On backup (was: Argh! where have all my stacks gone?)

[David Vaughan]

On Friday, Jan 17, 2003, at 09:02 Australia/Sydney, Arthur Evans Jr 
wrote:
>
> It may be too late for you, I don't know. But my advice for others and 
> for you in the future is to use a REGULAR BACKUP STRATEGY!
snip
> If you don't like DAT, use some other strategy. But, pick some 
> strategy that with minimum effort on your part backs up all your 
> files, and STICK TO THAT STRATEGY.

Despite many other digital extravagances, I have never stretched to 
decent tape, but part of my strategy has been to define what it is I 
_need_ to back up. I defined what comprised the absolute core, 
business-critical information not existing elsewhere and which I could 
not recreate. This basically came down to current consulting files, 
various accounting files, some Rev devs and a HyperCard stack (still) 
containing 14 years of contacts and notes. Remarkably, this all amounts 
to only a few hundred MB.

I work 99.5% on a TiBook so I have added a 1GB IBM Microdrive to its PC 
slot and, during the day, just drag modified critical files across to 
it or do a Switchback run to cover the lot. Second level of backup is a 
much broader range of documents which are non-critical but not of 
course readily recreated. These, as well as the core, take up only a 
few GB on a 20GB iPod, so I have two levels of backup even while 
travelling. The third level of backup is all documents to the desktop 
system at home, where I put anything which I do not have on CD 
(applications) or can not readily download from the source.

Tape is still lovely but portability changes the rules (e.g. consider 
theft as well), and prioritising your pain for when it fails is also a 
valuable exercise.

BTW, I always use Altuit's archive plugin as mentioned by Alex. The 
problem David Glasgow suffered has appeared on this list before...

regards
David
>
> Good luck!
>
> Art Evans
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