How often do you back up your data?

[Eneukman 1]

Let's be honest now, how many of you back up your critical data on a regular basis? Fortunately, I do so roughly every 2 weeks or so and last did so last week.

 

Last night, I went to update an excel file, which contains a number of formulae to save me having to tell the PC what computations I want it to do every time. Now, for some strange reason last night, the totals didn't change when I changed one figure. I could re-enter the formula but when I changed one of the figures, the total stayed the same. This particular workbook has a number of worksheets - mainly historical data - and whenever I tried entering a formula on a different worksheet, it worked the first time but refused to change the total whenever I changed one figure. There's no virus in the file and the file itself is encrypted. Any thoughts as to what has happened here?

 

Fortunately, the damage caused was minimal as it was a simple matter of copying over the back up file and changing a few figures. The formulae it contains seem to be working OK.

 

A pain in the back side but it could easily have been much worse.

 

Alan

[eltilza 0]

I know what the correct answer is

 

every day

 

in reality the day after the pc crashes and i have to do a software rebuild using a pre environment

like the last two times

 

i was toying with the idea of raid on the desktop pc and a software backup on the laptop but never have got round to it yet

 

a 2 gb flash drive would hold most of the data except music and movies - just essential docs and spreadsheets

[Eneukman 1]

Found why the formulae I had inserted weren't doing the calculations automatically.

 

In Tools - Options - Calculation, there is an automatic and manual option. The default setting is automatic but for some unknown reason, this changed to manual in this particular file. I have no idea how this happened as the only reason I ever go into this particular area is to change the precison option to "Precision as displayed". In this particular file, this isn't required so I have never had the need to even go into the Options drop down box.

 

The change was also made on the back up file I started using a few days ago so I can only imagine that there is one of those short-cuts that Microsoft keep secret that I'm unknowingly finding.

 

Alan

[farangkwaiyai 46]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup

 

My friend uses a system that copies all the data across a few hard drives that way if he loses one, he still has it all, this is a method used by people/companies with servers. I just simply burn a couple of dvd's every now and again, I do not use any method i am too lazy, i just know that if anything happens, it will be there someday. In addition I use my USB flash pen to temporary back up.

 

I guess i should get norton ghost running often.

[mykl 72]

I personaly would not use Ghost for periodic backups, there are better options. Where Ghost shines is the ability to make a bit perfect copy of your disk. For example when you buy a new computer and get it set initially the way you want it with all your programs installed and settings as you want them. Ghost it and if your hard drive goes south you can bring the system back to it's pristine state in minimum time. A lot of people do this once a year anyway, even if everything is working. That way only your data files need to be backed up on a regular basis. If you keep them in a separate partition you can backup just the changed files on a regular basis. There are literally dozens of utilities to do this or you can roll your own with dos commands from the command line.