How Often Do You Backup Your Data?

I used to back up, you reminded me to set up Timemachine, but it does slow my laptop down and update at inconvenient times. Right now I use Dropbox for my writing as it's quicker, but I need to do a bit of a cleanup to remove downloads etc that don't need or want.

 

I am not proud to say that I don't back up my data nearly as often as I feel that I should, but half the time I don't even want to think about the possibility of possibly losing my data, and just tell myself that it won't happen, hence why I don't back up said date more often. But as for how often, I'd say every three to two months.

 

I don't do it at all, because my husband takes care of it all. I have to say that he's very much on the ball with it all. I don't know exactly how often he does, but I know it's often. I'd honestly be lost without him making sure everything's safe and secure, and that our machines are running smoothly LOL

 

Google takes care of my backup data, and I've got 118GB of free storage, so I'm not complaining. Data backup isn't that necessary for every person. I have all of my files and photos backed up, but I can afford to lose them, including the work documents. Backup is nice, but then users always run the risk of having things backed up in the cloud being compromised by third parties.

 

You know I have never backed up the data on my desktop that I have been running for the last 10 years.
I have 10 years worth of taxes, photo's, finances and other stuff that I would actually be a huge pain if I ever lost it.
Going to look into getting it all backed up. There is lots there I hope I can get it backed up for cheap.

 

I back my data up pretty often, since I learned my lesson about not having it handy in certain circumstances. First time I had my first laptop repaired I didn’t have backups of most of my music, which made me panic. Not to mention I missed a lot of it when I had to use another computer. I haven’t made that mistake again! I do only rely on physical media at the moment, though. I ought to look into cloud storage.

 

Yeah I do back up my data, but only using flash drives or my email. My internet connection isn't that fast, so it's a drag for me to upload all those files. It slows down my pc too.

 

That’s the main reason I haven’t utilized cloud storage yet. One of these days I hope this circumstance changes, slow internet is such a bugaboo!

 

Yeah, we feel each other's "pain" then, lol. Do you also think it's a drag uploading each single file individually? It's time consuming too, right? I wish there was a way we can mass upload a whole folder instead of selecting an item individually.

 

I can’t even imagine uploading all my files one by one. I have a pretty staggering amount of music and it would take days upon days to upload it all that way, even with the fastest possible connection. Batch uploading would be a must for me.

 

I'm using dropbox and put things into folders. You can drag the whole folder in and it will synch.
I'm not sure what you are using, but that's what I'm doing. I keep photos there too, but I do have a lot of storage so far still.

 

I googled to see if there's a way to upload files in one batch, and my search led me to a tutorial on how to upload mulitple files to Skydrive:

Log In

I just wonder what are the privacy risks in synching our PC to Skydrive. I should research more on this.

If it's only gonna sync the folders that I specify, then that's good. I thought it automatically uploads everything I save. However, my net connection sucks, so I opt to not avail of such services yet.

 

@sidney

Yes, that's why I only select certain things I know I need, otherwise you hoard and end up cluttered. It also means I can access it from another computer if I need to. I hate google drive, but I guess it can be useful for some people. I have multiple gmail accounts so I have no idea what is in half the drives that I may have clicked on by accident. Tidying up all my gmail accounts would be a nightmare. My bad...

 

After 3 pc's malfunctioned on me and losing my files on them, I still haven't learned my lesson, so now I really ought to take a look at these online file storage sites. Why don't you like Google Drive? Is it too invasive? After all, Chrome is recording our key strokes to improve their drop down search engine suggestions.

 

Not often enough.

I have a few back ups of previous versions of my PC and files. To be honest, I should make more frequent backups, but there are not that many files I would cry over if I lost. I might be disappointed, but it's not like I'd pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to get them recovered.

Could be that I did not learn my lesson good enough because, last time my HDD crashed, I could still access it's data by putting it in my external drive case. Oh well. Whatever, my stepdad is also in IT and tries to hammer it into me. But I just will not be arsed.

 

Just once a year or less - yes, I am that lazy. I know I should get into the habit of backing up my data soon but the possibility of losing all the files stored in my laptop still isn't sinking in. Anyway, I've been thinking of buying a 1 terabyte portable hard drive which usually costs between $45 to $50. I'll use it to back up the files in my laptop. Unfortunately, I have other expenses to attend to so the backup plan has to wait until there's enough funding available.

 

I don't use Chrome for that reason! I have saved things to google drive, but like you I have about a dozen accounts and sometimes I find a lot of error reports when I an trying to access them. It is useful though, but if you have the email it's like storing a file anyhow, so I often email documents to myself and like a resume or photo and that keeps a copy in the sent folder.

So Google Drive I find can be unreliable, plus I have to sign out and into the right account. It's fine as a backup, but with Dropbox I keep it on my desktop.

 

If you're getting error messages while trying to login, then that means you're not remembering your own login credentials, which is on you. Email isn't that secure, especially if you're using a client like Yahoo! Mail, especially compared to Cloud Storage as long as you know what you're doing.

Also, Google has a convenient feature that lets you switch between your accounts at the press of a button without having to verify you username and password constantly. So there's that.

 

@Theo, I also get that login error too, even while I'm still logged in to the said account. What I do is I just clear my cookies and problem solved. Google even loses my emails, since I certainly didn't delete them. And they never returned to my inbox too. I had the missing emails issue with Hotmail, but when I logged in at another time, the emails were back again. So for that reason, I am using Yahoo as my primary email, since 2000 I never lost any emails there. So I think when I decide to sync my files then I will choose either Dropbox or Skydrive.