GCU Forum - Backups!

Tom_133317 Gold Member artist Posts: 2169	Backups! Feb 6^th, 2010, 11:13pm My dear friend PamJ (Pamela as you know her here) just informed me she has had a hard disk crash and may be offline for a while. This is a good reminder to do a full backup of our work using another computer on a network, an external USB hard drive, or one of the online back-up systems! Poor PAM!
Back to top	Comical Captions: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/ComicalCaptions IP Logged

Eve_138255 Ex Member	Re: Backups! Reply #1 - Feb 6^th, 2010, 11:20pm I back up my work on two external hard drives every weekend. Once you've had it happen to you, you never take chances again.
Back to top	IP Logged

Rosanne_132497 Gold Member artist Posts: 611	Re: Backups! Reply #2 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 12:22am Nasty - poor Pam. Hopefully, the data techs can recover her files. Thanks for the timely reminder, Tom. I usually backup frequently but I'll make an extra special effort this evening. Cheers, Rosanne
Back to top	Red Rose Digital Art Greeting Cards: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/RedRoseDigitalArt IP Logged

Tom_133317 Gold Member artist Posts: 2169	Re: Backups! Reply #3 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 12:59am I just backed up 14GB of my "GCU" directory. Took only about 10 minutes.
Back to top	Comical Captions: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/ComicalCaptions IP Logged

Brenda_135485 Full Member artist Posts: 104	Re: Backups! Reply #4 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 8:14am I am so bad about doing that : (
Back to top	Brenda Thour's Card Shop: http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/brendathour IP Logged

Doreen_137017 Gold Member artist Posts: 5274	Re: Backups! Reply #5 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 8:45am I'm with Eve. I have three external hard-drives, plus a Tera-station that everyone in the home uses for mass backup. I also put all my art on DVD once a month. She's right, once you lose your work and for some of us, our livelihood, you never let it happen again. Give Pam our best!
Back to top	Salon of Art: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/SalonOfArt IP Logged

Pamela_135500

Gold Member
artist

Posts: 1945

Re: Backups!
Reply #6 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 1:41pm

Well I am very happy to say I am back Grin

and thank you so much Tom for posting this to remind everyone of the importance of backing up your work. Like many I had left myself vulnerable to a complete crash as I experienced yesterday, I do back up my work but not often enough. Lesson learned.

I dodged the bullet, my files are in tact, apparently the hard drive crash was caused by the computer overheating, not a physical hard drive crash thank goodness.
It looked grim last night Sad

there was no response other than the blue screen with the folder and question mark. Couldn't even start up from the disc, it would spit it out after a few moments. In consulting with some of my more tech savvy friends the prognosis wasn't looking good.

Having left the computer unplugged all night I decided to run through the troubleshooting procedures one more time this morning and the computer responded and seems restored. Grin

The overheating issue may have to be looked at, I had to replace one fan shortly after purchasing this computer so perhaps it has issues again.

Thanks to all of you for your well wishes from a much relieved Pamela Wink

Back to top

PamJArts:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/PamJArts

IP Logged

Doreen_137017

Gold Member
artist

Posts: 5274

Re: Backups!
Reply #7 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 2:35pm

Glad you're back Pam and without any loss of your files!

For several years now, something I would recommend to everyone, not just artists, is to get an external drive and use that for all files you create.

They are under $100 now for a large amount of capacity and the benefits are numerous. The main benefits are 1) if you save all your files to an external drive and only keep on your computer the software required to run all that you do, then when you have a crash, or just need to replace the old beast; all you have to do is reload all the software and plug your external drive back in and you are running.

The 2nd benefit is, heaven forbid you ever have to evacuate your home, you can unplug an external drive and take all your files with you within seconds.

Just food for thought!

Back to top

Salon of Art:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/SalonOfArt

IP Logged

Pamela_135500 Gold Member artist Posts: 1945	Re: Backups! Reply #8 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 3:00pm Hi Doreen and thanks, Good advice to all. I will be ordering an external hard drive tomorrow, thanks for spelling out some of the benefits, very helpful. It's been a live and learn weekend! Pamela
Back to top	PamJArts: http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/PamJArts IP Logged

Rosanne_132497

Gold Member
artist

Posts: 611

Re: Backups!
Reply #9 - Feb 7^th, 2010, 7:05pm

Quote from Doreen_137017 on Feb 7^th, 2010, 2:35pm:

Glad you're back Pam and without any loss of your files!

For several years now, something I would recommend to everyone, not just artists, is to get an external drive and use that for all files you create.

They are under $100 now for a large amount of capacity and the benefits are numerous. The main benefits are 1) if you save all your files to an external drive and only keep on your computer the software required to run all that you do, then when you have a crash, or just need to replace the old beast; all you have to do is reload all the software and plug your external drive back in and you are running.

The 2nd benefit is, heaven forbid you ever have to evacuate your home, you can unplug an external drive and take all your files with you within seconds.

Just food for thought!

That's why I have two external drives - one for original files and one for backups!

Cheers,

Rosanne

Back to top

Red Rose Digital Art Greeting Cards:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/RedRoseDigitalArt

IP Logged