Retrospect.

You can get it alone, or with an external hard-drive backup system (I think Maxtor has such a product).

Retrospect does a true backup, and does not rely on the fatally-flawed "archive bit" method that, as far as I know, every other backup system uses.

Another option is to use a drive-imaging utility, which takes a snapshot of the whole partition at once. I'm still using the old "DriveImage", which was bought out and merged with "Ghost" a few years ago. I've also heard good things about a program called Acronis TrueImage.

EDIT:
You really, REALLY, need to back up your drive(s). Just yesterday an IDE adaptor card plugged into one of the PCI slots of my motherboard decided to go belly-up. I have four big hard drives hanging off that card, and the files on two of them were trashed. Fortunately the files were finished video documentary projects from last spring and last winter. Nonetheless this was a real scare; one of the other drives contains files for a current project, but they seem to be intact (whew).

BTW the problem turned out not to be the adaptor card, but the PCI slot itself--a whole bank of gold connectors in the slot just decided to stop pushing firmly against the contacts on the adapter card. It only takes a second for hundreds of Gigs to be trashed due to faulty connections.

I use Acronis TrueImage, and it's great - much more user friendly than ghost.

As for back-ups, I just use the copy/past method. Just copy my project folder and then paste it into a back up folder on another drive - rather cave man like but it's worked pretty well & you can't beat the simplicity.

Just a quick clarification - I use copy/paste for project media back ups. As for the OS its True Image all the way.

1. Backup to external hard drive. Forget tape. DVD-R is a possibility, but even this gets difficult if your disks are large.

2. Partition your system with backup in mind. The ideal is to have a relatively small C: drive -- just enough to hold the O/S and your programs (I find 7-10 GB to be WAY more than enough). Partition the rest of your first drive to be the D: drive. Use "TweakUI" (part of Microsoft's PowerToys -- free utilities) to change the pointers for your various folders to now point to the D: drive. This is particularly important for My Documents.

3. Use an image backup program to backup the C: drive. Simply copying the files or even using a regular backup program will not work because many of the things that need to be restored in order to get everything working again cannot be accessed by a normal program or by simply copying files. I second the recommendation of using Acronis Trueimage.

4. Use a regular backup program to backup all your data files which, if you followed my backup advice, are now ALL on the D: drive. I won't go into all the backup strategies possible here (incremental, differential, all files, only some files, etc.). If you have a big enough external hard drive, you can simply copy the files. If most of your files are media files (JPG, MPEG, AVI), this isn't a bad strategy since most of the compression done by backup programs won't shrink these files at all.

One last thing on backup programs. I have used most of the major programs (Backup MY PC which started out at Seagate Software, then Veritas, then I don't know where, and which is now sold by Stomp and -- I think -- Roxio); NTI Backup Now, and some of the Norton product. Backup My PC is OK, but it didn't include image backup. Maybe it does now. I liked NTI Backup and used it for a long time, but their support is completely non-existent, and the image backup portion of their offering (their product includes both image backup and traditional file backup) was very dicey when trying to restore. It took me three days to restore a laptop two months ago, and I finally decided I couldn't rely on this program any more.

I then switched, about six weeks ago, to TrueImage. All the forums and all the reviews raved about it, and I think the raves are definitely earned. It does have a few glitches here and there, but their support is far, far better than any of the other programs, and because of that support, you can find ways around the few annoying problems. The performance is WAY faster than the other programs, and I like the user interface, although it is definitely different than the other two and took a little getting used to.

I'll have to check out TrueImage.

I used to use Retrospect and it worked OK, until I tried to restore my backup to a new OS. I got a new laptop and tried to restore all my files from the the old Win2000 machine to the new WinXP machine. No go. At least Retrospect had the ability to do just a copy files type of backup.

This is also why I don't like Microsofts backup utility. For example, I have Microsoft backup files from an old Win98 system, that I desparately needed recently. I still haven't been able to get into it, and I don't want to install Win98 on a spare system just to restore the files.

I currently use Stomps BackupMyPC (old Seagate product) and like johnmeyer says, it works OK, but I still am not confident in it.

Ultimately, the reason you do backups is so that you can restore your files in case you loose them. Most backup utilties I have used really suck at restoring.

I literally cannot count the number of times I've had to competely reimage my C drive due to something I'd done to trash it. The nice thing about an imaging utility is that you can start from nothing and have a fully-functioning system in 30 minutes or so, exactly as it was when you did the image.

Regarding your Retrospect difficulties: copying programs and their files from an old PC to a new one is much more complicated than what would be expected, since we're talking about not only programs, but also drivers, the registry, etc. That's why there are specific programs such as, I think, AlohaBob, which are designed specifically for this task.

Actually, in my case, I've used my original W95 image, updated to W98se and later to WXP, on multiple platforms as I've evolved. Everything is rock stable and I've been able to use many of the original programs that were on the early W95 installation. When I buy a new laptop, I throw away the default software and just install an image of what I'm already using.

copying programs and their files from an old PC to a new one is much more complicated than what would be expected ...

Definitely true. Trueimage has some limited capabilities to do this sort of thing, although I have not used them at all.

Personally, I use both TrueImage as well as Retrospect.

Between them, you can do very good and complete backups; TrueImage to back up the whole disk/partition, then use Retrospect to do the individial files.

Works great...done it for years.

Trueimage just recently added file backup. Don't know how it compares to Retrospect, and you certainly don't want to change if everything is working, but for someone buying their first backup program, they might be able to get by with just Trueimage.

Argentum Backup is a small, inexpensive, yet powerful utility with templates for backing up data and system files. I don't think it is necessary to back up your entire system personally. The program stores files in the common ZIP format, adding 64-bit ZIP extensions that support increased data storage. Restoring files is straightforward; you simply go to the Argentum backup task, locate any files you want restored, and unzip them. I use a 40 GB Drive for OS and programs and two 120GB drives for video files. If I were to use Argentum, I would simply store the zipped files on one of the 120 GB drives in case I needed to restore them to the 40 GB drive.

John

Retrospec has been totally unreliable for me. Unable to safely backup my files with it... Give it up after 3 unsuccessful attempts...

What i frequently do is copying a video project on a second portable drive with the "save as" command, put it in a different location, and later use a light support such a USB drive to backup subsequent versions of the .veg files.

Norton Ghost has been proven reliable for main drive miror imaging purpose on a second HD.

>Retrospec has been totally unreliable for me. Unable to safely backup my files with it... Give it up after 3 unsuccessful attempts...

Wow. Retrospect has done many pita things for me -- very slow to support CD/DVD, DVD burning on a 4x burner is only 110Mb/min, autoload turned on can trash a new DVD because other software interferes, files unreadable by any other software, it can balk at switching blanks (e.g., changing from 2x brand X to 4x brand Y in the same backup set) -- but its never failed and I've been using it since the first Mac release 15 yrs ago. I archive all my video work to DVD through Retrospect (900 GB and counting) and backup my hdrive. I've recovered my videos countless times and restored my system 4 times in the last 2 yrs. Not a single problem. One great thing about it is that once its backed everything up, it can go back and verify the backup. Another great thing is that all my archive video is viewable through a single "virtual folder", even though it was incrementally archived at different times, and to restore it I simply select items in the folder hierarchy and push a button.

Having said how useful it is for me, its also very clear that the company has been resting on its laurels for years. They made a great initial product, but now its just a money-maker they don't bother (need) to work very hard on. Plus, its expensive.

Someone above made the comment about not using tape for backup. Just keep in mind that tape is a very mature backup medium and VERY EASY to store offsite, say, in a fireproof safe deposit box. Cost is very low per GB too, and depending on cartridge format, they can take quite a beating (the IT guys at a company I worked for used to demonstrate this by dropping a cartridge from about 5 feet up, onto a hard floor, and then pop it in the tape drive with no errors, followed up with "now try THAT with your external hard drive!). Sure, they're slower than external hard drives, but external drives are not as easy to store externally.

Just food for thought...

David

I just use a batch (.bat) file and xcopy to another drive. Sample:

XCOPY G:\*.* L:\*.* /Y /c /e /k /r /m
XCOPY E:\Utility\*.* L:\Utility\*.* /Y /c /e /k /r /m
XCOPY C:\Docume~1\*.* L:\CDriveDoc\*.* /Y /c /e /k /r /m

The switches copy only those items that have changed and within all subdirectories. My G drive is a stand alone drive and "My Documents" is pointed to it. The first time it runs, it runs a long time, but after that, works very quickly.

I never copy my whole C: drive, it usually needs to be reinstalled every year anyway to keep the pipes clean. My Utility drive has install software, plugins, extra tools when I need to reinstall, like every version of ACID, Vegas, Sound Forge updates to easily go back-level if I have to. Also my driver updates.

Just add drives, folders you want to back up to the above as a new batch file entry.

I have a shortcut to the batch file on my desktop. I run this every day or two, then I also have another one that I run every week that copies my L: backup drive off to an external firewire drive in the same fashion. Three copies of my data at my finger tips, with one I can take with me when I run from the hurricanes.

Obviously not feasible for large video projects that are no longer in active use, those are printed to tape for me. My projects are mainly small clips, and it is my hobby, not my job(yet). For those types of backups, follow other's recommendations.

Just keep in mind that tape is a very mature backup medium and VERY EASY to store offsite, say, in a fireproof safe deposit box. Cost is very low per GB too, and depending on cartridge format ...

I agree about mature, and I also agree that it has demonstrated longevity, which other media may not. However, there are gillions (technical term) of tape formats, and they are constantly changing. By contrast, we are still using floppy discs; CD-ROM has been with us, unchanged, since the late 1980s, and DVD looks like it will be around for at least another decade, depending on how quickly HD really takes off. By contrast, we've seen QIC, Travan, DAT, and all sorts of other tape formats, most of which cannot be read without access to that drive. I have dozens of Exabyte cartridges that I bet not one person reading this post has equipment to read.

As to cost per GB, a 20GB Travan tape costs $40. By contrast, four DVD-R discs (same storage) costs about $2. I can buy a 120GB IDE hard drive for about $120 (everyday price) which is 1/2 the cost of tape, and I can almost always get deals on these (which I can NEVER get on tape) and have purchased them for as little as $30 (less than the price of one tape.

The one tape backup that I think DOES make sense, for media, is of course using DV tape to backup your projects. These tapes, because of volume and standardization, relatively cheap, and the playback mechanisms are likely to be around a LOT longer than for computer tape systems. You can get DV tape (13GB storage) for about $5.

after 2 months of arranging my files and folders of this new system , i am a bit cautios of Partitioning my 160GB C drive , i am only using about 6GB , and i would realy appreciate any feedback on partition , where or how to do it , and ofcourse not loose the data on it ..

Agreed on the ever-changing formats. And yes, DVDs are cheaper per GB, but in general, I was actually considering $40 (or even more) fairly cheap for a tape when compared to the value of the data it holds. Also, the one thing to be careful of with DVDs is the particular manufacturing code of the discs, and making sure you're getting the best quality disc for your particular drive.

Having said all that, I guess I should shut my trap regarding tape, since I don't use 'em anymore! My day-to-day stuff fits nicely on single- or dual-layer discs, and since I have both daily and periodic full backups, I don't worry too much about the occasional disc failure.. I'm mainly at risk with a full system backup if both my main hard drive and external hard drive croak. As for my videos, I have all my avi's on disk cartridges plus I've kept all the original DV tapes (offsite). just in case.

David