Dealing with Outlook backups...

[cajler]

I know this might be considered off topic but...

Over the weekend I had a scare: My laptop would not boot up, for some reason laptop could not access the hard drive.
My fear: loosing some recent client work and my entire Outlook file. My PocketPC was up to date with contacts, calendar, notes, and files but I only grab recent email.

My laptop is working again - I don't know why, or what was wrong, but I have backed everything up, including Outlook.

My question is:
What is the best way to keep my Outlook file, which is about 270MB in size, backed up :?:

I'd hate to loose 5 years worth of info.

[Kati Compton]

I know this might be considered off topic but...

Over the weekend I had a scare: My laptop would not boot up, for some reason laptop could not access the hard drive.
My fear: loosing some recent client work and my entire Outlook file. My PocketPC was up to date with contacts, calendar, notes, and files but I only grab recent email.

My laptop is working again - I don't know why, or what was wrong, but I have backed everything up, including Outlook.

My question is:
What is the best way to keep my Outlook file, which is about 270MB in size, backed up :?:

I'd hate to loose 5 years worth of info.

I'd use a CD burner. It sounds like you don't have one yet - they're good for backups and for if you need to bring sizey files with you. Plus you can make your own music CDs, which I like for in my car (not all car players support CD-R, but probably more than when I got my car something like 4 years ago).

[ironguy]

I personally use a CD burner for backing up my Outlook files (as well as others). Now that Iomega has a 750MB ZIP external drive out, that might be useful also.

You could consider breaking up your pst files into several personal folders instead of one giant folder. Then you could pop for an external 250MB zip drive which are fairly cheap now, under $100. The 750s are just short of $200.

It's also a good idea to regularly back up your data. I backup up all my data once a month to CD. They're so cheap it makes a great inexpensive solution. Don't back up progframs, just the data.

Hope this helps.

[Kati Compton]

I personally use a CD burner for backing up my Outlook files (as well as others). Now that Iomega has a 750MB ZIP external drive out, that might be useful also.


I like the CD-R for the ability to have portable large storage that can be read on just about any computer. So if I have a presentation I want to deliver and a laptop will be provided, I can just bring my presentation on CD-R.

So for my $, a CD-R drive is more multipurpose. But you may have different needs.

[karen]

You could consider breaking up your pst files into several personal folders instead of one giant folder.



I second this thought. I was caught with a back up but no real way to get it while I was on the road one horrible day.

Because my full backup of my .pst file was just under 300 megs, there was no way to e-mail it and it would have cost hours to try to download it, even compressed...not to mention the fortune it would cost via dialup in Europe, from a hotel room.

So now I use auto archive features to split out my files based on age. This is primarily for e-mails, calendar, and tasks. I strive now to keep my primary pst file very small and my archive for things older than 3 months. I also set my deleted folder to empty on a regluar basis.

Karen

[Jason Dunn]

If you have multiple computers, backing up across a LAN to another machine is a good solution.

I use Handy Backup (www.handybackup.com) and it works really well - it will back up across a LAN, to a CD-R, or even via FTP.

Ultimately you should have a two-tier solution where you have a local backup and one off-site. You could have a fire, stolen laptop, etc.

[ironguy]

Another thought I had was an external hard drive. I've seen 20MB USB external drives fairly cheap. It's probablt your biggest bang for your buck outside of a LAN setup (maybe even then. At work, my external LAN folder is only 2 GB). You could use an external for all kinds of backups. If you get one the size of your laptops drive, guess what? You now have a complete system backup. Checkout www.xxcopy.com for a great command line (DOS) utulity. You can copy your entire drive with a single command, including hidden and system files. It can also make your other drrive bootable.

Let us know what you decide to do...

[cajler]

Let us know what you decide to do...

First, thanks for all of the responses. Here is my new course of action...

1. I have broken up my huge Outlook file into several smaller archive files and one main .pst. I copied all of the archives to CD-ROM, but left them on my laptop as I need them for regular reference.

2. My main .pst file is down to around 80MB so right now I am using a demo of handybackup that Jason recommended to backup that file everytime I log on to my PC to a 2GB PC card hard drive.

3. On top of that I am backing up the Outlook file weekly to a network share at work that then gets backed up to tape and sent off site. (I am in good standing with the IT department so I'm sure they'll help me out if the need arises.)

4. I am going to try xxcopy only because I like the price (free) vs. Handybackup ($40 w/ the outlook plugin)

It's funny, I use Outlook more than any other Office app and I have always thought I new a good bit about how it worked. Like the other Office apps there is so much more it can do...I guess those 800+ page books do have value :idea:

Thanks again for all the ideas.

[Jason Dunn]

Good to see you have a plan! :D

4. I am going to try xxcopy only because I like the price (free) vs. Handybackup ($40 w/ the outlook plugin)

Two things to keep in mind here: the "plugins" they sell are simply mini apps that seek out your Outlook or ICQ data files. They're for people who don't know how to find them manually - that's all. So unless you don't know where your data is, get the plain Handy Backup version.

Secondly, and this is important, unless you plan to use Scheduler and write a script to automate your XXCOPY backup, I'd urge you to find something that will automate the backups - any backup system that relies on a human remembering to do something will fail. :wink:

[cajler]

Two things to keep in mind here: the "plugins" they sell are simply mini apps that seek out your Outlook or ICQ data files. They're for people who don't know how to find them manually - that's all. So unless you don't know where your data is, get the plain Handy Backup version.

Thanks Jason, that's good to know...

Secondly, and this is important, unless you plan to use Scheduler and write a script to automate your XXCOPY backup, I'd urge you to find something that will automate the backups - any backup system that relies on a human remembering to do something will fail. :wink:

I tried xxcopy today and I like it so far. I can stick a .bat file in my startup folder and have my .pst file copied everytime I login. As for everything else I have determined to be important when I bought my PC card hard drive it came with a copy of Iomega's QuickSync. I think I am going to use that to keep my 'other' important files duplicated.

[cajler]

One thing I have found during all of this that you might want to keep in mind is that as soon as you archive items in Outlook you loose them on the Activites Tab for a contact. So...if you use that tab at all Archiving can cause problems.