Survey - How do you backup

[leemason]

As a provider of backup services I am always interested in who people go about backing up their PC systems. For example:

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
3. How much data to you backup?
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Lee.

 

[Kent Accountant]

We backup online using Datasafehaven.co.uk which is an affiliate. Incremental backups overnight every day. Our data is our lifeblood !!

The system uses Attix5 Professional

 

[Deleted member 3454]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc) External hard drive
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc) Every two hours
3. How much data to you backup? 9GB
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)? Otium Utilisync
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits. Changed
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)? No

 

[weddingcrafter]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
External Drive
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
Daily and weekly
3. How much data to you backup?
General files daily, pictures weekly
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
Yes, but can't remember what its called (on the other PC)
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
Changes
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?
Yes.

 

[Dawg]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
External HD
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
Daily for Changes, weekly for full, and weekly for full to 2nd external HD, where archive copies held.
3. How much data to you backup?
30Gb
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
Changes, Maxtor; Full, manual.
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
As above
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?
No.

Point 6 was where I failed an IT audit..still like that tho'.

 

[Whistle Ink]

When I remember, usually whole folders copied to a small external hard drive - about 4 GB. The backup is usually kept very near the PC lol : )

 

[An Oasis]

1. DVD
2. Grandfather, father, son
3. 7+GB
4. Whatever package is installed - NTI
5. = 2
6. Leave GF with a friend.

 

[confused]

1. Tape
2. Daily
3. about 80 gig
4. ntbackup with my script to automate it
5. full backup
6. no but I should do and always reccomend it.

 

[Chris H]

I use an online service from carbonite. Sits in the sys tray and does incremental backups when the internet connection isn't busy.

 

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
Mixture of External HDD, 2Gb PenDrive & DVD
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
Small daily, rest weekly
3. How much data to you backup?
20Gb Daily, 100Gb Weekly & Every now & then 400Gb
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
Nope, my own routines only
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
Changed bits daily, set pipeces weekly & the whole shooting match every now & again
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?
Most are taken home (about 20 yds away).

Now where are those people who don't backup 'til we slate 'em??

 

[Ozzy]

You now know these answers but I'll answer anyway.

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc) Over network to backup server
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc) Every 30 minutes for some and realtime for database
3. How much data to you backup? About 20GB
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)? rsync and mirror
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits. changed bits
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)? everything is off site but it is onsite where the servers are, if that makes sense

 

[Cornish Steve]

Shamefully, I confess that I copy important files from my laptop to a CD about once every three months. Recently, I've had problems with my CD-ROM drive, so it's becoming even more infrequent. Maybe it's about time that I use a backup service. We're only talking about 50MB, though, so I want to pay as little as possible.

By the way, it's not as bad as it sounds because the most important data is sent as attachments to others once a week. While it would be inconvenient, I could survive a disk failure.

 

[leemason]

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far. It's very useful information for me.

 

[cjd]

Home PCs are backed up using a Netgear Zetera NAS (networked attached storeage) device that plugs into your LAN. It also doubles as a music storage and streaming device.

It's dirt cheap and uses old (or new) hard drives. It comes with a bit of software called SmartSynch that allows you to set when back-ups occur. I have mine set to back-up every couple of hours and on closedown.

There's about 5 PCs hanging off it.

 

[Chris H]

We're only talking about 50MB, though, so I want to pay as little as possible.

Steve, http://mozy.com/ is free for up to 2Gb. Well worth doing since it's nowt.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

I've never backed up my 5 year old hard drive yet. I have a weird feeling it's gonna go kaput one day.

 

[cjd]

^^^ Uh oh. You really shouldn't have said that.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

I'm not gonna worry, this old thing is hard as nails. About a year ago it wouldnt boot up and it kept making a clicking noise so I whacked it and it started working again.

 

[Optegris]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
Data is stored on a RAID array and backed up to a second RAID array which is mirrored to an external HD which in turn is backed up to tape

2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
Critical data, every hour, non-critical, every day

3. How much data to you backup?
20GB+

4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
Backup for Workgroups

5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
Just incremental backups.

6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?
Yep. The tapes are rotated daily, the previous days tapes are locked in a safe, the most recent leaves the office with me.

 

[Cornish Steve]

I'm not gonna worry, this old thing is hard as nails. About a year ago it wouldnt boot up and it kept making a clicking noise so I whacked it and it started working again.

Heaven help us if Nigel reads this message out of context.

 

[RayB]

We back up all data to a remote backup datacentre every night.

But if we get a data loss between nightly backups our mirrored raid dives on the server take care of that.

We do not store any critical data on workstation PC's

 

[An Oasis]

Heaven help us if Nigel reads this message out of context.

LOL I doubt wether out of context matters.

 

[KM-Tiger]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
To HDD's on other servers, VPN via internet.

2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
Daily, during the night. Could be more often but RAID reduces the immediate risk of disc failure, and only once in 6 years have I had to restore a "oops I didn't mean to delete" file. I must have careful users!

3. How much data to you backup?
Approx 10 Gb.

4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
rsync, rdiff-backup

5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
Changes, which is the nature of rsync and rdiff

6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)
2 remote servers, geographically separate, one in a secure datacentre.

As RayB observed, we do not store any business data on workstations.

 

[Cornish Steve]

Steve, http://mozy.com/ is free for up to 2Gb. Well worth doing since it's nowt.

Thanks for the info. I've created an account already.

 

[andrew1810]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
External disk and server (for websites)
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
Weekly (if I remember)
3. How much data to you backup?
8-10Gb total, but it only backs up new data
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
Robocopy+batch script
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
Changed bits
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?
Every few months I put essential stuff on DVD and send to someone living elsewhere (usually brother in York)

 

[pmarsh]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)

DVD-RAM

2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)

Incremental backup daily.
Critical files every 2 hours.

3. How much data to you backup?

Full backup is about 500Mb

4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?

Windows - NovaBackup

5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.

Just the changed bits.

6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?

No.

 

[simonswords]

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)

External Disk over the network

2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)

Once at lunch time and once in the evening

3. How much data to you backup?

About 30Gb

4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?

Wrote our own software

5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.

Just the changed bits.

6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?

We have hosted servers that all of our critical data gets forwarded to each evening including things like source code)

 

[RapidBI]

Hi all, what an interesting thread.

for me this is in 2 parts:
business - my libuary of documents - weekly on to one of 3 HDD's - rotated & one kept off site & I use REV drives - 5 disk rotation

Home - this is much harder - photos & home movies use a lot of space - stopped using CDs & DVDs last year after I found out how fast they degrate! (I lost a lot of photos of the kids) - Now I backup monthly on to HDD - 2 copies

total monthly backup 400GB

 

[She Says]

As a provider of backup services I am always interested in who people go about backing up their PC systems. For example:

1. What media do you use (i.e. CD/DVD, tape, external disk, over the network, etc)
2. How often do you do it (Daily, Weekly, When you remember, etc)
3. How much data to you backup?
4. Do you use any particular software (MS-Windows Backup, Backup/Exec, etc)?
5. Do you backup all of your data every time or do you only backup the changed bits.
6. Do you take your backups offsite (i.e. home, keep in you briefcase, in the car, etc)?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Lee.

1.External disk
2. Supposed to be twice weekly but its usually weekly
3.Not sure, sorry
4.No, didn't know there was software!
5.Just the files I know have changed. But I plan to do a full backup maybe once a month. (Have only recently got the external disk drive!)
6. Yes

Please note I am new to backing up (it was the top of my To Do list for this year!) so I am not sure if I am doing it the best way!

Sharon

 

[leemason]

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far. This is building into a really useful source. I just wonder if, because the nature of this sort of thing is quite self selecting, it is more switched on people who will tend to join threads anyway. Do you think that most businesses are as on top of things like data backups as the average person on this forum? From my experience many businesses don't worry about backups until it's too late.

 

[She Says]

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far. This is building into a really useful source. I just wonder if, because the nature of this sort of thing is quite self selecting, it is more switched on people who will tend to join threads anyway. Do you think that most businesses are as on top of things like data backups as the average person on this forum? From my experience many businesses don't worry about backups until it's too late.

Hi lee, we have been in business for some years now and backing up was always something we had in the back of our minds but never got around to until this year. So I agree that many businesses probably don't bother with it. It would be interesting to know why. I was unsure of the best way to do it which might be a reason other businesses don't do anything either. hth
Sharon

 

[cjd]

I'm pretty sure that most micro business does not do decent backups but probably most companies over 5 people with a LAN do - simply because they get tech help.

 

[seinzance]

Hi

SMEs virtually never back up in my experience. Unless they have an admin or techie on site. I have a few clients that literally asked me what a backup was. A few backup to their laptop hard drives (REALLY pointful lol). they just do not get the importance of backing up. I've one client with 10gb+ of stuff and the only backup he has is an entire image of his PC that i took about a year ago.

Lack of backups in business is kinda a good thing. Allows me to charge £450 for a few hours work when someone says erm...my hard drive's clicking...where's windows?

The general problem is most dont know how to backup; what they need, what to do with it etc. And there's the remembering to do it. Businesses are the ones with the more important data and the ones with the finances to pay tons to recover it. I find a lot of home users that lose everything quite often and they seem to not care very much.

Personally I have 3 gmail accounts which are purely for backups. I have simple batch files that use winrar to find the changed files, compress the lot, split it into smaller than 10mb files, and mails it off to me at google. Takes care of the important bits. Never think about it. Unless the script runs when I'm trying to play a game and it ruins my ping lol. As for the 4yo 300gb external drive....it'll die sometime soon surely, but none of that is backed up at all...