened if I didn't have back ups.
Now I'll let time machine do the back ups for me, But I would hate to think how much time and money would be lost if we lost our photo's, music and The Wife's assignments.

So Backup NOW!!!

Sorry for the long winded Story, but I feel better now after having a bit of a Whinge 

[bigiain]

Can I just say, TimeMachine _rocks!_ It's worth upgrading to 10.5 _just_ for Time Machine. Especially with external hard drive prices these days (I got a 500gig USB external drive for $121 from Officeworks about three weeks ago...)

big ("Latest Backup: Today 6:10pm")

[bazz20]

it sounds to me that your DEPRESSED once you get your duc sorted youll feel better  hang in there we feel your pain 

[mattyvas]

It is a vital part of anyone's computing system.
Well it should be anyway and yes Time Machine does rock when it works properly.
I got the new Airport with the hard drive built in for wireless backups.
It did fine for a while then for some reason it got a corrupted file in the back somewhere and screwed the entire system.
Spent the same days upon days upon days trying to rescue 320 GIG worth of files and client pictures.

In the end after 3 visits to the Apple Genius bar I had to dump it reformat and start again.
Most of the info was put back on again but I lost about 160 GIG of client files....

Not happy Jan........

[Big T]

I use Time Machine and rotate 2 x 750GB external HDs week by week.

The second HD is stored off site at work. So gives me the oldest back up being a week or so old and redundancy as well....   

Also have some critical work & personal stuff stored on a USB drive.... Just to be sure to be sure..... 

Yea I'm a Virgo (anally retentive)...

[mattyvas]

I'm looking into getting a system called drobo.
It's a single unit that has space for 4 enclosed 3.5" hard drives.
Saves all those power units for individual hard drives, running out of power points.

[goldFiSh]

we have a raided nas for backup, and then offsite with either USB disks or DVD's depending on the size of media and frequency of backup required.

[loony888]

i've never done a back up.


paul.

[goldFiSh]

I know a few people who don't back up either.

Their use of computers is really only for email and web surfing. For email they use a web mail service, like hotmail / gmail and they store their pics on flickr / picasa and thats about it.

Me, I use a computer at home for lots and lots of stuff, including work, play and study. As such, losing any or all of it would be more than a small inconvenience to say the least. That's why I have need and use a backup strategy.

your mileage may and will vary!

btw, anyone who does regular backups, have you all tried to restore from a backup? That's also worth doing, unless you're prepared to walk away and loose your data in the case that it doesn't restore correctly.

[heatherp]

okay I need computer geek help here.  I'm using a Dell laptop, running vista.  Have all my photos, study, tax files, emails on it.  Killed my old computer last year - dead hard drive, lost everything.

And I still haven't learnt to back up.

I've been thinking about buying and external hard drive.

What to buy, what to back up.

Help please.
Cheers

[mattyvas]

Hey Heather, you can get an external hard drive of around 500 GIG for less than a couple of hundred now days.
It's a USB type system all you do is plug it in and transfer files to it.
In a PC system it will come up in the "My Computer" section under whatever name of drive you buy, Western Digital, Maxtor, Lacie etc....

Once you see it all you do is move the files you wish to back-up to it.

[CairnsDuc]

I picked up a Western Digital 120 GB portable Hard drive for $95, (Only have an 80GB drive in the Mac Mini) It allows me to switch on time machine and at least I now have a backup of everything, I'll still throw iTunes/Photo's and the wife's assignments on DVD from time to time, Can't be to careful, Hundreds of Dollars of music and TV Shows in iTunes, thousands of memories in Photo's and hundreds of uni hours in Assignments and work.

I don't think you can be to careful. Learnt the hard way once before, never again! 

[heatherp]

Hey Heather, you can get an external hard drive of around 500 GIG for less than a couple of hundred now days.
It's a USB type system all you do is plug it in and transfer files to it.
In a PC system it will come up in the "My Computer" section under whatever name of drive you buy, Western Digital, Maxtor, Lacie etc....

Once you see it all you do is move the files you wish to back-up to it.

Thanks Matty.  Sounds so easy that I can't have any other excuse but laziness for not doing it.