What is your backup regime?

[bazza]

Interested in how you backup your data( and how often)? Is it just to a storage card or to the PC as well? Any one got a good system to share? :ninja:

[dh]

I back up every couple of days.
Since I use my PPC as a laptop replacement as much as possible, I back up to my CF card as well as my PC. I'd hate to be on the road and have to hard reset with no backup with me.
I also copy the contents of my SD card to my PC every now and again. This is all non essential stuff, but I have had to reformat the card a couple of times so it's handy to be able to copy my files back onto it.
My CF card contains the backup file as well as music, books and movies. All of these were copied from my PC so I have backups of these anyway.

[Cortex]

ive got a reminder set to go off every monday night at 8pm telling me to back up or else...

i then run a backup to sd card program that came with the machine that puts the entire ram in a file on the sd card

i then run activesync full backup to do the same

i then make a new folder in the directory where the backup files are stored where a make a mirror image of the sd card with the compressed sd backup file.

when i'm done i've got two copies of the ram and a copy of the sd card.

why do i do all this:
1. one time my sd card become corrupted without my knowing it and i discovered it when i tried to backup from the sd backup file.
2. once or twice i have turned on my handheld only to see it do a hard reset! this happened on the first day of a 10 day vacation and i had not run the sd backup program for some time :(
3. i've had activesync try to restore from backup only to find the backup file was corrupted.

another thing i recommend is to make full backup mirrors of your machine at different states after a hard reset:
1. when the minimum number of updates and settings have been made and the machine is totally clean
2. after you install your 'must have applications'

basically i've discovered you cant be too careful particularly if you have essential information on the handheld -- now if only i'd have the same caution with the computers in my home :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

I use Sprite Software's Pocket Backup Plus, which has a scheduler built in, so I don't have to do anything - my device it backed up every day at a set time. :-)

I remain convinced that backup software that doesn't run automatically on a schedule is useless for the most part, because people are forgetful and unreliable. :wink:

[Godsongz]

I use Sprite's PBP also, but I got into the habit of doing regular manual backups instead of the automated schedule. The software didn't like WM2003 (problems with scheduled backups) for a few weeks after I got my 2215 so I had to develop a routine. The software is fixed now, but for now I'm sticking to the routine. I agree with Jason that people are forgetful... ummm, what was I talking about?... oh yeah... but Sprites software is helpful with that also with a message on the today screen saying how many days its been since the last backup. All in all Sprite's PBP gets the highest recommendation.

[PetiteFlower]

I have Activesync set to back up every time I plug in my handheld. I don't let it run every single time, but it's backed up at least once a day.

[Dave Beauvais]

I back up some data to an SD card, but since I've found mine to be so unreliable, I also back up the contents of the card to my PC. Unfortunately, when my SD card died (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16942) a couple days ago, I lost everything on it that had changed or been added in the last three weeks because, as Jason said, people are forgetful and unreliable. :)

The worst loss was a GPS landmark in Mapopolis (http://www.mapopolis.com/) of an old (old) church and cemetery that my mom and I finally found during a trip to West Virginia about three weeks ago. It's where my great and great-great grandparents are buried, along with men who fought in the Revolutionary War. It took us nearly three hours of driving and asking directions to locate it, and when we finally did, I got the exact location of the church via GPS and marked it in Mapopolis. Then "forgetful and unreliable" me forgot to backup the card when I got back home. Most of the roads we were on were either unnamed on the map or not even on the map at all, which makes the chances of me finding it again rather slim.

Backup your data, folks! :)

--Dave

[Jereboam]

Once a day to my SD card, and once every few days to my Vaio laptop, in case my iPaq gets swallowed by a shark or stolen by agents of a foreign power.

Also using Sprite's PB+, and also in the habit of doing it manually. One possible enhancement to PB+ would be an option to schedule a backup in Pocket Outlook's databases, but I suppose it's easy enough to do anyway...just lazy and a few other programs have a similar feature, so why not? 8)

J

[David Prahl]

I use the Dell backup utility. Run it to a CF card, and then dump it onto my PC's hard drive.

I suppose I should run it again; thanks for reminding me, everyone! :lol:

[maximus]

Daily backup ? Wow. I really need to get myself disciplined. It has been months since my last backup....

[baker]

Pocket Backup...daily with a set schedule via PocketBackup to SD card. Should have been the first program I bought!

[Jason Dunn]

Daily backup ? Wow. I really need to get myself disciplined. It has been months since my last backup....

It doesn't hurt until you realize you've lost data. Once you get burned BAD, then you'll remember to put on sun screen. Same principal. ;-)

Don't rely on your own sense of discipline - buy some software for your Pocket PC or desktop PC and rely on your computer to take care of itself. :-)

[PetiteFlower]

It doesn't hurt until you realize you've lost data. Once you get burned BAD, then you'll remember to put on sun screen. Same principal. ;-)

Heh, I think it's related to "perceived value" too. I have tattoos--I paid a lot of money for them, I want them to look beautiful for my whole life, so I never forget to put sunscreen on them. As such, I am aware that a lot of the data on my PPC is valuable and hard to replace, so I remember to back it up! Or at least, I remember to tell Activesync to back it up :)

[bazza]

Thanks for your replies. :D

Has anyone had trouble using Backup plus to backup to the PC? Seems I am able to backup to the SD card - but have trouble backing to the laptop.

Thought about active sync - what's the backup time?

Think that i would like to get both methods up and running. Had a problem once where I backed upto the SD card - need to restore and the file was corrupted. How many backups do you keep on the card at one time - 1day/2day?

:helpme:

[ignar]

I let my Pocket Backup do its work every morning at 4 AM. I keep three most recent daily backups along with the clean version which I'm sure to be stable in the separate place. I developed this scheme because of initial software compatibility problem on Windows Mobile 2003, and it has saved my butt a few times so far.

[bazza]

Thanks. Will give that system a go.

:clap:

[famousdavis]

Like Jason and others, I use Pocket Backup -- it works very well. I backup @ 5am every morning automatically. The backup file is compressed and goes to my SD card. Although a compressed file takes longer to create, I'm hopefully still sleeping when that task is running, so instead of a 40MB backup file, it's only 20MB.

I backup everything in RAM, nothing in my SD card. However, given some notes about the reliability of an SD card, I may tweak my backup process a little (to backup, say, my MSReader annotations stored on the SD).

Once a week or so, I manually copy a backup file from my PPC onto my PC's harddrive -- so in the event I lose my PPC or the SD card gets damaged, I still have a good backup that's accessible.

I tried ActiveSync's backup, but it's an all-or-nothing restore. Sometimes, I need only to restore a single file, not my whole system. OTOH, backing up everything in my RAM ensures that if I "just want to return to Kansas" and have everything return to a familiar, reliable point in my life, I can do that, too.

[UserMark]

I don't have any sort of backup system other than copying important files back and fourth to my pc by the drag and drop routine, other than that I try not to keep only copies of things on my pocket pc as I have experienced spontanious hard resets in the past

[dpstarnes]

I've had my Casio E-125 for 2 years now. I have hard reset the device twice in that time, both times due to junky software. Now I have settled on the software I like and have to soft reset, on average, once a week, also due to a couple of games that I use even though they cause problems.
This post made me think about my last backup - so I checked - 4/6/03.
woops :oops: