Data Backup Question

[Carbo]

In other words, what are the truly wise among us doing to insure their data is backed up and protected against hard drive failure or some other catastrophe that causes data loss?
I figure with the New Year here, one good resolution would be to get my act together in this area and set up a reliable and easy to use system.
Thanks!

 

[dfuze]

Acronis True Image has worked for me. I've only recently started backing up, so I do have limited experience on the subject. I got their version 7 free a while back, but I think they are still offering it for free on thier site.

 

[AllGoodNamesAreTaken]

My strategy: Acronis True Image 9 for monthly full-system backups and Retrospect 6.5 for daily documents ( e-mail, code, etc. ).

 

[oog]

i use rsync under cygwin to copy files to a linux box. the drive on the linux box is then periodically rsync'ed with another computer in a different geographic location. the local copy is set up to give me several snapshots, using hard links for identical files.

 

[WildHorse]

I've been making an Acronis True Image backup every night, to different hard drives, plus burning DVD backups on the 1st of every month.

 

[mchammer]

First organize your stuff in a way that makes backing up easy. That's what I am trying to do.

 

[Laputa]

Make sure you all test your backups. It's pointless to make the backup that does not work.

 

[Rottie]

Last time I use Aronic True Image 9 to image back up on 12-10-06 to DVD and not sure how often do I need to back up again?
I use Genie Outlook Express back up to back up outlook express every 2 weeks to other hard drive

 

[kevnich2]

Well this is coming from someone who just had his 4gb usb flash drive choke on New Year's eve (plugged it into my laptop, something didn't work right as it shut off immediately, unplugged it, plugged it back in and zap, the entire thing is now toasted). Back up often. I luckily had backed up my critical files to my backup server just three hours before so I only lost 3 hours worth of work. I use allway sync. Very nice and simply backup & synchronization program.

 

[Czar]

Two harddisks or two computers, use second copy to keep certain folders synced to the other drive, keep backups of deleted files as well up to a certain date, and modifications.

Works extremely well, only thing that can go wrong is if the house burns down, have a plan for that one, external usb disk I will sync once a week or month and store at work.