Topic: Automatic File Backup in Windows 6 Home Premium

[andyhx]

Hi
It seems that Windows auto file backup creates a new full backup the first time the program runs after the end of the calendar year - can ayone confirm this and is there a way of overriding it, or shall i just delete last years backup set now i have this years done (weekly) - strange qn to ask in March i know!
cheers
Andy

[Rik]

Sorry, Andy, I don't trust automated backups, so always do things manually.

[Simon]

Hopefully Sandra will be in later.  I believe she's used Windows 7.

[Sandra]

I havent used that facilty yet but I thought that there would be various settings available to allow you to schedule when and what to backup.

[sam]

Sorry, Andy, I don't trust automated backups, so always do things manually.

seriously? I dont trust manual backups and so automate things (but check the output occasionally). I wouldn't trust microsoft backup though.

[sam]

Hi
It seems that Windows auto file backup creates a new full backup the first time the program runs after the end of the calendar year - can ayone confirm this and is there a way of overriding it, or shall i just delete last years backup set now i have this years done (weekly) - strange qn to ask in March i know!
cheers
Andy

I'd be very careful about deleting backups - can you check out the backups? i.e. see what it has in it?

[Sandra]

OK I am on my laptop running windows 7 ultimate now and have had a look at the options for the backup.
You can schedule them to run daily, weekly or monthly or not at all, and can let windows decide what to back up or select which folders you want to back up. You can also do a backup at anytime you wish.
I must admit I rarely back up anything on my boot drive as I can reinstall everything if needed and sometimes its a good thing to remove some no longer used programs or to update them to newer versions. I keep backups of programs, music, photos and videos etc on external hard drives and DVDs

[sam]

do you run this daily, weekly or manually Sandra?

I'm a daily to weekly person depending on the disk - but in linux there are so many nice tools to do backups based on file differences and so doesn't take up much space. Rsync is nice - I tend to backup over a network to another machine so that uses SSH to send the files.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=895

I keep meaning to use: http://rsnapshot.org/ - which looks excellent. It supports windows clients but the server has to be some linux variant.

On windows, I'm not sure if I'd ever trust the auto software though. I used some that came with my Western Digital disk before and I was presently surprised how good it was - got me out of a pickle at least once.


Andy - I was assuming you were running Windows 7? Is that correct, just the title of the post confuses me. Maybe this is of use? http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Back-up-your-files

[Sandra]

do you run this daily, weekly or manually Sandra?

As I said earlier Sam I dont backup my boot drive. I used to in my early days when using 98SE and XP but only usually by making an image file after I had installed the OS and the most commonly used programs.

I occassionally manually back up files such as programs, videos, photos, music and a few documents onto DVDs or external hard drives, but most is duplicated on another PC already. I just bought a 1 terabyte esata/usb drive last week as I have some old TV series that I struggled to get hold of that I want to make sure I dont lose, so I will probably back up a lot of other stuff onto that as well.

[sam]

I occassionally manually back up files such as programs, videos, photos, music and a few documents onto DVDs or external hard drives, but most is duplicated on another PC already. I just bought a 1 terabyte esata/usb drive last week as I have some old TV series that I struggled to get hold of that I want to make sure I dont lose, so I will probably back up a lot of other stuff onto that as well.

That's what I meant not the boot drive. The OS drive really is irrelevant if you don't store anything but programs on there - its just a process of rebuilding. I tend to sync my current data drives with others (at work daily, at home bi-weekly)

[Sandra]

Not very often Sam. Maybe once every 6 months or just around the time the hard drive fails when I am thinking maybe its time I backed it up 

[Simon]

I'm the same, Sandra.  The only things I back up fairly regularly, are mine and the business accounts. 

[Clive]

I have a Western Digital 250 GB backup drive which is shared between all 3 computers.  It's as easy to use as a memory stick and just as transportable.

[sam]

PC World have an excellent deal on external drives at the moment for 60 quid I got a 500GB WD external passport drive today... nice and small :-D and fits in the trouser pocket. Much better than the big ones I've been carrying to and from Canada.

[Simon]

That sounds really useful, Sam.