How do you back-up?
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
We use SourceSafe (now, now, don't start), so here's our backup procedure:
- Our corporate IT guys backup our data base, since it sits on their server. In a recovery effort, this would be our last ditch, since they only do an incremental backup nightly.
- For our purposes, every night, we zip the entire data base into a file named with the date and time.
- Ten of those files are kept on our build machine, and those files are copied to a separate box.
- Most of our group backup their working files, either to the corporate network or to our build machine.
- Product builds are backed up to CD automatically by the build process (see my post yesterday in the Soapbox for a noted exception :mad: ).
The cardinal rules of doing backups are pretty simple. Do it consistently; do it often. Verify you can recover data from a backup, and verify you can recover everything you need. Keep multiple copies in separate locations.
Software Zen:
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
I don't use source control, (only because I've never learned how to set it up properly), and I work from a laptop full-time. I do DVD-R backups of what I call my "essentials" almost nightly, and then use Symantec's Ghost app to make a drive image to an old PC (via firewire) once a week or more. Trevor
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
Michael P Butler wrote:
How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files.
The source code is backed up to the source-control system across the network, to a server a few buildings away. the source-code and most work areas are copied to my home system as a backup, backed up on USB disk at work, and backed up on USB disk at home. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
Michael P Butler wrote:
I currently write my code to CD's every-week
Week!:omg: So you have the potential of losing up to a weeks worth of work? That's scary to say the least. I have a batch file and winzip command line version that does a snapshot of my current work to the server from my workstation. The batch file keeps the last 20 snapshots and I run it whenever I feel like I've done something I don't want to have to do again so several times a day. Every day at the end of the day I do a comprehensive backup to zip files which are copied up to the server and burn them to a CD which is taken offsite. And every night there is an automatic tape backup at the server.
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I'm in a team-work, so I use Visual SourceSafe. It backs up and enables versioning on my codes. So I have a back up, history and somewhere to rollback whenever an error occurs.
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Michael P Butler wrote:
How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files.
I have a script that backs up my Subversion repository every day, to a second drive on the server. Once a week it also makes a copy to a zip drive (250 meg). Every once and a while I manually use Sync Toy to back up the primary server drive to a second one. Nothing important is stored locally. :)
And if the building were to burn down? What then? If you don't take a backup offsite you're flirting with disaster. I used to be a network tech and you'd be surprised how often buildings burn down or computers get stolen or some other disaster in waiting. If you don't separate your backup from the computers your backing up you only have half a backup.
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
Michael P Butler wrote:
How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files.
I use CVS on my server, located 2000 miles away in Texas. Once up there, I then keep both my dev systems updated. So, if I lose one dev system (which as happened), I can continue with the other. If the house burns down and I lose both, I have a remote backup. If a nuclear war wipes out the entire country, well then, who cares, right? Marc Pensieve
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Michael P Butler wrote:
How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files.
The source code is backed up to the source-control system across the network, to a server a few buildings away. the source-code and most work areas are copied to my home system as a backup, backed up on USB disk at work, and backed up on USB disk at home. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Ah the only decent backup anyone mentioned. If it's not backed up or taken physically out of the building where the computers are it's a disaster waiting to happen. I used to do network computer service for many different companies and it's surprising how many people would backup and leave the tapes sitting in a box beside the server. We had a few fires to deal with and luckily when we took charge of a network we enforced the offsite backup rule and in one case got an entire law firm up and running over a weekend in a new building with new computers a month after we had gone in and cleaned up their network and insisted they take the tapes offsite. We looked like geniuses to them when the fire happened a month later and they realized the implications of their old backup system.
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Michael P Butler wrote:
How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files.
I use CVS on my server, located 2000 miles away in Texas. Once up there, I then keep both my dev systems updated. So, if I lose one dev system (which as happened), I can continue with the other. If the house burns down and I lose both, I have a remote backup. If a nuclear war wipes out the entire country, well then, who cares, right? Marc Pensieve
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
What we are using in our enterprise is an AIT drive. it is installed in our server and makes a copy of everything for what is has been programmed. We have it installed in a linux server so the program we are using is completely free and moreover the tapes that this system use are very reliable, we have been using them for two years and it is working as the first day. Of course there are lots of software solutions in order to make the backups with those drives, but that one is the cheapest. Our drive can backup 73 gb's without compressing but there are lots of available different capacities. The only thing that is a little bit annoying is that when you must recover something, it can take only 10 seconds or it can take even 4 hours... well after all it is a tape... you can find more information here: http://sony.storagesupport.com/ait/windriver_2k.htm[^] Of course this is not the best solution, but it works well for us. Best regards.
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That's not a backup at all, just a copy. You must take your data offsite in case the building burns down right?
John Cardinal wrote:
You must take your data offsite in case the building burns down
I take my CD's that I copy my files to and move them to my parents house near Disneyland since I live in a high fire risk area. I also have a Linux box that I drag-n-drop stuff with ssh. Paul
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That's not a backup at all, just a copy. You must take your data offsite in case the building burns down right?
VSS has the option of compacting the database for backup purpose.
-Prakash
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
i use Retrospect and an external 200G USB drive to do automatic incremental backups twice a week. then once a month i do a full backup to DVD using Nero. Cleek | Image Toolkits | Thumbnail maker
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Ah the only decent backup anyone mentioned. If it's not backed up or taken physically out of the building where the computers are it's a disaster waiting to happen. I used to do network computer service for many different companies and it's surprising how many people would backup and leave the tapes sitting in a box beside the server. We had a few fires to deal with and luckily when we took charge of a network we enforced the offsite backup rule and in one case got an entire law firm up and running over a weekend in a new building with new computers a month after we had gone in and cleaned up their network and insisted they take the tapes offsite. We looked like geniuses to them when the fire happened a month later and they realized the implications of their old backup system.
John Cardinal wrote:
Ah the only decent backup anyone mentioned. If it's not backed up or taken physically out of the building where the computers are it's a disaster waiting to happen. I used to do network computer service for many different companies and it's surprising how many people would backup and leave the tapes sitting in a box beside the server. We had a few fires to deal with and luckily when we took charge of a network we enforced the offsite backup rule and in one case got an entire law firm up and running over a weekend in a new building with new computers a month after we had gone in and cleaned up their network and insisted they take the tapes offsite. We looked like geniuses to them when the fire happened a month later and they realized the implications of their old backup system.
Don't forget redundant backups. Many people reuse media for so long it becomes unreliable, but they have no media rotation, no redundancy, so even if they follow the idea of taking it offsite, when it comes to disaster recover the first comment usually goes, "what do you mean you can't read the backup tape?" NASA does triple redundancy and single component failure is actually fairly common, double component failure less common, and triple rare. You can never prepare for "everything" but taking reasonable advantage of oportunities for redundancy is just smart. If you have a telecommuting policy in place (or "work at home" set of rules), such that an employee can work from home on rare occasions... ask them to keep a copy of all their work at home if the work isn't classified. Now you have instant offsite backup. :) It is important to think of backup recover as a "when" not an "if". It may never happen, but if you prepare with the idea that the building will burn down, where do I put my backups?... you are already on the right track. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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John Cardinal wrote:
Ah the only decent backup anyone mentioned. If it's not backed up or taken physically out of the building where the computers are it's a disaster waiting to happen. I used to do network computer service for many different companies and it's surprising how many people would backup and leave the tapes sitting in a box beside the server. We had a few fires to deal with and luckily when we took charge of a network we enforced the offsite backup rule and in one case got an entire law firm up and running over a weekend in a new building with new computers a month after we had gone in and cleaned up their network and insisted they take the tapes offsite. We looked like geniuses to them when the fire happened a month later and they realized the implications of their old backup system.
Don't forget redundant backups. Many people reuse media for so long it becomes unreliable, but they have no media rotation, no redundancy, so even if they follow the idea of taking it offsite, when it comes to disaster recover the first comment usually goes, "what do you mean you can't read the backup tape?" NASA does triple redundancy and single component failure is actually fairly common, double component failure less common, and triple rare. You can never prepare for "everything" but taking reasonable advantage of oportunities for redundancy is just smart. If you have a telecommuting policy in place (or "work at home" set of rules), such that an employee can work from home on rare occasions... ask them to keep a copy of all their work at home if the work isn't classified. Now you have instant offsite backup. :) It is important to think of backup recover as a "when" not an "if". It may never happen, but if you prepare with the idea that the building will burn down, where do I put my backups?... you are already on the right track. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Yes of course, standard 10 tape rotation (monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday1, friday2, friday3, month 1, month2, month 3 + plus some sort of year end burn to optical storage) with test restores. I've seen every possible way data can be lost in my years doing onsite network tech support and it's easy to avoid them all with a little forethought. The truly scary part is knowing first hand how many banks, professionals of all kinds, health institutions etc do not do proper backups. We enforced good backups at so many places that had little or no backup protection when we were first called in over the years, places that the general public would just take for granted wouldn't lose their data.
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Michael P Butler wrote:
I had two and they both died fairly quickly.
[Knock on wood] mine works pretty well, had I known about all the troubles people had with them when I bought it I wouldn’t have. Getting an external drive is on my list of things to get. I may end up taking the cheap route and just get a drive enclosure and put one the now extra internal drives I have laying around in it.
S Douglas wrote:
Getting an external drive is on my list of things to get. I may end up taking the cheap route and just get a drive enclosure and put one the now extra internal drives I have laying around in it.
Don't knock the inexpensive route! We have upgraded the disks twice in one of our external USB/firewire enclosures, and I am waiting on another for a 500gig drive for another team. Having an external, and upgradable, replaceable solution is a really, REALLY good thing. You can start with one of the drives laying around, and upgrade later, as needed. Just one word of caution.... your drives will last MUCH longer in a case with a fan. Air flow out of the case is much more important than pinching the drive with aluminum and expecting the room air to keep it cool. And they are only $10+ more expensive... why anyone would skimp over $10-$20 I don't know.... _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
I thought we have been thru this before, I have a wooden desk ;P
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Yes of course, standard 10 tape rotation (monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday1, friday2, friday3, month 1, month2, month 3 + plus some sort of year end burn to optical storage) with test restores. I've seen every possible way data can be lost in my years doing onsite network tech support and it's easy to avoid them all with a little forethought. The truly scary part is knowing first hand how many banks, professionals of all kinds, health institutions etc do not do proper backups. We enforced good backups at so many places that had little or no backup protection when we were first called in over the years, places that the general public would just take for granted wouldn't lose their data.
John Cardinal wrote:
The truly scary part is knowing first hand how many banks, professionals of all kinds, health institutions etc do not do proper backups. We enforced good backups at so many places that had little or no backup protection when we were first called in over the years, places that the general public would just take for granted wouldn't lose their data
Yeah I know.... back when I worked a one-man-shop as programmer (I handled all DP design/builds accounting-related) I had a good peer-relationship with the DP manager at one of the local banks. We were comparing backups because I just implimented an off-site backup for work. He said that was much more difficult for banks, you can't just hand off that data to someone else. I looked at him with an odd expression... and said, "you have 12 branches around town right?" he agreed with a puzzled look. "8 of those have safes with keyed safety deposit boxes in them right?" and a lot more hesitantly he agreed.... Why don't you put your tapes in one or more of the other safes around town, the loss of one or two safe-deposit boxes for customer use is a lot less concern than going without offsite backup. Either that or on your secure network when you pull the download batches from the branches, upload a backup. I think he did the latter within a few months. Dangit, you have a secure network and trusted computers on the other end, use it! _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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How do you back-up your source-code and other essential files. I currently write my code to CD's every-week, but wonder if there are some better alternatives which are just as cost-effective. Michael CP Blog [^] Development Blog [^]
How do I back-up? 1. I don't back-up. Back-ups are for girly-men. 2. I put the shifter in reverse, check the rear-view, and hit the gas. 3. Using the moonwalk. 4. By eating too much cheese. 5. I back up my computers on CD. I've thought about trying out USB flash drives but haven't followed thru yet.