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How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
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TheWerewolf - Sotto voce
09/14/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
No disrespect - but... Why in God's name would anyone go to such lengths to make a simple process so mindnumbingly complicated?

A 500GB pocketdrive costs $130, is BIG, can handle differential backups (TimeMachine for Mac users and Windows Backup for Windows users), and can also be used to share files with friends without the hassles of using the Internet... which, unless you're living on a backbone, is SLOW and has bandwidth caps - assuming you even have access to the internet when your laptop - you know - blows up?

If you're talking 4-32GB - get a USB key. An 8GB key is like $20. Get two and alternate for redundant backup.

I carry Win7 on a bootable install USB key just in case and a bootable USB Acronis kit on a key, and then everything I need to reconstruct my laptop from scratch on a 500GB pocketdrive (Acronis True Image + a 'safe' image of my core system + backup of my latest files).

And none of this is even remotely useful unless you actually DO it, so automatic and regular makes more sense... which brings us to Windows Sync Manager which lets you automatically sync folders from your laptop to your desktop (or a drive attached to your desktop) when you connect.

Sorry, I just can't see the logic or economy of doing it the way this article proposes. It's saving upfront for long term expense and unreliability (ie: being cheap where you shouldn't be).
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Audi5000
09/13/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
None of these suggestions do much for multiple TBs of data. They should sell harddrives in double packs!
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Barry99705
09/13/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
Or use BackBlaze. It's not free, but it's $5 a month for unlimited backups. If you pay by the year you get two months free. Personally I use a mac server to time machine my laptop, and windows home server to backup the pc's in the house. Haven't had a problem with either solution. I trust Google with my data about as far as I can throw my Element. They're fine with email, and non-sensitive data, but not all my data.
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SpriteMV
09/13/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
A little tip for those throwing lots of files to SkyDrive: Try uploading in IE rather than firefox. This will give you an interface to drag many files onto the window to be uploaded at once compared to firefox's interface which allows you to browse for 5 at a time.
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dingus
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
Important files go on my NAS, which gets backed up weekly to a bare 3.5" drive via a drive dock. That drive gets swapped every month with one in a safety deposit box.

Archival stuff (old documents, photos, videos) stays on the NAS but get backed up every year to DVD.
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Kaiser-Machead
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
Sorry, but I'm going to have to shake my cane at this, and ramble on about how I don't trust the goldarned clouds to store my valuable moving pictures and pictobytes.
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Scazza
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
Honestly, all these "free" things are all well and good, but the amount of time and effort is still too drastic to be a reliable backup for 100s of gigs of data.

I still think the absolute best backup is get yourself a NAS or just a spare HDD. HDD Space is so so cheap nowadays, you can get a 1tB drive for under 100 if you look hard.
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Weihovah
09/12/09

@Scazza: these solutions are meant to complement an external hdd or nas solution. unless you keep your hdd or nas some place else, a fire could take out the computer and all backup drives
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discounteggroll
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
Hey John, if you're ever in the CT area and want that top case replaced shoot me a message
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matt buchanan
09/12/09

@discounteggroll: oh, he needs so much more than that replaced.
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KTK1990
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
I just buy a big HD and prettymuch open up 2 finder/windows explorer windows and drag over the contents of C: to F:Seagate/HP(dv7)backup 9-12-09/C:

That way I have all my files there, it takes a while but I get everything and I know where everything is. That way when I go to restore it, I can just copy everything or just a single document back to my pc.

Sometimes if I do a small update (like to update chat logs and documents) I just change the date on the backup in the title.
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Pazu
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
Funny seeing an article about backup right after my own hard drive crashed. I've lost about 200Gb of data yesterday, damn Western Digital — I'm not buying anything from them ever again.

Thanks to Mozy, however, this loss is temporary. All my data was backed up online, and I'm restoring it as we speak. It's going to take over a week to get everything back, but it's definitely better than losing it forever.

Backup your data online, guys. The peace of mind you get is more than worth the little they charge for it ($4.95/mo for unlimited data).
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Edited by Pazu at 09/12/09 3:19 PM Pazu was starred Pazu was unstarred

PaintTheSkyGrey
09/12/09

@Pazu: Or you could RAID it all. And not trust your data to complete strangers. Or at least use a backup harddrive.
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Edited by PaintTheSkyGrey at 09/12/09 3:16 PM PaintTheSkyGrey was starred PaintTheSkyGrey was unstarred

theRealMikeyG
09/12/09

@PaintTheSkyGrey: RAID is NOT A BACKUP!!!
EVER!!!!!!
a backup solution protects you from accidental deletion.
No form of RAID does that.

Honestly, all you need is an external hard drive and the ability to store it off site.

you can use any of a hundred free backup solutions to create the actual backup, but you need to take it offsite to be effective.
Personally I use SyncBack and just copy left from the source drive to the backup drive and then take it offsite.
If you want to get a little better, get two drives and rotate them.
The bice thing about using something that gives you copy left capabilities is that it will only need to move the files that have been changed on the source drive to the backup drive.
it you want revisioning history, then you simply need a program that will copy without overwriting files on the destination drive (which may mean spending a little money on the program).

backup doesn't need to be a difficult project, and in fact is fairly easy.
however it's NEVER a 100% thing.
More layers of backup simply means more protection, but it also means more to manage.
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itchytooth
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
Hard drives are so cheap, it's hard for me to imagine that all this work is worth it. I prefer to have a perfect clone of my hard drive, because it requires no guessing about what needs to be backed up and it means that when my hard drive fails, I can boot from the clone and work without interruption until a replacement arrives. Also, if you've got so little to backup that a web service will suffice, then why not just buy a 4GB thumb drive for $5?
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tehsquish - Still plays Ultima Online
09/12/09

@itchytooth: Flash drives aren't generally considered a reliable backup medium. Lord knows I've had flashies 'splode out of the blue... Sure it might work if you copy your backup once a week then stash it in a box in the closet, but the web solutions are much more reliable I think.
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itchytooth promoted this comment

itchytooth
09/12/09

@tehsquish - Still plays Ultima Online: True, but the odds are pretty low that your computer's drive and your flash drive will fail simultaneously. I think having a 2nd backup, stored somewhere else, is a good idea though - whether that be on the web or in your grandmother's attic.
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PaintTheSkyGrey
09/12/09

In reply to How To: Back Up All Your Stuff For Free, No Hard Drive Needed
You forgot SpiderOak. They have pretty much a hands-off policy when it comes to your data. Your data is encrypted and compressed the whole way with the key being your password - it's a combination of 2048 bit RSA and 256 bit AES encryption. They don't even have a TOS, just a "password policy" that states if you lose your password, you're on your own, because not even they can access your data.

I've been toying around with them for the past couple of days. Their windows client is excellent, while they're a little lacking on the mac side. They have a free 2gb plan, and it's $10/month for every 100gb after that. If you have a .edu e-mail address, they're halving that right now, to $5/month for each 100gb.

I've been satisfied with the free service for just backing up my most important documents, though - I have an external portable HDD I back up everything else to regularly.
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PaintTheSkyGrey
09/12/09

@PaintTheSkyGrey: Comment time before post time ftw
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Nick promoted this comment PaintTheSkyGrey was starred PaintTheSkyGrey was unstarred

Nick
09/12/09

@PaintTheSkyGrey: darn clairvoyants. you knew what he forgot before he even forgot to forget it.
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Edited by Nick at 09/12/09 2:22 PM Nick was starred Nick was unstarred

Identity (reclamation)
09/12/09

@Nick: Wow.
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zenpoet
07/29/09

In reply to X-Power 1 iPhone USB Cord Comes With Built-In Rechargable Battery And....Gives Orgasms To Kristen Bell
If it does in fact give orgasms to Kristen Bell, that would seem to be a fairly small market to which they are focusing their efforts.

I'm just sayin'.
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Xeno
07/29/09

@zenpoet: Worth the effort in my opinion.
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zenpoet
07/29/09

@Xeno: Hey, I guess if it makes just one person happy, then they have succeeded.
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geiko
07/28/09

In reply to X-Power 1 iPhone USB Cord Comes With Built-In Rechargable Battery And....Gives Orgasms To Kristen Bell
How dare you insult my current favorite actress like that. God, that chick wishes she was a third of what Kristen Bell looks like.
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Rosa Golijan promoted this comment geiko was starred geiko was unstarred

Hi, I'm God
07/28/09

In reply to X-Power 1 iPhone USB Cord Comes With Built-In Rechargable Battery And....Gives Orgasms To Kristen Bell
Is this some residue from the latest Photoshop contest??
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Rosa Golijan
07/28/09

@Hi, I'm God: Come on! Giz readers photoshop better than that.
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Rosa Golijan was starred Rosa Golijan was unstarred

Hi, I'm God
07/28/09

@Rosa Golijan: Yes well, I was questioning their selection in model... she's not a bit attractive. To each his own, I suppose.
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Rosa Golijan
07/28/09

@Hi, I'm God: Shhh! Don't let some of the people around here hear that. They're convinced that she looks like Kristen Bell.
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Hi, I'm God
07/28/09

@Rosa Golijan: Ahem. Kristen Bell does not look so good from that particular angle.
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secretmanofagent
07/28/09

@Hi, I'm God: Are you kidding? Just look at those nostrils!
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