Save my HD!

Forum organization and occasional community-building.
Forum rules
Questions about Ren'Py should go in the Ren'Py Questions and Announcements forum.
Message
Author
LVUER
King of Lolies
Posts: 4538
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:57 pm
Completed: R.S.P
Location: Bandung, West Java, Indonesia
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#16 Post by LVUER »

Hoho, I'm really glad to hear that.
Interval of back-up is far more important than the amount of back-up made. I think once a month is suffice, unless it's critical data. Either way, the best media for back-up is CD/DVD.

The most important things to back-up is, obviously, data. So back them up frequently. I usually back them up whenever the data hits 600MB (CD) or 4.7GB (DVD). For critical/frequent back-up then CD is far more preferable since it's quite hard to pile the data until it hits 4.7GB.

For the systems/software, just ghost them.

Why CD/DVD, well, because they are far more persistent and resistant to damage and software threats (virus alike). Unless, if you snap the disc into two or more pieces.

Alessio
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 576
Joined: Fri May 07, 2004 9:40 am
Completed: GO! Magical Boy (2006), Angelic Orbs (soundtrack)
Projects: Cyberlin (in progress)
Location: Finland
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#17 Post by Alessio »

Hm, Murphy's law is likely to strike if you make only one backup. A backup medium can become unreadable anytime, and then you're in trouble should your source get corrupted.

The backup frequency should depend on the impact of a possible loss, IMO. Once a month is not enough if you're working full-time on something, since it means you lose one month's worth of your work. My work laptop is backuped at least once a day. Whereas if you're on a 6-month hiatus, or your HD contains nothing important, there's no need to backup things at all.

Also, I'm not positive that CDs are the best backup medium. Over time I've had more CDs failing on me (some 6-7) than HDs (2) or USB sticks (none so far). The best strategy is to spread things over different media.
Current projects: Visual Novel "Cyberlin"

Hudzon
Regular
Posts: 96
Joined: Sun Jun 10, 2007 6:48 am
Location: Demoness of Moe
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#18 Post by Hudzon »

EDITED as it violated the board's non-disclosure agreement.
Last edited by Hudzon on Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Vatina
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 862
Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 2:49 am
Completed: Blue Rose, AO: Broken Memories, My Eternal Rival, Dust
Projects: AO: Fallen Star
Organization: White Cat
IRC Nick: Vatina
Tumblr: vatinyan
Deviantart: Vatina
itch: whitecat
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#19 Post by Vatina »

Yes, I'll take backups all over the place when I get it back on friday! So far I have been making backups on my external HD an on my other PC. Maybe I should look into something else as well.

Hudzon >> Really??? o_O Or am I just being very gullible right now? (I thought magnets were evil....)

Kikered
Regular
Posts: 128
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 3:02 pm
Completed: Quine, The Secret Ingredient
Projects: Metropolitan Blues, Mirai Imouto, Temple Glen, Fuyu no Tabi, MIA
Organization: Team BG
Location: The Midwest
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#20 Post by Kikered »

Hey, congrats! Hopefully everything will be intact once you pick it up. ^^
Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.

User avatar
PyTom
Ren'Py Creator
Posts: 16088
Joined: Mon Feb 02, 2004 10:58 am
Completed: Moonlight Walks
Projects: Ren'Py
IRC Nick: renpytom
Github: renpytom
itch: renpytom
Location: Kings Park, NY
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#21 Post by PyTom »

Hudzon is a bad bad person.

Nowadays, I like the idea of using a distributed version control system (like bazaar) to manage projects like games or software. Everytime I make a change to Ren'Py, I check it in, which causes it to be uploaded to Yuki, the server that run renai.us/bishoujo.us/renpy.org, which is in California.

But wait, there's more! It also keeps track of changes to versions of games. So say I change a picture, only to decide a few minutes later I liked the old version better. I can easily get the old version back. I can also see what changed recently, and there's a lot of support for collaborating with other people sanely.

Now, I do use a program called rdiff-backup which runs every night, and makes a backup of my hard drive to a second hard drive. (Due to the way it works, it also stores differences to the last 30 nights of data, so I can go back in time with it.)

But anything really important (Ren'Py, my forum spam, Work I did for Customers) is stored offsite, so even a fire or something like that wouldn't destroy them in one step.

Of course, the most important thing about a backup system is that you get into the habit of using it. I check things into Bazaar each time I make a change to Ren'Py or a game. And the nightly backup runs automatically every night.

And both have saves my bacon on multiple occasions.

So make backups people... please.
Supporting creators since 2004
(When was the last time you backed up your game?)
"Do good work." - Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
Software > Drama • https://www.patreon.com/renpytom

Hudzon
Regular
Posts: 96
Joined: Sun Jun 10, 2007 6:48 am
Location: Demoness of Moe
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#22 Post by Hudzon »

Hudzon >> Really??? o_O Or am I just being very gullible right now? (I thought magnets were evil....)
Nah, I was just casually causing mischief.
Hudzon is a bad bad person.
Bah, I'm not bad, just misunderstood.

User avatar
Vatina
Miko-Class Veteran
Posts: 862
Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 2:49 am
Completed: Blue Rose, AO: Broken Memories, My Eternal Rival, Dust
Projects: AO: Fallen Star
Organization: White Cat
IRC Nick: Vatina
Tumblr: vatinyan
Deviantart: Vatina
itch: whitecat
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#23 Post by Vatina »

I see, I'm so easy to mislead xD

Thanks Pytom, I'll try and look into that system.

LVUER
King of Lolies
Posts: 4538
Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:57 pm
Completed: R.S.P
Location: Bandung, West Java, Indonesia
Contact:

Re: Save my HD!

#24 Post by LVUER »

Alessio wrote:Once a month is not enough if you're working full-time on something, since it means you lose one month's worth of your work.
If the data is critical, then please back it up whenever you need to. Once a month is for "normal" data, at least for me.
Alessio wrote:Over time I've had more CDs failing on me (some 6-7) than HDs (2) or USB sticks (none so far). The best strategy is to spread things over different media.
I never have my CD fails on me. Perhaps your CD-writer is already too old (so it didn't functioned properly)? I only get failed CD on the writer's early life (where I still can't find the right CD-blank brand that perfectly compatible with my writer. Doesn't matter, since writers tend to fails on burning several first disc on their very first usage. The same with DVD.

Careful since HD could fail without any warning (I believe some of us here already experience it firsthand). It could suddenly have bad sectors (due to instable electric current). You could even accidentally drop it (or damaged it due to natural disasters) which I believe, CD/DVD is far more "stronger" than HD since they have no electronic circuits.

Also, USB sticks (and HD) could easily be infested with virus. I believe that just several weeks ago when I watched the news how lots of people in Japan lost their valuable data because of virus in USB sticks (and USB memory sticks). Even Japan's police departments is plagued by this incident.

=======================================
Anyway, just back-up frequently. Anything is better than having no back-up at all.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users