Backing Up Data

The Prime Necromancer · Post by **The Prime Necromancer** » 2005-12-13 04:51pm

OK, today when I turned on my PC, a very loud thumping sound began to issue from the case. Now, while this was probably "just" the system fan heading towards its death throes (as it showed no abnormalities booting up, or when I immediately shut it down), it scared me to death because I haven't backed up my hard drive in at least half a year. Well, this incident provided the motivation I needed, as I will not, I *can not* lose my data.

The problem is that the amount of data has long passed the point that anything I have on hand is capable of holding. So, I need some suggestions as to what I need to purchase. The backup device needs to be able to hold at a bare minimum 40 GB of data, because that's approximately how much I'm using right now. However, I plan to replace my computer pretty soon, not only because of the ominous noises, but that said 40 GB is just a tiny bit less than my max hard drive space and it's about 4.5 years old and wasn't really "top of the line" to begin with. So, I would prefer something that has something closer to 100 or more, in preparation for the amount on whatever new system I purchase (so I don't run into this roadblock again very soon). Does anyone have any equipment they would recommend, and how much will it cost?

Oh, also, a partially related question: when I began using Firefox and imported my bookmarks, I wanted to create a backup file of them (especially to save the ones marked since the importation), because early on some glitch caused them all to disappear. However, I've been unable to find whatever file that Firefox keeps them in, could someone tell me where it is?

DaveJB · Post by **DaveJB** » 2005-12-13 05:01pm

A USB2 hard drive is probably your best bet. You can get pre-built ones, but it might be cheaper to buy an external USB2 enclosure and install a PATA hard drive in it.

Dave · Post by **Dave** » 2005-12-13 05:05pm

Regarding Firefox Bookmarks:

Up on the toolbar:

Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks...

In the "Bookmarks Manager" that pops up:

File > Export...

This allows you to export your links as an HTML file that will be readable by Firefox, as well as any other browser (It exports a page full of hyperlinks)

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2005-12-14 02:35am

DaveJB wrote:A USB2 hard drive is probably your best bet. You can get pre-built ones, but it might be cheaper to buy an external USB2 enclosure and install a PATA hard drive in it.

I'd personaly go with the enclosure route since it offers you the flexibility to insert an even bigger drive in the future and you dont really need the smaller form factor of the pre-builts if you are using it for backup. And buy a SATA compatible enclosure if you go that route, PATA is an old standard that is being phased out so if you want to future-proof your enclosure its a bad idea (and considering that its inferior in general I really dont see the point of buying an enclosure with it instead of SATA). EDIT: Of course unless you have an PATA (ATA133 or similar names) extra hard drive laying around that you plan to use in it. Since the performance diffrence isn't that much, especialy when using external drives, I'd definatly buy a PATA compatible enclosure if you have that extra drive. However if you are buying both a new enclosure and drive then there is no point in using old tech (PATA) over new (SATA).

An alternative I'd like to suggest if you have a finite collection of data is using dvds (at 40gb its not yet in the horribly large compared to media capacity category) since they are more durable for storage then hard drives. This is of course not applicable if you plan to change your backed up data relativly often but if you want to back up stuff like, say, movies or pictures or something similar (essentialy readonly) I'd personally go the dvd route (making sure to buy quality dvds for the backup).

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-12-14 02:43am

If what you have is a sizable amount of video, music and other files as opposed to software backups, dvds may be your best choice for those. As it is, you might want to consider a combination of options. Personally I'd recommend backing up things such as audio, video, documents, etc. onto the DVDs, while importing the rest onto a hard drive.

That way you aren't bound to need nearly as big a hard disk to back things up on, and can save a few dollars on the side. Assuming of course you already have a DVD burner. Personally I have well over a hundred gigs worth of stuff burned onto DVDs and CDs, and it works just fine for the most part.

DaveJB · Post by **DaveJB** » 2005-12-14 04:51am

mmar wrote:And buy a SATA compatible enclosure if you go that route, PATA is an old standard that is being phased out so if you want to future-proof your enclosure its a bad idea (and considering that its inferior in general I really dont see the point of buying an enclosure with it instead of SATA). EDIT: Of course unless you have an PATA (ATA133 or similar names) extra hard drive laying around that you plan to use in it. Since the performance diffrence isn't that much, especialy when using external drives, I'd definatly buy a PATA compatible enclosure if you have that extra drive. However if you are buying both a new enclosure and drive then there is no point in using old tech (PATA) over new (SATA).

SATA/USB2 enclosures are currently pretty rare and much more expensive than PATA/USB2 enclosures, at least in the UK. Might be different in the US, I don't know.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-12-14 05:05am

What, only 40 gigs? I've had more than that on my computer both when my HD crashed and when it DIED.

External hard-drives would be the best option- however, if you have a DVD-burner, that might be a good way to go as well.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2005-12-14 06:46am

DaveJB wrote:SATA/USB2 enclosures are currently pretty rare and much more expensive than PATA/USB2 enclosures, at least in the UK. Might be different in the US, I don't know.

I thought of that, however, I've checked the prices online and they are essentialy the same, at least here (Croatia), going at the 100-300 HRK range, which is about 15-45$ range in US$.

The Prime Necromancer · Post by **The Prime Necromancer** » 2005-12-14 08:34pm

My thanks to everyone who responded. Sorry it took so long to reply, but we're currently computer-less in the house (hopefully this will be remedied by this weekend). I'm posting this from the local library.

DPDarkPrimus, you're right that 40 gigs wouldn't be a lot to most people here... but I'm not most people.

As I mentioned, my computer is 4.5 years old, wasn't "state-of-the-art" when I got it, and I haven't upgraded it. 40 gigs is its entire hard drive space (technically, it's 37.something, and I'm using 35 of it).

The DVD solution sounds interesting, but I do not have a DVD burner, only a CD-RW drive. How much would buying the burner and the DVDs be compared to the other options?

Also, should I be worried about whether my USB ports are USB2 compatible? I got my computer in June/July '01. Was USB2 already the standard then?

Finally, should I be taking a "snapshot" of everything on my drive including the operating system, or should I only be copying the files I want to keep? Last time I backed up I did the former, but that was because if the hard drive failed I intended to just buy a new hard drive and put everything back the way it was. But since I plan to be buying a new system soon, one which will probably have an operating system on it already (plus, while my current operating system is still surprisingly stable, I imagine it *has* still been undergoing a bit of rot and there's some programs installed on it I don't want to keep), do I want to do that?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-12-14 09:12pm

I just bought a new hard drive myself not half an hour ago, actually. I went for an internal, but external drives aren't that much more. Though as DPDP said, a DVD-R drive and a stack of DVDs is probably your best bet if what you're backing up is media that you don't alter very often.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-12-14 09:20pm

The Prime Necromancer wrote:My thanks to everyone who responded. Sorry it took so long to reply, but we're currently computer-less in the house (hopefully this will be remedied by this weekend). I'm posting this from the local library.

DPDarkPrimus, you're right that 40 gigs wouldn't be a lot to most people here... but I'm not most people. As I mentioned, my computer is 4.5 years old, wasn't "state-of-the-art" when I got it, and I haven't upgraded it. 40 gigs is its entire hard drive space (technically, it's 37.something, and I'm using 35 of it).

The DVD solution sounds interesting, but I do not have a DVD burner, only a CD-RW drive. How much would buying the burner and the DVDs be compared to the other options?

Also, should I be worried about whether my USB ports are USB2 compatible? I got my computer in June/July '01. Was USB2 already the standard then?

For burning DVDs, a decent burner will run you about $60.00, possibly less depending on where you get it from, what the brand is, etc. The price has really gone down over the years.

As to the USB question, do you use alot of storage devices that rely on USB connectivity? Or do you just use it for things like hooking up webcams, controllers, etc.? If it's nothing data intensive, then don't worry about upgrading too much as most 2.0 devices are backwards compatible with 1.0 and 1.1

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2005-12-15 04:26am

Altough, if it is 1.1 USB transfering data to a external hard drive will be painfully slow...

DVDs (burners and media) are now in the same situation that CDs were 2-3 years ago - cheap, commoditized and compatible. Burner should be around 60$, for your purposes its probably best to go for lowest price, excepting color choice to match the case, media are around 10$ for spindles of 20-25 empty dvds, depending on top speed and such with each media being formaly 4.7GB, but actualy 4.37 IIRC (damned storage companies declaring capacity in the 1000mb per gb format that nothing else realisticly uses).

As far as data backup goes, if you are transfering to a new computer it would probably be better to just go with the data backup route instead of the system backup route since windows doesnt enjoy motherboard (and some other things like video cards depending on weather you use the same manufacturer in both comps) transplants.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2005-12-15 04:30am

A very good DVD burner (the NEC-3540) goes for $40 at Newegg.com.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-12-15 05:41am

This is one area where a Linux-style filesystem layout would be really helpful. In a typical Windows box, there is user data all over the place: in the Program Files directory, in the fucking registry, etc. If it was all in one place (ie- the home directory in Linux), it would be much easier to back up data without wasting backup space on system files.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2005-12-15 05:48am

Darth Wong wrote:This is one area where a Linux-style filesystem layout would be really helpful. In a typical Windows box, there is user data all over the place: in the Program Files directory, in the fucking registry, etc. If it was all in one place (ie- the home directory in Linux), it would be much easier to back up data without wasting backup space on system files.

I can attest to this- broke my Ubuntu system w/ haphazard apt-pinning instead of using backports, and downgrades didn't fix it- just nuked everything except /etc (config), /var/www (server files), /usr/local (self compiled apps), /usr/src (source code for self compiled apps), and /home and reinstalled w/o problems (Yeah, I sorta have files all over the place anyway... then again, most users don't run web servers on laptops

).

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2005-12-15 03:56pm

Darth Wong wrote:This is one area where a Linux-style filesystem layout would be really helpful. In a typical Windows box, there is user data all over the place: in the Program Files directory, in the fucking registry, etc. If it was all in one place (ie- the home directory in Linux), it would be much easier to back up data without wasting backup space on system files.

True, as it is now its a pain even tho its been getting better recently (with most companies actualy puting data files and settings in My documents and the accont directory in documents and settings respectivly). WFS (due out sometime after Vista ships) is supposed to solve this with its datastore mechanism (at least on a user-understanable organisational level, dont know how well exporting will be supported, however it will probably be much better then now).