Bit of a Scare.....

[Diamond Gals]

Hey there

 

Had a bit of a scare at the weekend, out computer crashed on us and it was a bit touch n go whether it was the hard drive or not.

 

Thank fully it wasnt, it was the power unit, but have been having kittens all weekend as we never have backed up the system.

 

now i have heard that you can buy software to do this and wondered it any of my fellow engravers can recommend a software or how you actually backup yourselves? we have the Gravostyle 5 version and wondered if any backup software is compatable with this.

 

look forward to hearing from you guys...

 

cheers

 

mel

[Michael]

You can buy a 500GB usb external hard drive from somewhere like PC World for about £60 or £70.

 

Back up your whole hard drive every couple of weeks, bobs your uncle..

[Gray]

Call me over cautious but i've got an external hard drive and a computer at home which is a clone of the one i have in work here and all my engraving jobs on a USB memory stick.

[k4mrc]

maplins have some of these, and cheap as chips..

[hibsjo(SCO)]

yeh i have a cloned hard drive everything is on it,so if comp crashes in shop pop it out and replace no need to load everything again, back up all saved jobs on external hard drive.

dont be foolish when it comes to backing all data up better to be safe than sorry.

carry on!

[Mick Friend]

I have a 1Tb on the broadband wireless server and automatic backups every night - once lost a months work on a book I was writing - never ever managed to write the same chapters as good as the first ones.

If I am doing something extra important I have a zip drive that will back up every 5 mins, only on the files I am working on - I then store these off site - and finally I have 5Gb on a remote server someplace in the USA - that takes all my important files every wednesday morning and holds them.

 

You know it makes sense

[Craig Gardner]

i run 7 pcs in my shop all are networked and fed from a main server in the back office which has 2 hard drives it automaticaly saves all files on both hard drives.i also back my server up twice a week onto an external hard drive which i take home.we have far to much data to risk loosing and bear in mind it does not just take a crashed computer to loose a hard drive imagine the worst and hopefully it will never happen to you but i was broken into about 5 years ago and they stole my server all data gone so thats why i not only back everything up i take the data home.a break in or even worse a fire could loose your data and no point backing it up and leaving it in the shop to be burnt or stolen.

Craig

[Diamond Gals]

thanks guys

 

need to get some serious backing up system in place, will contact the guy who sorted my computer out to see how you go about cloning a hard drive.

 

thanks ever so xx

[Lee]

Call me over cautious but i've got an external hard drive and a computer at home which is a clone of the one i have in work here and all my engraving jobs on a USB memory stick.

it automaticaly saves all files on both hard drives.

 

so does a "clone" mean all your programs can be used on another computer?

 

How do you automatically save on BOTH drives?

 

(I want one!)

 

I currently use BT digital vault, its easy but expensive, whats my options?

 

Lee

[Mick Friend]

Lee speak to an expert - ignore best mates ideas.

I THINK you need two drives the same size then you add a programe like ghost that makes a clone of the first drive. If one drive fails the other slips in seamlessly.

 

Still does not stop some tosspot nicking the machine unless your drive is portable - the server in my shop was on a high shelf had a steel cage around it padlocked, black and white screen and tatty keyboard. it ran almost nonstop for 7 years had to replace the power pack once and turned it off at Christmas etc - but it worked and I only ditched it about 2 years ago as I had 9 PC's in the basement store of my house in spain.

 

With most software you may have a problem of the clones working on another system they do all sorts of checksums. but worth some investigation from experiance you cant recover lost or stolen data. I think one of the big insurance companies once estimated total data loss in a medium sized company would lead to bankruptcy within 6 months.

Mind you with all your £50 notes sewn into the kids matress.......

[Craig Gardner]

Call me over cautious but i've got an external hard drive and a computer at home which is a clone of the one i have in work here and all my engraving jobs on a USB memory stick.

it automaticaly saves all files on both hard drives.

 

so does a "clone" mean all your programs can be used on another computer?

 

How do you automatically save on BOTH drives?

 

(I want one!)

 

I currently use BT digital vault, its easy but expensive, whats my options?

 

Lee

 

no idea how it was done i got a computer geek to sort it out it cost me about £700 that was him suppling a new server with the two drives all set up i just click a couple of buttons to also make a back up on my portable hard drive but i think it is only the files that are backed up on the server ie all engraving jobs and invoices etc if i put it on another pc i woulkd need to install office and the engraver software agin then all the files would be normal and the desktop would look the same.

Craig