I have a Mac G4, and I’m concerned about keeping my files backed up and safe in case of breakdown. So far I do two things:
Zip disks. I have four 250 MB Zip disks; between them I’m able to keep everything I’d want to keep except program files themselves. I update these occasionally.
CD-RW’s. I didn’t realize that CD-R’s were cheaper (and besides, I consider it kind of wasteful to just use and toss them), so I got some CD-RW’s. Trouble is, I can’t figure out how to alter the files on them again. But nonetheless, I’m able to back up practically everything I’d want to, including program files. I make a new one once every couple of months.
What would y’all suggest I add to this regimen (new stuff only, please; stepping up the frequency on what I do already is something I consider a separate matter). Retrospect looks interesting. Portable external HDs are neat, but a little expensive, though if that’s what it takes, I’ll consider it an investment.
A cd burner is pretty much unabeatable in the cost department. The burners themselves can be had for 50$ and the cds are usually found for less than 50 cents a disk. Plus the cd is permanent and not going to be harmed by magnetics and cheap enough to do weekly or even daily (especially using a re-writable cd) backups. Cheap enough also to back up entire programs or downloaded files.
Here’s another vote for a DVD burner. I got mine for $99 and it handles all formats. 4.7GB beats the hell out of 700MB. I use Norton Ghost to back up my system and it’s nice to be able to fit it all on one disc instead of 4!
I just use a (second) external Firewire hard drive. Every month I plug it in, erase it, then drag everything from my system onto the backup drive. Only annoyance is that MacOS X will nag me once in a while for an administrator password (when it’s copying some of the OS system stuff), but that’s a minor hassle IMO.
External or separate internal hard drive is the fastest+quickest, easily. Just organize your files so that you can drag your folders across and overwrite. With an external USB you can even unplug it the rest of the time if you’re really paranoid.
I do not trust Zip disks, I have here a Zip250 USB that just plain conked out, after very little use. It also had problems with corruption occurring while reading or writing, and I saw this problem on my own WIn98 computer as well as the WinNT and ME computers at the college I was going to–and if a zip disk got corrupted, that usually meant that eveything on it was lost (this was before CD-R drives got cheap) and the only way to re-use it was to re-format it. And what’s funny is that for years afterwards, I still got spam from Iomega–and they are one of the PC companies I am highly unlikely to ever buy anything from again. I spent about $180 on a zip drive that probably got used less than 100 times total before it stopped working entirely.
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But nonetheless, I’m able to back up practically everything I’d want to, including program files. I make a new one once every couple of months.