Backing up my data

[Craiglc1]

Didn't find anything that quite applied in the search so....

Situation:
Three Machines (2 desktop 1 laptop) all on a simple network (hub)

One of the desktops has a shared folder which houses about 3 gigs of information mostly documents. Word, Excel, PDF etc.

Problem:
I am constantly updating these things and I need a simple back up procedure that maybe has up to a five gig capacity. ( room for growth ).

Solution:
????

My first thought was remembering back in the day with my external zip drive. I know they made "Jazz" drives to that used to work by the gig I think. That being to small I started thinking of USB or serial external hard drives. So obviously I am a cheap bastard and looking for the least expensive option that is just a step more professional then copying the folder to another machine on the network. Any thoughts from the peanut gallery? I don't mind a little more work to be cheap or free I would want to be able to back this up probably every friday.

 

[Mercutio]

Well, I'll throw out the usual plug for TrueImage + some kind of USB drive, but that's all stuff that costs money.

You could maybe look into Microsoft's SyncToy Tool, which allows you to mirror the contents of arbitrary directories in multiple locations, including network drives.

 

[ddrueding]

I would set up a system where the other two machines grab a copy of the data at scheduled intervals. Free, easy, and double-redundant.

The SyncToy that Merc referred to looks great.

 

[Craiglc1]

Awesome!

I actually had a head slapping moment when I realized I probably have at least a few Hard drives of ten or more gig I could just put in the machine. This tool Mercutio suggests sounds even better in that I could put the hard drive in a different computer! Much more safety for the data. And who doesnt enjoy safe data

 

[Mercutio]

And who doesnt enjoy safe data

The homeboy whose post is right above yours seems to have some problems with "safe" anything. I personally have photos of ddrueding snorting his cocaine of off the ass of a leprous midget hooker while SMSing while driving blindfolded and simultaneously putting five WD Raptors in a software RAID0.

Get help, David, before it's too late.

 

[ddrueding]

The RAID-0 of Raptors is just for the Vista. The redundant JBOD arrays of Seagate Barracudas is for stuff I care about.

 

[ddrueding]

I personally have photos of ddrueding snorting his cocaine of off the ass of a leprous midget hooker while SMSing while driving blindfolded and simultaneously putting five WD Raptors in a software RAID0.

I read this and started laughing, so my GF comes over and reads it. Her response?

"Why didn't you tell me about that?"

 

[Bozo]

The RAID-0 of Raptors is just for the Vista. The redundant JBOD arrays of Seagate Barracudas is for stuff I care about.

Guess I better step it up some. I only have 3 WD Raptors in RAID 0 :crap:

Bozo :joker:

 

[Buck]

XCOPY, Batch File and Scheduled Tasks are great for backing up data across a network.

I prefer creating a soft RAID0 with 4 external WD drives.