If there is one thing I hate doing on my computer, it's backing up.

Still, there's this little 'ritual' I go through every other Friday morning. I want to pick your brains to see if there are any suggestions to help me improve and cut down the steps when I backup my data files.

Here's how I backup the files (that relate to my websites for example) right now...

I put a CDRW in the CD recorder. This CDRW already contains one file: home.7z, an archive that was updated 2 weeks ago.

I copy home.7z to the "My Documents" folder. This can take minutes.

The folder I want to backup is, say: C:\home\*.

Via the command line, I type the 7z command to synchronize the files on the disk with the archive. This happens fairly quickly, since it only adds/deletes/updates changed data & files.

Once that's complete, I have to erase the CDRW and copy the updated archive file from inside the "My Documents" folder to the CDRW, which can take more than 5 minutes.

Basically, that's the steps I take to backup my data. It's the bits where I copy the archive from the CDRW to the HDD and back into the CDRW that actually takes a lot of time.

Does anyone know how I can get 7z to do the update directly on the CDRW or is it even possible?

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J de Silva
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I can't answer your question directly since I have no experience w/ 7z, but I would recommend using an external HD to backup to, if possible. You don't even need to pay extra for a pre-built one; if you have a spare HD or can buy a big enough one for cheap, just get an external case for it. I just bought two cases several weeks ago: a dual FW/USB2 for under $40 and a USB2 only for under $20.

If you use a HD for backup, you won't need to worry about erasing it every time and it will run a lot faster. Then if you need to archive to CD, you can just burn one off the HD. You can also set it up for automated backups so you don't have to even be present.

Just a thought.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

I KNEW I could count on you to give me a suggestion.

Honestly, I hadn't thought about using an external HDD before now. It's a good idea; I will go shopping first chance I get.

Thank you.

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J de Silva
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does backing up just mean saving your files to a disk or something like that? sorry im a computer noob haha.

Yes. Preferably something other than your main hard drive. You could backup files from your main hard drive to a secondary (possibly external) hard drive, a CD or DVD, or maybe a tape drive.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

I have a program (True Image) which sits in the background and backs up the entire hard disk to another hard disk once a day. Which takes, at most, about 40 mins, so it isn't nearly as horrendous as it sounds.

Since I work on the assumption that if something can go wrong it will, I also back up to DVD's once a month. Even the smartest virus would have trouble corrupting an archive which is physically seperate from the PC.

But a fire will still get you.

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Common Sense v2.0-Striving to make the world a little bit smarter.

Has anyone used norton ghost before ? i heard its a great program for doing backups.

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conveniently for me, I bought a Compaq and upgraded myself...Compaq's come with their own recovery place within' the hard drive and you dont even need any disks to recover any files...

I am glad you have something convenient.

The point of this discussion is to have everything (or what's important) backed up to something that's NOT connected to the PC.

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J de Silva
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