Hi JL Beeken, I use the safety deposit box. I actually have 2 USB external drives, so I make a backup to one, take it to the bank and put it in the box, at the same returning home with the older drive. I'm lucky, my bank is (literally) a five minute walk, so it's no big deal. I do it faithfully once a month. I also use cloud storage, so I have two offsite backups. Many of these services are free. I would never use them as my only backup, but they are a valuable option.
Having backups in a second place is critical. One doesn't like to tempt fate, but suffering some type of flood or fire (maybe even in just one room of a home) could potentially result in total data loss. Paul Gray -----Original Message----- From: JLB [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: March-26-13 5:34 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Computer crashed - how do I move legacy to new computer? I used to back up to disc until it took about 50 of them to do everything. And then repeating that every few months got ridiculous in price. And time. Then I did it only to send copies to my family every couple of years of a relatively small amount of the files in case they cared about having an update. Nowadays I can zip up a folder and put it in Dropbox. An external hard-drive is preferable in every way I can imagine, not the least of which is that I can back up my files immediately. I don't understand the point of a safety deposit box, as someone suggested. Do you go get the drive out, bring it home, update it and go put it back in the box? If I had that kind of routine on my schedule I'd probably only get it done once a year. I just toss my most up-to-date backup drive in my pocket when I leave the house. Unless the earth swallows my house (plus computer) AND I get run over by a bus on the same day, it works. I use the cloud for transferring files to others but I don't depend on it for backups. It might be safe but do you really want to depend on someone else to keep your files? ----- JL Beeken JLog - simple computer technology for genealogists http://jlog.jgen.ws/ On 3/26/2013 4:21 PM, Ron Ferguson wrote: > Brian, > > No, I do not back up to DVDs etc.. I did 10 - 12 years ago but stopped as the > price HD memory fell, I can't remember exactly when that was, but maybe 8 > years ago. > > I fail to see why, in the circumstances you describe, a DVD would be > preferable to an external a HD, neither are dependant on the internet, and I > do not have great confidence in a DVD which has been written to many times. > In my case, if the Internet does implode, and the world enters into the > consequencial total disorder, I will be happy in the knowledge that the copy > on my external HD and on my brother-in-law's PC will be available. > --- > Ron Ferguson > http://www.fergys.co.uk/ > GOONS #5307 Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
