I have a Mac and it has an amazing back-up feature, TimeMachine. I have a 500gig external hard drive that TimeMachine backs up to automatically hourly. It does complete system back-up daily. The thing I love about it is that I can go into TimeMachine and it looks just like my normal system. I simply scroll through to a specific date, find the file I'm looking for, and click "Restore". In the most unfortunate event that I have to wipe out and reload my system (that's only happened once), I can reload my entire system straight from my TimeMachine back-up and all of my files and programs are restored as if nothing ever happened. I LOVE IT!

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Winston Stewart
PennWin Administrative Services

Originally Posted by Essential Office Solutions

I bought a Western Digital My Book external 1tb HD. It came with the backup software but after installing (waiting too long) I have found the software included is a demo expiring after 30 days. I have 14 days left on the demo. Does anyone know of a free software program that I can use with this HD. I could probably pack it up and return it to Best Buy but that is 50 miles away and would prefer to keep if possible.

This is the same HDD I have which came bundled with MioNet software. I'm still running on the limited capabilities but, it didn't expire. The web interface is found at:

https://mionet.senvid.net/mioNetWeb/...ianceID=AWDNAS

I run two laptops (XP) and a Vista 64 using this software.

Judy

Judy;

Thank you - mine came with Memeo program. I will certainly try the link and load this one instead.

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Cindy
www.eoseasy.comThe Chrysalis Plan

Has anyone had any experience with Backup995 (http://www.backup995.com/). It's the same company that provides PDF995. If you have, please share your with me what you think (good, bad, ugly, etc) about it.

It's a free (free is good sometimes right )backup system and very appealing.

Thanks

I put this in a post named 'data recovery...' (too lazy to re-type it )

I keep all files on a password-protected portable hard drive and backup all of my files to a SEPARATE portable hard drive weekly. There are NO client files resident on my computer - only software (this is protection against theft as well as, say, a house fire).

The second hard drive is kept in a safety deposit box at my bank. Every Friday after work I take my laptop with the primary hard drive to the bank, get the backup drive out of the safety deposit box, complete a backup of the new files onto the second drive and then put the second drive back in the safety deposit box.

Sounds like a pain, right? BUT - my bank is 5 minutes from the house and it would be fairly easy to replicate a week's worth of files. The whole process takes less than 30 minutes/week and means that I won't lose client data should something happen to the laptop (theft, fire, hard-drive crash, etc.).

I also keep the software disks in the safety deposit box. On the rare occasion that I purchase downloaded software, I download the .exe file to my desktop and then burn a copy to a cd-rom for backup and place it in the safety deposit box, as well.

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Lily Chambers, The Virtual Office Goddess, LLC
Author "How to Do Your Own Small Business Bookkeeping"

Stuart;

TimeMachine sounds great but I have a PC.

I have the hard drive - but it's the software that does the auto back up and sync that I am looking for -- cause this is a demo.

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Cindy
www.eoseasy.comThe Chrysalis Plan

There are several programs out there to back up a PC, but I yet to see anything remotely like TimeMachine. I absolutely love it, and it has saved my butt three times now. There are some great suggestions in this thread and if I come across an awesome back-up for PC, I will definitely let you know.

Originally Posted by Essential Office Solutions

Stuart; TimeMachine sounds great but I have a PC. I have the hard drive - but it's the software that does the auto back up and sync that I am looking for -- cause this is a demo.

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Winston Stewart
PennWin Administrative Services

Originally Posted by JKVirtualOffice

I looked back through the old threads and tried a search but didn't really see what I was looking for.... I was wondering what people do about having a back up system for their files. I am going to get a large portable hard drive to store my client files on. But I am wondering if this is enough. Should also back up to CD like once a week? I've read a little about an online back up system but wasn't sure of the security of this. I'd love to hear what others do.....

Personally, I have an external hard drive (USB) with a Terabyte of capacity and use it as a backup/archive. The price wasn't cost prohibitive either. Since I have a LAN, it simply plugs into the router, if I remember correctly. The software bundled with it has the capability of accessing it remotely from any internet connection -- for a small fee.

Otherwise, do an search on Cloud storage for services available. Another program is Amanda, an Open Source backup.

Judy

Best practice for keeping backups of your business files is to keep at least one copy of your backup offsite at all times.

I backup my client files to thumbnails. I do a backup daily (every week day, that is). The most recent backup goes into my car, the other older backups are kept in my office in the fireproof safe. That way, I can go back up to a week to recover a file. For instance, if I accidentally overwrite a file on Tuesday, but don't discover it until Friday, I can restore the backup from Monday.

Needless to say, my thumbnail drives are all encrypted to protect client information *grins*.

Of course, at the moment I only have about 2 client files to backup *laughs*, but darn it, I protect those 2 files!

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Jodith Allen
Administrative Arts

Cindy - are you running Vista? I use the Windows back up and save it to an external hard drive - would that work for you? If not, let me know and I'll email my computer guru and she what she recommends.

This is a really timely topic for me - yesterday a tornado touched down 1/2 mile from my apartment. I didn't even lose power, but it made me really start to think about having multiple back up systems in place and a workable system for running them! I'm beginning this weekend to look into different options and see what works best for me - and I'm starting with all the suggestions here. So - if anyone has anything else to offer, please do!!

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Gladys Strickland
GS Business Resources