Question regards backing up & corrupt files. How do you avoid this?

[Technique]

Now i remember from last month some people took exception to how i used the term 'backing up' but i'll just go with what the average joe on the street would call it - simply making a copy of the stuff you have on your PC for example, be that dragging and dropping to an external HDD, using something like Acronis to make an image or whatever.

 

This question leans more towards the making an image option, but it just applies to making a copy in general.

 

Question is how do you avoid bad backups?

I know some of you have setups where one hard drive will mirror another. Others of you have a copy at home, a copy at your parents house, one in your mother in laws house, another in a bunker 100ft below ground etc.

 

 

The reason i ask this stems from an issue i had with an iPhone backup lately. Now if i'm going to do anything major to my phone (such as erasing it before sending it in to a store) i'll make 6 backups. 3 backups on my PC via 3 different USB ports and the same on the laptop.

Now i know one of the bigger members on this board was mocking that idea because they liked to pretend it took a ton of time out of my schedule (like clicking backup and walking away for 20 minutes is really time consuming!) but i did this to minimise any 'bad' backups. The one time i did only 1 backup and i can't restore from it because it's faulty.

 

Now you could backup the PC, make images of, whatever, and then make copies of those backups but if the original backups are duff in any way then your copy of the backup is also going to be duff.

 

Just wondering how you minimise that risk?

[Circaflex]

  On 28/01/2019 at 23:03, Technique said:

Now i remember from last month some people took exception to how i used the term 'backing up' but i'll just go with what the average joe on the street would call it - simply making a copy of the stuff you have on your PC for example, be that dragging and dropping to an external HDD, using something like Acronis to make an image or whatever.

 

This question leans more towards the making an image option, but it just applies to making a copy in general.

 

Question is how do you avoid bad backups?

I know some of you have setups where one hard drive will mirror another. Others of you have a copy at home, a copy at your parents house, one in your mother in laws house, another in a bunker 100ft below ground etc.

 

 

The reason i ask this stems from an issue i had with an iPhone backup lately. Now if i'm going to do anything major to my phone (such as erasing it before sending it in to a store) i'll make 6 backups. 3 backups on my PC via 3 different USB ports and the same on the laptop.

Now i know one of the bigger members on this board was mocking that idea because they liked to pretend it took a ton of time out of my schedule (like clicking backup and walking away for 20 minutes is really time consuming!) but i did this to minimise any 'bad' backups. The one time i did only 1 backup and i can't restore from it because it's faulty.

 

Now you could backup the PC, make images of, whatever, and then make copies of those backups but if the original backups are duff in any way then your copy of the backup is also going to be duff.

 

Just wondering how you minimise that risk?

Expand  

I don't bother with complete images anymore, I can just restore my files and install a few applications in no time on a clean install. I don't do enough customization to warrant a full image backup in my case. I make regular backups of my users folder, which includes your iPhone data. 

[+Warwagon MVC]

On the stuff I really care about, to minimize corruption I turn on versioning and keep 14 different versions. This way if I catch a correction I have noncorrupt ones to go back to. 

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

I back up my files whenever a significant change to them occurs.  This could mean once a day, or it could mean every few days.  Right now, backups go to a secondary computer and alternating external HDDs since I do not have a full network set up (the joys of moving).

 

Regards,

 

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[thisdude]

Like @circaflex I don't bother with making images anymore. That reminds me of the Win2K/WinXP days! All the photos I take now are with my phone and that's automatically backed up to the cloud, along with contacts so that's a significant something I don't have to worry about. My email is web based so I don't have to worry about that. I don't download music and movies like I did back in the 2K/XP days. I use streaming services for all of that.

 

Now I still have important documents and misc files on my laptop. So I use OneDrive to back them up. I have a Microsoft Office subscription and you get 1TB of OneDrive. I also use an external HD that I plug in now and then to make sure I have a copy of all those files locally in case something happens to my laptop. This way I can walk into a BestBuy or order a new one online and don't have to spend a long time downloading my files again.

 

This strategy seems to work for me, going on 2 years now. And I've never had issues with corrupt files.

 

[Marujan]

save it to mega.nz far far away from your home

[dipsylalapo Supervisor]

Yeah as others have said I haven't botherd with creating an image for my phone in a long time 

• Photos are automatically backed to the cloud
• Contacts and emails are all web based
• Google keeps a list of my apps
• My most used messaging app, WhatsApp, is backed up daily to my Google drive
• If I remember I occasionally backup my Nova Launcher settings

I think you mentioned that you were backing up an iPhone, why not use the iCloud facility?