Indie Data Backup - this is boring but important

external hard drive. how often? not enough.

i do have my information on a few sources and also email my docs to myself as well.

since the majority of my work is on computer, with the exception of the decorating side, losing my data would screw me over big time. its helpful that i have a design partner so we always have copies of our designs at each others places. ;)

Daily to a separate PC on local network using SyncBack - http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/syncback-hub.html. Then weekly backups of zipped files to FTP server using same app.

All of this is automated. Every-so-often backup to USB drive, but if it isn't automated it isn't done.

That is one of the biggest benefits to a hosted system like the CRM (client relationship mgmt) that I work with. It is on your local machine for whaen you are off-line, but when you are connected it is doing a constant backup to a web based database. That way if your machine ever crashes, gets lost or stolen, everything is still there. You just download the software to your new machine and you are off and running. I think that a lot more businesses are seeing the benefits of hosted services, especially small businesses without IT departments to handle this sort of thing.

As a digital photographer my backup strategy is extremely important, Its a simple scenario, If my machine went down (hard drive crash) and I had no backup I would lose years of work, work that simply can not be replaced, so I take backup fairly seriously.

My system is fairly simple,. 2nd hard drive in Box (not the OS hard drive) stores master files, that hard drive gets backed up to a large external USB drive once a week, there is also a secondary backup from the master files that runs once a month out to a large NAS drive, then once a year (or so) I burn all crucial new images onto DVD.

All paying jobs go through this same system but also once the job is done they go directly to DVD labled for that job.

All my little business doc's just go along for the ride with my photo files.

I think soon ill need to come up with an off site strategy as well. probably including DVD's or tapes in a bank vault somewhere.

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