Need Backup Suggestions

Create a Post
A

ArtLady

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Founding Member
Joined
Oct 13, 1999
Posts
1,245
Loc
Lawrenceville, Georgia
I need to backup my Micron 233 MHZ 256K 10GB 16 bit computer.

This all started when I bought a Philips CDRW at UBID. I tried to do a full system back up but the drive won't span multiple cd's. So I purchased EZ CD Creator 5.0 by ROXIO. Then I learned that my CDRW is not supported by EZ CD Creator. Nor does the CDRW work correctly. My business software (Frameworker) which is unsupported is on this machine and will not run on any other machine.

Any suggestions. What do you folks use for backup?
 
ArtLady,

You should have been askin' questions before you bought the older CDRW. Many of them won't do a full system backup spanning multiple CD's.

I use a Yamaha CDRW to do all of my backups now.

I backup my system fully once. Then I do a backup of my frameshop software once a week. I also backup my website information every time I change something and, usually, I back up my graphics software whenever I have made enough new entries to warrant it.

There is no reason to completely back up your entire hard drive unless you have changes on so many programs that it is easier to back up the whole system. I will do a full system backup maybe once a year or so.

Framerguy
 
Framerguy,

Thanks for your response.

There is so much data on my computer I would not know where to start in terms of what files to back up.

May I ask what model your YAMAHA is? What are the system requirements for that device? What speeds does it run?
 
My CDRW is an older Yamaha Model CRW8424SZ and writes at 8X, rewrites at 8X, and reads at 24X. The new ones have a 30X10X40X speed and higher.

Normal computer requirements, if your computer runs Windows 95 or newer, it should be OK for any of the Yamahas.

I recently put a 40Gb hard drive on my business computer and I backed up the 8.4Gb drive onto CD's in about 2 hours. It takes some time but you don't have to do the whole thing very often.

Framerguy
 
Originally posted by Framerguy:
You should have been askin' questions before you bought the older CDRW.
Click to expand...
Oh, you mean like this?

Geez, Framerguy. You even responded. Twice.

ArtLady,

Are you wanting to transfer your entire system to a different computer, or back it up for safety and security?

I use 100-meg Zip drives to run files back and forth from the home computer to the ones at the shop. They make 250-meg Zip drives and even one that uses 10-20 GIG cartridges.

I never do a full-system backup. I back up my data on a daily basis (with the Zip drives) and I keep track of my installation discs for the programs. I figure if everything heads south (and it does, about once-a-year) I'll reformat, reinstall my operating system and programs and restore my data from the Zip discs. I do this pretty often and it's not as bad as it sounds, especially if you have a 'system restore' CD for your computer.
 
Oh yeah!.............Well,then,.......OK. (let me read this thing again)...............Yeah, Well!

So she DID buy the CDRW before she posted the first time, so THERE!!


I can't handle the pressure anymore! The "Bubba" story, the lost e-mail thingy, the Boot Suckin' Texan,..................man, I need a rest!!

KT, I headin' to Tahiti with you or without, NOW!!

Framerguy (................on the edge...............)
 
If we could leave the issue of "what" I said "when" behind us, I would like to avoid making a future mistake spending money for a CDRW that does not give me the results I want to achieve.
 
ArtLady,

I apologize for drifting off the subject. (Zippy was teasing me so it's HIS fault!).

Yamaha, HP, and LG Electronics have good reputations for products that don't break before you get them out of the box.

You can buy a decent CDRW with DVD read capabilities for around $100.00 now. Check around and run some searches on the net also. You can find some really good deals on the net.

Framerguy
 
Today at an Office Depot, I saw a Maxtor 40 gig external hard drive. It works with USB-1 but would be MUCH faster with USB-2.

You could back up your entire hard drive 4 times with this beauty, though it would take a while. It was under $200.

I have had mixed results with using a CD burner for critical backups. I have had more than a few unreadable data CDs.
 
CD's are prone to being easily damaged, we burn lots of CD's daily with a failure rate of 1.2% (Sony CDQ74N1) this is by far the most reliable CD we have used with our Kodak burners.
For the purpose of backup we have the network established and one computer for all backups which are then zipped and burned to CD (overnight) the "key" information (DBtables, logs, etc.) is not very large and we do not backup the programmes as they are easily recovered anyhow.
Lance
 
Artlady,
You may want to Try Norton Ghost to back up your HD onto a CD. Buy Norton System Works and it comes with it as well as antivirus and the rest. Ghost makes a compressed "Image" of your harddrive and can save an awful lot of data to one CD.
Keep your CD in a case and it's the safest form of personal backup there is right now.
 
I am not sure if you have solved your problem. We have had about four systems, mostly tape drives, over the past 10 years to back up our system. We back up our main server a few minutes before we close up for the day. We have a server and five workstations.

Our latest tape drive was a TR4 that held 8 gig on each tape and the disk would back up the data about 20 times as we used a different tape for each day of the week. It took about 20 minutes to back up.

We just switched to a removable 40 gig hard drive and it does backup in less than 5 minutes. You need to buy a "slot tray" that you fasten in the computer where the hard drives normally fit. The slot tray cost $20 Can$ or about $13.00 US$. The 40 gig hard drive was $130 Can$ or about $85 US$. The software is Mircrosoft and I think we found it already in one of their programs we had.

The drive slips in and out as easy as inserting a cassette into your car radio.

After backing up for a week with just one removeable drive we bought a second one and use one, one day, and the second one the next day. This way if one drive packs it in we are only out one day's data. It works so well I am picking up another drive to use the same way on my home computer.

Alan Sturgess
 
Create a Post
Back
Top