Backups

[stiltman]

For those that backup you PC, how many DVDs or HDD space do your backups take?

I just did another full HDD backup of my primary HDD using ghost, and it took 10 DVD+RWs to do it. It's by far the most it's ever taken. Usually it's 5 or 6.

I do daily backups to my DDS4 tape drive of just certain folders and it anly uses 1 tape

[yoda313]

Hello,

Usually 2 or 3 - at most.

I backup my mp3's to one dvd. Then I back up my pictures/my document files to another.

Then I backup my downloads folder.

Kevin

(and more than 3 depending on whether or not I have any large capture projects standing by...)

[tekkieman]

Backups? What's that?

[yoda313]

Backups? What's that?

Hello,



It's that little thing called "PREVENTION" in case your computer blows up



Kevin

[Dr. DOS]

For those that backup you PC, how many DVDs or HDD space do your backups take?

I just did another full HDD backup of my primary HDD using ghost, and it took 10 DVD+RWs to do it. It's by far the most it's ever taken. Usually it's 5 or 6.

I do daily backups to my DDS4 tape drive of just certain folders and it anly uses 1 tape

Stilt.... what are you backing up that takes 40 Gigs worth of space? I would think you would only Ghost OS plus installed apps and not data (MPEG's, AVI's etc)

[tekkieman]

Stilt.... what are you backing up that takes 40 Gigs worth of space? I would think you would only Ghost OS plus installed apps and not data (MPEG's, AVI's etc)

If it were me, (and if I backed up), my development environments could eat that up. Especially with Dev Studio .NET. Nobody wants to spend 1 1/2 hours reinstalling that every time! (except me)

@yoda - prevention is ok, but if it blew up, I couldn't restore to it anyway. If it's a HD failure or replacement, I'd rather start from scratch anyway.

[bazooka]

@yoda - prevention is ok, but if it blew up, I couldn't restore to it anyway. If it's a HD failure or replacement, I'd rather start from scratch anyway.

Excellent point, tekkie.

[Dr. DOS]

@yoda - prevention is ok, but if it blew up, I couldn't restore to it anyway. If it's a HD failure or replacement, I'd rather start from scratch anyway.

Excellent point, tekkie.

That's what I trying to decide on... if HD becomes unstable or OS is toast do I want to restore from a Ghost image or start from scratch?

Start from scratch is a good two to three day process for me to install OS and replace all apps... Ghost restore with same OS and apps ... what --- 45 minutes....

[yoda313]

Hello,

@yoda - prevention is ok, but if it blew up, I couldn't restore to it anyway. If it's a HD failure or replacement, I'd rather start from scratch anyway.

I do it so I don't lose my important files. In fact the word files and download folder are essentially the only thing I NEED to backup so I don't have to recreate those. The rest of the computer can go to hell for all I care. That I can restore with the factory recovery disc that came with it.

Kevin

[stiltman]

I have a lot of stuff on my OS HDD. Apps alone would take at least a couple of days to install and reconfigure. Not too mention all my Email that would be lost. Don't even get me started on News groups. If my system dies, at least I wont loose everything on the HDD, I might not be able to restore it using a full restore, but I can get anything off of it using ghost explorer. That alone has saved me many times in the past.

My last job, I had a ton of stuff on my laptop, I ghosted it and I'm still accessing the data off of it, even though I don't have the laptop or the job anymore.......

BACKUP!

[tekkieman]

@yoda - prevention is ok, but if it blew up, I couldn't restore to it anyway. If it's a HD failure or replacement, I'd rather start from scratch anyway.

Excellent point, tekkie.

That's what I trying to decide on... if HD becomes unstable or OS is toast do I want to restore from a Ghost image or start from scratch?

Start from scratch is a good two to three day process for me to install OS and replace all apps... Ghost restore with same OS and apps ... what --- 45 minutes....

Individual choice Dr. DOS. To be honest, I use a ghost image at work. Unfortunately, the image was done before my dev evironment, so it's still a half day event to restore. One of these days I might make a new image.

At home, I have all the time in the world, and I rarely set my system up the same way twice. Nothing wrong with a ghost of the OS, but for me, I might do SP2 this time, SP1 next time, depending on what I'm working on. Since I need to install the dev environment after the SP, it doesn't save me much time, so I just do it from scratch. Plus, my bizzare habits don't justify the cost of Ghost.

My linux partitions get wiped about every three weeks, but I just use it to play. When I get serious about using it, I probably still won't bother to image as the updates are pretty frequent, making an image worthless.

For most users, I don't think a stock image is a bad idea, if the system is setup right to begin with. OS and apps on one partition, all other crap on another. Once a month, wipe the OS/app partition and start fresh.

[bazooka]

It is about a three day process with me as well.

I usually don't mess with my linux partition much, but I am contemplating switching to SuSe or Gentoo.

[tekkieman]

I usually don't mess with my linux partition much, but I am contemplating switching to SuSe or Gentoo.

SuSe was my first choice, but I ended up with FC instead. Gentoo is a little too much linux for me. I also want to play with the live CD for Knoppix if I can ever find a mirror with a decent DL speed. Only because of things like having MP3 and NTFS support "out of the box". I probably still have close to a year before I have to get serious about linux, so I'll pick something and stick with it then. Until then, it never takes me more than an hour from install boot to play with FC, so I just keep starting over whenever I'm bored.

FYI - there's an open source alternative to Ghost for linux. If your interested, I'll dig up what it's called.

[Garibaldi]

My linux partitions get wiped about every three weeks, but I just use it to play. When I get serious about using it, I probably still won't bother to image as the updates are pretty frequent, making an image worthless.

I have possibly the easiest linux install to backup. Its a real install but it installs to an image file on my NTSF partition so I don't have to create a seperate one. Its basically Slackware 10.0 BTW. So all I have to do is burn a copy of the image file onto a dvd and I have a backup of the whole install.

It is about a three day process with me as well.

I usually don't mess with my linux partition much, but I am contemplating switching to SuSe or Gentoo.

What about Slackware or Debian bazooka? If you want a fast distro Slackware is the thing for you (next to gentoo which can be optimized).

FYI - there's an open source alternative to Ghost for linux. If your interested, I'll dig up what it's called.

If you could find that that would be great!

[tekkieman]

FYI - there's an open source alternative to Ghost for linux. If your interested, I'll dig up what it's called.

If you could find that that would be great!

Since this is still about backups, I figure it's still on-topic (wouldn't want to threadjack! ).

Here's 3 to check out:

dd (can be piped to gzip for compression - should be in your distro - try man dd)
mkCDrec
partimage (can also be piped through gzip - does not image blank sectors like dd)

[Garibaldi]

Here's 3 to check out:

dd (can be piped to gzip for compression - should be in your distro - try man dd)
mkCDrec
partimage (can also be piped through gzip - does not image blank sectors like dd)

I found dd..... I'll have to read through the man page on that. Should I check freshmeat for the other 2?

[tekkieman]

Here's 3 to check out:

dd (can be piped to gzip for compression - should be in your distro - try man dd)
mkCDrec
partimage (can also be piped through gzip - does not image blank sectors like dd)

I found dd..... I'll have to read through the man page on that. Should I check freshmeat for the other 2?

Yes. I know partimage is there, and pretty sure mkCDrec is there. They both also have their own sites.

http://www.mkcdrec.org/
http://www.partimage.org/

FYI - partimage is also being ported for Windows and Mac

[crazythunder]

i have win xp in a seperate 10 gig partition. 99% of my apps go into a seperate 30 gig partition. i keep xp at 10 gigs to leave room for updates and the few stubborn apps that don't give an install option. i make backups to dvd and to an external firewire drive. if xp gets buggy, i only have to reinstall 1 or 2 dvd's at most. or more quickly from firewire drive. i laugh at vioruses, spyware etc.. they can;t touch me. so what if they do. restore!! i have an image of a clean, activated xp, and another with all updates and tweaks. invincible except to hdd failure.