OK, I didn't back up, system went down and I paid the price.
I'm so dumb, I don't even know a good way to backup in an organised manner.
May I have some guidance please?:

- What's the good hardware to use? DVD, HDD, external, internal, etc?

- and of course a good program, preferably one that I can start and let
copy everything on my working HDD, without me having to make too many
decisions.

- Any suggested websites, for learning backup basics?

Thanks
Jordan

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Jordan,

Before anyone can recommend a suitable backup strategy, it would be useful
to know exactly what type of system you are trying to backup. Desktop?
Server? Exchange Server? OS? etc. etc. etc.

For desktop backup, if you have a large amount of data to backup, I would
recommend using an external USB hard drive and Powerquest Drive Image (now
known as Norton Ghost 9.0)

I have used this method for some time and it has worked faultlessly and got
me out of trouble on several occasions. Disaster recovery is very quick and
easy and you get a perfectly restored hard drive.

At least that's my experience :-)

Alan

"Jordan" <jwprincic@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:42280d38$0$31617$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
> OK, I didn't back up, system went down and I paid the price.
> I'm so dumb, I don't even know a good way to backup in an organised
> manner.
> May I have some guidance please?:
>
> - What's the good hardware to use? DVD, HDD, external, internal, etc?
>
> - and of course a good program, preferably one that I can start and let
> copy everything on my working HDD, without me having to make too many
> decisions.
>
> - Any suggested websites, for learning backup basics?
>
> Thanks
> Jordan

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Thanks Alan - you've guessed right, it's a standalone desktop computer.
I do generate lots of data.

What's the advantage of an external drive?

Jordan

ETA wrote:
>
> For desktop backup, if you have a large amount of data to backup, I would
> recommend using an external USB hard drive and Powerquest Drive Image (now
> known as Norton Ghost 9.0)
>

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

you do not want to backup to an internal drive for at least the following
reasons:

1. you should swap backup drives often, i.e., to have more than one copy.
swapping internal drives ain't so easy.

2. in a worst case scenario, you could easily move the external drive to
another system to recover files.

i use two external USB drives, alternating between the two, never having
both connected at the same time to reduce chance both will be munged by
power problems.

i use dantz retrospect for backup see http://www.dantz.com/

--
http://www.standards.com/; See Howard Kaikow's web site.
"Jordan" <jwprincic@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:4228df0b$0$31621$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...[vbcol=seagreen]
> Thanks Alan - you've guessed right, it's a standalone desktop computer.
> I do generate lots of data.
>
> What's the advantage of an external drive?
>
> Jordan
>
> ETA wrote: 
would[vbcol=seagreen] 
(now[vbcol=seagreen] 

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Jordan,

Tape Drives are becoming obsolete for the desktop user. Too much hassle
to verify the reliability and do an actual restore of a sequential slow
backup method. Disk to Disk, whether internal, network or FTP is a
preferred method among many.

Many drive manufacturers have the external Shared Storage or One Touch
type external USB hard drives. This is a good and inexpensive option
(Say, $1 per GB, so 300 GB external drive may be still priced at $300).


Do be careful with thinking that you can direct write to mant CD/DVD
players. Most programs require a full compressed zip to the hard drive
then to use your CD RW software to copy the file to CD.

Many programs can be trial evaluated with demo software on
www.download.com. Find the ones with the easiest interface to complete
a automated scheduled full-back.

Mark

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]