OT: how do you protect/backup your works?

[eky]

This is kind of off-topic as it applies to people in all forums but I thought I'd post it here.

What method do you use to back up your graphic work? After a hard disk failure I now back up all work regularly. I used to use a Zip drive but then started using my CD-RW drive because it's possible to format a cd to act like another drive using Adaptec directcd software (which is now called Roxio), which I thought was great. I now discover that using a cd as a disk drive has risks. For example, if you're saving a big file and your computer freezes or stops, you can lose all data on the cd and the disk becomes completely unreadable. What backup methods do you use that you are happy with/confident in?

[eky]

This is kind of off-topic as it applies to people in all forums but I thought I'd post it here.

What method do you use to back up your graphic work? After a hard disk failure I now back up all work regularly. I used to use a Zip drive but then started using my CD-RW drive because it's possible to format a cd to act like another drive using Adaptec directcd software (which is now called Roxio), which I thought was great. I now discover that using a cd as a disk drive has risks. For example, if you're saving a big file and your computer freezes or stops, you can lose all data on the cd and the disk becomes completely unreadable. What backup methods do you use that you are happy with/confident in?

[Judi A]

Do you mean if you are saving a file to a CD when you computer freezes up you can loose all it's data. Or are you saying if you have a CD in the drive and your computer freezes up while saving a file to the hard drive the CD can become ruined? If so that is scary.

[Ross Macintosh]

Judi - Eky is saying the first.

[Oystein]

I use CD to backup for external use - that is cheap. I have one folder with "important files". Remember to take a copy of fonts. Remember to write the date and what´s on the CD - you know why? Ask your mother to keep a copy of a disk or two.

I also use a slavedisk, and both disks are partioned. Make a copy of importent files to each physichal disks. Use winzip as an archive - and drop new files into the zipfile. Clever and compressed.

If you have money, you can buy a real backupsystem.

[traceyp]

Eky

There are two of us here who have CD-RW drives but quite frankly we're not 100% happy with them.

With all due respect to Oystein, I don't really think he has answered your question. Essentialy, I don't think I would EVER entrust saving a large file to CD straight from any program - we've had too many problems trying that - we save to hard disk and then copy to a CD once we've finished for the day. With the cost of hard drives these days you would be much better off getting another, larger, hard disk and saving directly to that. Then, once you have it on hard disk and you've finished your editing for the day/session, you can copy it to your CD writer in the knowledge that you have it safe on your hard disk should the disk copy process crash.

I don't know what sort of PC you have or how PC savvy you are but current ATX motherboards normally have a means of fitting up to eight hard disks/IDE devices. Currently I have three hard disks on my PC as well as two CD drives and you may be able to do likewise.

Hope this has been helpful

Tracey

[Erik Heyninck]

I use two HDD and save all my work to both.

And when something important is finished, I save to CD-R. I never use CD-RW as it is, in my experience, asking for trouble. And CD-R's are really cheap nowadays.

Although it is far from the most popular software, I use Nero because after burning a CD-R you can let Nero verify whether the files are correctly copied.

If you don't work against time, time often works for you.

[eky]

I was surprised to learn recently that CD-RWs are much less reliable than CD-Rs. Though I liked being able to save and replace new versions of data on the same disks and being able to reuse to space, I think I will now use CD-Rs instead and eventually install a second hard drive.

[juergen]

that are really reliable in my opinion.

for years now I use MO drives and disks for backups. They are fast and the most reliable of all the media I know.
Tapes can loose their contents after only 2 years if not refreshed, even CD loose data after 10 years or if not stored correctly. HD's can suffer from the same problems.
MO disks combine the best of all worlds if you want backup copies that last for a looong time.

juergen

[traceyp]

Juergen

I don't THINK I'm thick, dense or whatever since I always do my own upgrades and repairs to my PC including a week ago, the replacement of my motherboard. However, I just don't know what you mean by MO drives and disks. Would these have anything to do with Optical drives and disks? I'm afraid its a term I can't remember coming across so far, at least not in my reading, anyway.

Tracey