Thread: Have you backed up your files lately?

Cleaning out the computer at work I sent the many partial files to my email so I could compile them on my home computer. I did not send the story I was working on, but deleted the whole file with the story in it.


I tried all the "How to" sights on recovering lost files, just minutes after doing it and it is gone.

Checked my email(thats where my back up is until I save it to a flashdrive, which I haven't done since I got the new computers.) I have the story there, but it was saved a month ago. Granted a month of free time at work does not produce alot of work, but I think it was two chapters.

The bar seen was the biggest loss, the scene flowed was fun to write, and the brother sister bickering between the main character and the other trainee just worked right. I hope I can rewrite it just as good.

So just a reminder to back up your work, one stupid mistake could wipe out important files.

There are free online storage programs you could use as well. I use a couple myself, dropbox most often, and skydrive is useful as well. I know there are more, I just don't feel like keeping up with too many. Most of my writing I keep there and all the computer I use have a copy after I save it. If you do some searching there are site that compare them all and which features might be most useful to you.

I have a 8gig flashdrive so no worry's for me

I lost a full weeks work once, so ever since have been saving 2 copies of my work, re-opening them to check they saved correctly, then saving each on 3 external hard-drives, only one of which is permanently connected to my computer, and all three get checked for virus' every week. I think I'm over doing the back up files now but going to start using an online storage facility too.

I've tried several online services, some paid for, some free. So far, dropbox is the best for a free service as you could want. I'm assuming you are using windows, if not then it might not be as nice, but it integrates into windows very well and is one of the better written programs I have used. Backing up is nice, but knowing that whenever I save it goes out to be saved on a server is a nice reassurance that a catastrophe won't cost me my work. Their paid for pricing is excessive to me, but I don't pay them, so it's something to check out if you are really concerned with loosing your work.

I run my own file server with RAID 5 arrays of hard drives. One of those arrays holds my subversion repositories, and one of those is my story. I commit the changes I make about once a week, so I have some serious redundancy (not to mention version control). I also post my story to a book reviewing website, so everything that's "finalized" is stored forever on their servers.

Furthermore, I use a paid service called CrashPlan to back up the contents of my server. In other words, I have the story on my computer, which is backed up by my server, which has RAID redundancy, which is mirrored by the CrashPlan servers. I'm protected from local hard drive failure, server hard drive failure, server array failure, and remote server failure. My story's safe, is what I'm saying.

I collect music. I add a gig or two a month. Every few weeks, my writing and music gets transfered onto a 1 TB external drive. If my system crashes at a point between backups, I may lose a bit of stuff, but not a life-ending amount.

Additionally, I have my Word files on a flash drive. Just in case I can't find the Seagate during an emergency.

I'm NOT paying someone to store my stuff. Clouds are for birds.

I write in Google Docs and export my entire project folder as a .zip file once every few days and from there add a copy to my flash drive and my external hard drive. Triple redundancy.

Originally Posted by Winston

I'm NOT paying someone to store my stuff. Clouds are for birds.

And contain rain. I was amused to read PC Pro this month, which had two particularly good articles, one relating to Apple's attitude and the other to Cloud Computing, and in particular the author's calculation that at available upload speeds it would take over 4 months of 24/7 filing to load all his files to the cloud...

The other danger is that, in 5 years time, will your new computer be able to read the files stored in Cloud Cuckoo Land. We used to back-up our accounts to a Hewlett-Packard tape drive; one day we needed to check an old account and found that HP had "updated" the software automatically and that it would no longer read 6 month old files. Will we be able to view our old jpegs in 5 years?

Never take it for granted that it will be fine. The fan on my computer crapped out about 2 weeks ago, & after trying to keep it cool with a can of compressed air, it shut down suddenly. I thought the motherboard was gone & I'd lost pictures, music, & work.

A couple of days ago I decided to risk turning it on to see what was what, so I lowered the house thermostat so the A/C would stay on longer, & placed my laptop directly on one of the A/C vents. Well it worked because I went in with no problem & discovered that nothing was lost. Later I'm going to back it all up on a portable hard drive, then sometime this week bring it somewhere to get the fan replaced.

Spend a little money: BACK YOUR STUFF UP!

Originally Posted by CFFTB

I thought the motherboard was gone & I'd lost pictures, music, & work.

For future reference, the state of your motherboard has absolutely nothing to do with the integrity of your files. Your motherboard, processor, RAM, video card, and power supply can all melt down to a thick liquid and your data will still be just fine.

Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4

For future reference, the state of your motherboard has absolutely nothing to do with the integrity of your files. Your motherboard, processor, RAM, video card, and power supply can all melt down to a thick liquid and your data will still be just fine.

Not to nit-pick, but heat can kill a hard drive as well. Also, a fried MoBo could mean a power surge. Hard drives are more resilient than Motherboards, but if a board or other internal component is fried, there's a chance your hard drive is as well.

NEVER skimp on your surge suppressor. It's cheap insurance. At the very least, if you have a GFI plug in your house, use it. In American households, there's usually one in the kitchen and bath. I'm not a fan of laptops, precisely because of issues like overheating. Use a 'Chill Pad" and / or lower your power settings.

Be good to your computer, and it'll be good to you. If you're a jerk to it, they'll remember when they take over the world. You'll get a real cr4ppy work assignment from our computer overlords...

Originally Posted by SeverinR

So just a reminder to back up your work, one stupid mistake could wipe out important files.

The key is something that backs up your files automatically. For around a hundred bucks, you can buy an external 1 TB drive with the back software on it, like a Seagate GoFlex -- just hook it up and select which folders you want to back up and how often. It couldn't be easier. I have two of them and do a back up every night.

A novel sized document is 1 to 2 meg, usually smaller. Most free services will give you 2 Gig or more ( or 2000 meg), which from a document perspective, will hold pretty much all of your writing. The ones that will leave a copy on your computer and save a copy to the 'cloud', make it easy to prevent loss in case of a hd crash. Backing it up to flash drives and other external storage is also a good idea, but anything not backed up gets lost in a catastrophe.

Best bet would be to synchronize with multiple cloud- and drive-based storage options. Save copies to Google Docs and Evernote, keep a copy on a flash drive, an archive drive and your main HD. Lot of work to maintain but the odds of losing everything are slim that way. Burn a few CDs every once in a while too.