Torvy
Super Member
It depends on what is important to you. If you play games, saving your profile and saved games can be nice.
If this can happen to a really smart guy like me. . . well...
- Thread starter beowulf
- Start date
MossRoad
Super Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
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- 60,320
- Location
- South Bend, Indiana (near)
- Tractor
- Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
Bookmarks, contacts, my documents, photos, any other profiles on the computer if there are multiple users.
buckeyefarmer
Epic Contributor
I backup to portable drives. I use a free file sync program, backup my pics, videos, documents, downloads, desktop, and a few other places. It finds new files to backup.
Just bought new laptop, loaded everything from my backup. Pictures matter the most to me, I keep them on multiple drives. Old pc will be another backup. You never have too many backups. I keep last 2 years pics on my phone also, unless they are pics I don’t care about if they were lost.
Just bought new laptop, loaded everything from my backup. Pictures matter the most to me, I keep them on multiple drives. Old pc will be another backup. You never have too many backups. I keep last 2 years pics on my phone also, unless they are pics I don’t care about if they were lost.
Grumpycat
Elite Member
Should have taken this clean sheet opportunity to convert to Mac. 
Apple added Time Machine to MacOS 10.5 Leopard in 2007. Automatically makes an incremental backup to designated volume(s) every hour. When the archive volume reaches capacity Time Machine weeds the backups every week so you only have one image per 24 hours. Then in a month or so weeds it down to one image per week. Then one per month. But always keeps the very first.
Can use a local HD as the Time Machine repository. Can use a NAS remote drive. Can pay for space on iCloud. Can use all of the above all at once. If you have 3 repositories it updates one at a time. One this hour. Another the next hour. Then the 3rd. Then goes back to the first to catch it up...
Apple used to make excellent Apple Airport WiFi routers. Later versions could be had in Time Capsule format with a built-in internal HD. The Airport Extreme had USB port supporting external HD, and probably printers. I've never tried connecting a printer.
With a large enough HD you can backup several Macs to one Time Capsule/NAS. The default archive size is 1.5T per machine, stored in a single disk image (optionally encrypted) to maintain ownership/access control.
When Time Machine was introduced I.T. professionals poo-pooed its simplicity. Time Machine copies the entire changed file into the archive, not just the parts which changed. "Terribly inefficient!" they said. But Apple's way does not require any special software to search or extract files from the archive. You can use Time Machine to view the archive for retrieval but you don't have to. If you want to know if it is working just go waltzing through the archive.
Apple added Time Machine to MacOS 10.5 Leopard in 2007. Automatically makes an incremental backup to designated volume(s) every hour. When the archive volume reaches capacity Time Machine weeds the backups every week so you only have one image per 24 hours. Then in a month or so weeds it down to one image per week. Then one per month. But always keeps the very first.
Can use a local HD as the Time Machine repository. Can use a NAS remote drive. Can pay for space on iCloud. Can use all of the above all at once. If you have 3 repositories it updates one at a time. One this hour. Another the next hour. Then the 3rd. Then goes back to the first to catch it up...
Apple used to make excellent Apple Airport WiFi routers. Later versions could be had in Time Capsule format with a built-in internal HD. The Airport Extreme had USB port supporting external HD, and probably printers. I've never tried connecting a printer.
With a large enough HD you can backup several Macs to one Time Capsule/NAS. The default archive size is 1.5T per machine, stored in a single disk image (optionally encrypted) to maintain ownership/access control.
When Time Machine was introduced I.T. professionals poo-pooed its simplicity. Time Machine copies the entire changed file into the archive, not just the parts which changed. "Terribly inefficient!" they said. But Apple's way does not require any special software to search or extract files from the archive. You can use Time Machine to view the archive for retrieval but you don't have to. If you want to know if it is working just go waltzing through the archive.
MossRoad
Super Moderator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2001
- Messages
- 60,320
- Location
- South Bend, Indiana (near)
- Tractor
- Power Trac PT425 2001 Model Year
Time machine works great. That's all there is to say about it.
hube2
Veteran Member
For those with a PC. Windows has a feature called file history that can be turned on. You hook up an external drive, or even a second drive in your computer. For example I have a 500MB HDD drive, this is what my computer uses during operation. I also have a 1TB hard drive. I have file history set up on my computer and it makes a backup of every file on my computer every time the file is changed. This backup drive can easily be connected to any other computer and the files transferred without a special restore feature. With file history set up you don't need to worry about making backups because the computer does them automatically.
A note that this does not back up the operating system and will not get your computer running again. For that my computer I have a RAID 1 system. This means that I actually have 2, 500MB HDDs in the computer that are duplicates. If one of these drives fails I just need to swap in a new one to recover. Granted, this is a little over the top for most people, but I use my computer for work and the work I do requires that I can recover from anything that might happen. To be honest, getting a computer with RAID 1 is not very expensive if you get it built in, but it is something that you have to look for and cannot usually added after the fact to an existing computer, at least not as cheaply as getting a computer that has it in the first place.
A note that this does not back up the operating system and will not get your computer running again. For that my computer I have a RAID 1 system. This means that I actually have 2, 500MB HDDs in the computer that are duplicates. If one of these drives fails I just need to swap in a new one to recover. Granted, this is a little over the top for most people, but I use my computer for work and the work I do requires that I can recover from anything that might happen. To be honest, getting a computer with RAID 1 is not very expensive if you get it built in, but it is something that you have to look for and cannot usually added after the fact to an existing computer, at least not as cheaply as getting a computer that has it in the first place.
Oaktree
Super Member
The only downside to a RAID is if you get some sort of malware, it's gonna infect both drives since they're a mirror. One thing I learned though with RAIDS...don't use the same model HD for both drives because they'll both likely fail within a short time of each other. Have one WD and one Seagate for example, or at least drives from different production lots.
I like to do a complete drive image every year or so, this way all installed programs are there when you restore. I use Ghost, but there's freeware that will do the same thing.
Also, Photobucket didn't just suddenly "lock out" all free users, there was notice posted on the homepage, and IIRC emails sent notifying users in advance.
Personally, I would never use a cloud service as my only backup. Not only can terms of service change over time, companies can go toes up with little or no notice. MS, Google, etc. are probably a safe bet, but buyer beware!
Macinnis
Gold Member
I use Backblaze and would recommend it. It’s about $75 a year and works well as backup software goes.
years ago, I went to do something on my pc my d: or my data drive was gone. Unrecognized by the pc. That drive held all of my data, kids photos, client data from free lancing, etc. long story short, I go to Best Buy, get a new drive, install it, format it and once the drive was setup, started downloading all my stuff from the backup software in the cloud.
worked like a champ.
it also has a nice app where you can download a file to your phone from backup. This has come in handy on more than one occasion.
years ago, I went to do something on my pc my d: or my data drive was gone. Unrecognized by the pc. That drive held all of my data, kids photos, client data from free lancing, etc. long story short, I go to Best Buy, get a new drive, install it, format it and once the drive was setup, started downloading all my stuff from the backup software in the cloud.
worked like a champ.
it also has a nice app where you can download a file to your phone from backup. This has come in handy on more than one occasion.
What you really have to ask yourself is "what are the odds?". After being in the business for over 35 years, I can tell you that simply backing up to another drive will effectively take care of 99.9% of the restore issues anyone will ever have. I over-exaggerate, but I think you get the point. If a room in a house burns down, the person probably has a lot more than worrying about old photos on their plate.
Oaktree
Super Member
Let's not open that can of worms, it's the tech counterpart of tractor color or R1 vs R4.Should have taken this clean sheet opportunity to convert to Mac.