Back up - back up and then back up!

Just in case some of you guys are working hard on projects and NOT backing up your work, here's how we try to work in my office:

Always try to have at least three complete backups of ALL your work, including source files and raw graphic files, at least ONE of the backups should be kept at a separate site (i.e. not in the building/office/house where you are working).

I was working on a large project last year and the building next to the office I was working in burned to the ground. That was ok except the fire jumped across the gap (the street) and the building I was working in caught fire too. The fire brigade dowsed the offices completely, so much so that practically everything was lost computers, paper work - everything was either smoke damaged or just wet.

Fortunately we had a process of backing up which probably saved the company I was working with from going 'to the wall' - and strangely when I began working on their project, they asked me about back ups, and I said always 3 complete backups, and always in as many different sites as possible (I use 3 separate sites). I then went on to remark, you never know,m something like a fire could simply riop through the office and destroy everything - so although it seem like a time consuming process, its not - it is quite simply a life saver, a company life saver!

Just get into the habit of regular back ups - three is a good starting point, especially as large external hard drives are cheap as chips nowadays:

Backing up to another internal hard drive is ok but not ideal.

Back up to an external hard drive which can be carefully transported away to a separate site - in a well protected carry case.

Back up to a media format which can be safely transported to another site for storage - don't rely on USB sticks or DVDs on their own - have another format too.

Its all a matter of getting in to the working habit and following a preset process. I mention it now, because about this time every year I have noticed people get a hard drive failure, maybe its old, bashed about, central heating, virus, fire, smoke, liquid - whatever.

I just thought I'd mention it and hopefully prompt someone to have a happy festive season and not a miserbale one! :)

IPete2.

i have my digi pics and vocals saved to internal, now copied to my 2nd internal also. my usb external which ive been meaning to clear out since getting the 1tb internal and using it purely as a back up and sticking it in my unit cept for 'that time of the month' when i back up and also on my 160gb ipod

although the unit i use oop norf suffered some flood damage a few years ago and i almost lost the lot, thankfully the boxes i was using absorbed most if not all the water leaving the books and decade old comics relativly unscathed, but anything electrical although still in there would probably be useless even after a thorough drying

some of my newer wavs have been converted to m4a's and stuck on a send space site for the other half of the 'band' to access instead of relying on us both being on yahoo at the same time to send over, but i dont think they stay on there too long, but a good reliable webhost should qualify as an off site backup

Anyone know of a good online backup site. Preferably one that supports rsync!

I have a Dreamhost account with plenty of space, but they specifically state in their user agreement that the service is not to be used for backup

I currently have two external usb drives I backup to. One near my computer and one hidden away, but both are in my home so in the case of a fire most of my data would be toast. :(

I guess I could leave one of the drives at work, but an online solution would be easier for me as I could just run an my incremental rsync backup script and be done with it. The less effort it takes to make a backup, the more likely you are to do it. :)

how do they prove otherwise?
most websites have oodles of random files that arnt directly linked via the home page or others, yet are there to showcase at some point
just cos joe blogs cant see them without a direct link dont mean its not there to be seen

I backup to DVDR, USB Key and SVN even if the first two fail I still can download me work and continue.

I backup to RAID NAS... Problem solved!

I keep local backups on HD and periodic DVD plus the source and media is online on a SVN server which is hopefully backed up by the web hoster.

I never backup backup is for wimps :)

I ned a backup to heaven ? anyone ?

Well said...and with that in mind...I havn't backed up in 3 days!! yikes... thanks for the reminder.

When I moved to Vancouver I backed up everything twice onto different drives and took one in my luggage and one was shipped separately just to make sure + I had a third copy of my game on my laptop. I'm not taking any chances.

I use rsnapshot and rsync to keep a daily backup to a spare drive. I also use Acronis to keep a system image. I've got too much stuff I could lose so I prefer the save way.

I think that site is probably saying no to backups, because they aren't guarnteeing against failure perhaps?

For my personal stuff I backup via SVN to an enterprise hosting account in the US, and every single file is version controlled, even development and concept documents. But i'm very blasse about doing it and i'm not sure my full archive is backed up, i've started not to care about the many games I wrote years ago and dont even have copies of a lot of them.

For work stuff I also backup via SVN, sometimes also doing SCP (like FTP only encrypted). We're not as hot on backing up as i'd like as the work is only stored in 3 locations, which might sound excessive but I work for a company spread across multiple countries with years of development, and all it takes is a targetted burglary or corporate espionage act and we're kapput. One day soon i'd like to get a secondary SVN server in a different guarded site for weekly dumps.

As a backup system I believe SVN is by far the best method i've ever seen. You can have your tapes, your removable drives and your DVD masters. I'll take SVN everytime for speed, useability flexibility, and a total change of work ethic. Since I started using SVN I have never lost a file, even the one I screwed up by deleting off my own machine and consequently the master...