posted
I remember seeing this topic posted before, just wondering what progress folks have made since then. I'm presently just using the Seagate/Windows backup to compress our jobs and admin directories to another drive on the network daily and burning the file to CD once a week. This works ok but I was hoping there might be a utility available with a bit more flexibility. Any suggestions? Thanks, David
------------------ D.A. & P.M. Fisher Signwriting Brisbane Australia da_pmf@yahoo.com
Posts: 1450 | From: Brisbane Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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Get a cd burner. No back-up/restore BS. Just copies that you can just open if needed. edit--------------- oops missed the part about you burning the cds ... doh
why do you go through all those other steps?
[This message has been edited by Mark Matyjakowski (edited February 12, 2001).]
Posts: 2677 | From: Rochester, NY, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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One of my friends got this tray that fits into a drive slot on the front of your computer and you slide a regular hard drive into it. This lets him have an extra hard drive that removes about as easily as removing a floppy disc. It takes a few minutes to do an entire system copy. He can keep the spare back -up at home and bring it in weekly. Should something happen, he has the whole operating system ready to rock and roll. I think I've seen these trays advertised for around $20 and hard drives are not very expensive now. So far, the biggest drawback to this idea that I know is that hard drives are rather fragile and need to be handled gently.
------------------ The SignShop Mendocino, California "Where the Redwoods meet the Surf"
Oh, for the faith of a spider! He begins his web without any thread.
Posts: 6806 | From: Mendocino, CA. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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We have an Iomega 250 Mb Zip Drive on our new computer - everything on the computer is stored on these drives and is in a safety deposit box at the bank. One disk with all the jobs is kept at home in case I should need it quickly.
Also we have a rewrittable CD on which we keep various jobs in categories. It's really handy - and quick.
This may be a little overkill, but it keeps us safe. Fortunately (knock on wood) we have not experienced any major crashes where information has been lost.
------------------ Chapman Sign Studio Temple, Texas rchapman@vvm.com
Posts: 6306 | From: Temple, Texas, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I have all my data files on a cd. The software I use is Adaptec Easy Cd creator. I have Norton Ghost which I plan to use to put the whole image of my hard drive on another hard drive. The newer versions will write and image to a cd if you have a cd writer. An image is the exact copy of everything you select, so you can copy windows, system settings, files and all. In the event of a catastrophe, you can reformat hard drive and restore everything from backup in about 10 minutes. Powerquest has a good program like Ghost called Disk Image.
------------------ Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Since 1978 http://www.wrightsigns.bigstep.com
Posts: 2786 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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posted
Buy a CD burner for under $100 and a bunch of blsnk CDs for around 30-60 cents each. For under $1.00 you will be able to back up 650 mb of your data.
------------------ Louis A. Lazarus Milt's Sign Service, Inc. 20 So. Linden Ave. #5B 650-588-0490 fontking1a@aol.com
Posts: 560 | From: El Granada, CA | Registered: Apr 1999
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I was looking for a program also and went to CNet/downloads.com and found a shareware program called WinRescue98 try it for free for 30 days and then register it for $29.95. I think it was. Also available from their web site directly at: www.superwin.com/rescue98.htm
I also make the back-up to the HHD then burn it to a CD. Works for me.
The slide in HHD is also a good idea and I may investigate that also.
posted
David, check out PowerQuest's line of software, they make the best stuff out there for this purpose and frankly, ever since Windows came out Norton software has been nothing but junk and it installs miscellaneous garbage on your computer that's useless.
Anyway, if you use PowerQuest's Disk Image Pro, you can forget about compressing data daily, just create an exact duplicate of your main drive and it will be updated several times daily if you like. Then Disk Image Pro will also put the drive image onto CD for you.
Since you mentioned a network, something else you might want to look into is Network Attached Storage. These are basically hard drives that plug directly into an Ethernet port on a hub in your network. They dont need to be installed in a machine, just plug it into the hub, give it an address, and it's ready to be used for storage. You can add more as your storage needs increase without taking any machines off the network to do so.
------------------ Mike Pipes -----trapped in a box with a computer and a slice of cheese-----
Posts: 145 | From: Lake Havasu City, AZ | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
Unfortunately in all there is about 6 gig of files to back up. This includes an archive directory containing files from 1993 because that directory is constantly being added to as jobs become inactive and old projects are added/ammended. The CD makes life a lot easier but the main objective of this post was to try and find a backup utility that will do its thing on a scheduled basis with little or no input from myself . The burning is going to have to be monitored no matter how I wind up going about it, just to stick a new cd in the burner but the daily backup would be nice to automate entirely. Thanks, David
------------------ D.A. & P.M. Fisher Signwriting Brisbane Australia da_pmf@yahoo.com
Posts: 1450 | From: Brisbane Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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Disk Image Pro will give you your daily backup automatically, with no input whatsoever, but you need another hard drive to put the data on.
CD's are great for the weekly backup.
Tape backups are fine for backing up servers say, once a month.. Tapes deteriorate quickly so frequent access damages them, and data retrieval is slow as can be. CD's are a better option.
If you use Disk Image Pro, it will maintain an exact copy of the main hard drive, including the operating system if you like. If that main drive takes a dump, put the other one in its place and you wont lose any time or valuable data!
------------------ Mike Pipes Digital Illusion Custom Graphics Lake Havasu City, AZ http://www.stickerpimp.com
Posts: 8746 | From: Lake Havasu, AZ USA | Registered: Jun 2000
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Mike, You keep mentioning Disk Image Pro. They have two versions, Disk Image and Pro, do you really mean the Pro because that is about twice as much. As far as I can tell the Pro version is multiple user license for over networks.
------------------ Wright Signs Wyandotte, Michigan Since 1978 http://www.wrightsigns.bigstep.com
Posts: 2786 | From: Wyandotte, MI USA | Registered: Jan 1999
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Thanks Mike, I'm looking into disk image/disk image pro now, it looks like the one for me. I already backup the entire current, archive and admin files to a remote drive on the network (which is what this software is for) The CD's are just for current stuff, finding a utility that would handle that hum drum stuff would have just been a bonus. Looks like disk image is precisely the sort of thing I was looking for, Thanks, David
------------------ D.A. & P.M. Fisher Signwriting Brisbane Australia da_pmf@yahoo.com
Posts: 1450 | From: Brisbane Queensland Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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posted
David Wright, I was mentioning Disk Image Pro because the other David mentioned a network he has, and he just might want multi-user licenses.. or maybe he only wants to use one machine to do all the work.
If he uses the multi-user version, he can do all the backing up from any machine on the network, with the standard version he needs to use one machine to do it.
Just depends what kind of flexibility he wants, I like to have as much as I can get. =)
------------------ Mike Pipes -----trapped in a box with a computer and a slice of cheese-----
Posts: 145 | From: Lake Havasu City, AZ | Registered: Dec 2000
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