WindowsTalk/WinVistaClub Backup Contest!

[whs]

Seti, backups are vital. Nowadays you do not use floppies but typically external disks. A minimum of 250GB is required to make sensible imaging and 60GB if you only do data backup (depends, of course, on the amount of data you have). Look into the last link of my post above and you will get an idea of imaging which I think is the best approach. That combined with the Vista shadows gives you all the recovery options (but just be aware that the Vista shadows (restore points) can be caprecious).

[James]

To me, SkyDrive is a backup of sorts; as long as the data is in a 'safer' place than stored on a mechanical medium like a hard drive, then that constitutes a backup to me!

[whs]

Originally Posted by James

To me, SkyDrive is a backup of sorts; as long as the data is in a 'safer' place than stored on a mechanical medium like a hard drive, then that constitutes a backup to me!

That does not leave you a lot of options. Paper and maybe CDs. I don't see how you can make a serious backup to skydrive - especially as they limit you to 50MB per shot. And then you have the internet speed. To put my 62GB images there would probably take a week - even if they would allow such a volume.

[HappyAndyK]

I simply prefer to frequently (weekly) backup my Documents to an external hard drive and create an Acronis image every once (monthly) in a while. I am not too good a 'backer-up'

[seti]

Originally Posted by James

To me, SkyDrive is a backup of sorts; as long as the data is in a 'safer' place than stored on a mechanical medium like a hard drive, then that constitutes a backup to me!

As long as I know that my data is safe and I can get it, even if my pc completely crashes that for me is ok. As for other things well they can also go wrong. I think I ma just being safe than sorry

[James]

All good comments so far, everyone!

Just for the record, here is my current strategy for my laptop:

My hard drive is sectioned in two; all downloads, documents, pictures and mp3 files are stored there. My C: drive only has Windows and installed programs. Therefore, if I need to wipe & reinstall Windows, I have nothing to worry about losing.
I use Microsoft's SyncToy 2.0 to copy the pictures and music folders from my D: drive to an external drive. This I do weekly. I don't create that many documents, and anything important gets copied to a USB stick or the external drive. Alot of my pictures and mp3s are on CDs and DVDs as well.
I use ShadowProtect Desktop to manually image my C: drive to the external drive.
That's it. I have tried a lot of different scenarios over the years, with different backup software, but I have found this to be the most simple and easy to follow regimen for me.

[tweakwindows]

Frankly, I have lost data many times during my 3 years journey with computers. I am pretty lazy when it comes to backup. I do it once in while (read it as once in six months).

I haven't taken my system backup since January.. Got to do that as soon as possible..

[whs]

But if you have an external disk and an appropriate program, you can automate the whole process. It's really not a big deal and you are so much safer.

[James]

For me, I have never used automated backups, simply for the fact that I never seem to have my PC on when I schedule them.
And now that I only have a laptop, I prefer to do it manually since I am never hooked up to my external on a regular basis.

[Maru]

My back up strategy for my laptop used to be one full hard drive backup and then an incremental one every two days to an external HD using Retrospect, but since these external hard drives seem to bite the dust quite often, I just hold my breath and hope for the best.