Backing up files

[Wortle]

Has anyone tried this site?

www.
backupmytree.com

I would be glad to hear from any one, I have googled them a bit and all references on forums seem to be people advertising for them. On the face of it it looks like they provide a very useful service, but why? Too good to be true etc etc.

[Peter Goodey]

In view of recent news reports I would steer clear of any important long term storage in the cloud - particularly something that uses Amazon's servers. Much better to make your own local arrangements.

[arthurk]

I have a general distrust of things that run in the background and upload stuff automatically. I see that this site offers manual uploading as well, but it's not clear whether they allow you to store other (non-FH) files; other more general sites might be better for this, as well as allowing you to store files without them being auto-deleted when you've got too many.

As Peter says, online backups shouldn't be the only ones you do, but they can complement other methods. Sometimes sites can go out of business with little or no warning, or free sites start charging, etc etc, but if you can get the space you need for free, then as long as you keep an eye on them I think they have their uses.

Arthur

[DorothySandra]

I'm deeply suspicious of filing things on the internet.
I can't think of a good reason why anyone should want me to do it.
It's so easy to make a backup on a memory stick that there's no need to do it.
I like to know where my data is.
Am I just being old-fashioned and harking back to the days of floppy disks?

[arthurk]

In one sense I agree with you, DorothySandra - I don't like to store sensitive data online, so I take care that the FH files I upload don't contain anything that anyone might object to if they should happen to fall into the wrong hands. Other than that, the only other thing I generally put online are copies of some precious photos, though I've also used a storage site as a way of sharing photos that are too big to email.

As an insurance against fire, flood or theft it's a good idea to keep a backup away from your home; for some people using a website is the most convenient.

Arthur

[Peter Goodey]

It's so easy to make a backup on a memory stick that there's no need to do it.

Wise and simple. Do a deal with a friend to look after each others data and your data is safe if the house burns down!

[MarkJ]

Wise and simple. Do and deal with a friend to look after each others data and your data is safe if the house burns down!

A friend? Geeks don't have friends ;)

But seriously, backups are vital. And if you can keep a copy elsewhere so much the better.
I have seen far too many people whose computers have died or hard drives packed up who failed to keep any sort of backup. Although we can recover files from "broken" memory cards and even some hard drives (and if you pay an awful lot of cash, even seriously damaged hard drives can be at least partly recovered), it is almost impossible to recover all the data.

Mark

[Guy Etchells]

Not sure whether our American and Australian cousins would agree Peter.
Here in the UK we seldom face the area wide floods and fires that affect some parts of other countries.
If your friend is in the same neighbourhood his/her house could be detroyed by the same event that destroys ones own home.
Cheers
Guy

[Ultramum]

After reading this thread I have just exported my tree as a GEDCOM and sent it to my online webmail ... not foolproof but don't want to risk my computer dying with it all on! Will try and do this regularly from now on!

[arthurk]

A friend? Geeks don't have friends ;)

:surrender: You got me!


After reading this thread I have just exported my tree as a GEDCOM and sent it to my online webmail ... not foolproof but don't want to risk my computer dying with it all on! Will try and do this regularly from now on!

If space is tight and/or files are big, you can compress a GEDCOM file to about 10-20% of its original size, depending on the program and compression method used. Some programs also allow you to set a password to protect the file, which would increase its security. I use a free program called 7-Zip, but there are others.

Arthur

[Mutley]

A friend backed up regularly to an external hard drive, a pen, a CD and their laptop,
one evening they returned home from a meal out to find the house burgled,
everything taken including all their backups.

It is a good idea to share your pen with a friend, use an online site or send your FH files to a relative.

There is only so much one can do.....

[Jonesy]

I'm not suggesting I'm this well organised (I wish I was), but the general mantra in the IT world is: if it's not backed up in at least 3 different locations, it's not backed up at all! :whistling:

[MarkJ]

And of course we should check that our backup is readable once we have done it!
I have made cds of data before which, when I tried to recover the data, were actually duff.... luckily, I hadn't deleted the data off the main machine (I was trying to get something off the cd onto another PC and was attempting to avoid the time taken moving it via the network).
Emailing your gedcom to somewhere such as your online email account is a reasonable idea. I do that with settings for specific computers which I need to remember.

Worth noting that long term backups should be checked from time to time. Media - particularly cd and dvds - will deteriorate in time (whatever they told us on Tomorrow's World when they first came out - spreading with marmalade and driving over them..... hmmm). With cds etc, I always create two copies - one is stored in a case and not touched after an initial check, the other is plonked into general use (maybe into my cd wallet or somewhere). I also keep the stuff on a hard drive. But when the "general" cd starts to look a bit raggy or if I notice trouble reading it or anything, I re-create it from the "master" copy.

Other media is just as unreliable. In some ways, USB sticks are worse. Although they don't get scratched etc, they can - and do - fail suddenly. Works one day, simply doesn't the next. Hard drives tend to give you prior warning, with squeaks or your operating system reporting the dreaded "bad sectors" or similar. However, even hard drives can fail without warning (but when they do, they are very interesting if you take them apart - but be careful, especially with some laptop drives as they can have glass platters which can shatter).

Mark

[DorothySandra]

I can see that people have given this quite a bit of thought. In fact I suspect we've all thought about the security of our computer data more carefully than we thought about our paperwork.

Keeping a memory stick in someone else's house is a good idea, Peter. I might talk to my siblings about this.

Still don't quite trust the cloud. But then I don't need to, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it!

[MarkJ]

I can see that people have given this quite a bit of thought. In fact I suspect we've all thought about the security of our computer data more carefully than we thought about our paperwork.

Keeping a memory stick in someone else's house is a good idea, Peter. I might talk to my siblings about this.

Still don't quite trust the cloud. But then I don't need to, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it!

There was a thread ages ago about how we deal with our paper data I recall. Think most folks tended to use a similar idea to how I deal with cds - i.e make a copy (for personal use it is perfectly fine) which is used as the "working copy" and store the originals somewhere safe and in the correct manner.
Thinking about it a bit more, in light of some of the comments in this thread, perhaps a second copy, boxed up and stored somewhere other than your home is a good idea too. Not sure my mother would be too thrilled if I dumped several boxes of paper on her doorstep though!

I don't trust the cloud either - but then, I don't trust anything to do with computers.

[Mary Young]

I use Mozy on-line backup, which does a simultaneous local backup to an external hard drive. I also email important files to my gmail account.

[mfwebb]

I would never consider keeping back-ups on the internet.

I use a gadget called click-free to back-up my (and my wife's) computers onto an external hard drive. It's like an oversize USB stick which has the click-free software in it. After the very first back-up it does incremental back-ups, i.e. only backs up the files which are new or have changed. I do this every 2 or 3 days. I once had occasion to restore my wife's back up after a computer crash and it worked perfectly.

Of course it needs to be kept away from the computer like all back-ups -- I am reminded of this as I sit here looking at my external hard drive neatly stored in its case at the side of my computer where it usually sits :smile:

I also do a secondary back-up onto a 32gb USB stick which stays in my pocket at all times. I copy my important folders onto this stick every day -- especially my history and Brothers Keeper folders.

[raineshoe]

Wise and simple. Do a deal with a friend to look after each others data and your data is safe if the house burns down!

Probably okay, until you fall out or else you lose your data and ask your friend for the copy and they've screwed it up!!!

Best copy for me is on a DVD or CD and stored safely.

[LizzieB]

Don't know after reading all the above whether I want a reply to this or not but here goes ...... About 2 1/2 years ago a friend in the UK opened (in her name, with me as editor) a family tree for me with A......y. It didn't bother me that it wasn't in my name as she never added to it. Last Friday afternoon 18th Feb. I went to my tree and found it was empty ... kaput .... not one person out of 3000+, 5 hours/day/7days/week for 2 1/2 years. Gone. And of course A's toll free phone available only between 9-4 weekdays. So fired off a couple of emails to A......y for a please explain. Then sent an email to this friend who opened the tree to ask her what it looked like from her end. Thought my computer may have a virus or something. This morning Sunday, her email tells me she had deleted my entire tree 'accidentally'. I have an agonising wait until I can ring A.......y.au tomorrow. Does anyone know if they have a back-up in place at A......y? If not I'm going to hop a plane and ......... I know, I know, in hindsight! LizzieB

[mfwebb]

Don't know after reading all the above whether I want a reply to this or not but here goes ...... LizzieB

Hi LizzieB.

This is a lesson hard learned I'm afraid, and you have my heartfelt sympathy.

And a lesson for others too who may have their hobby and passion and hard work stored only on an internet site and, worse still, on an internet site which someone else has control over or access to.

All that research needs to have its primary home on your own computer over which you have absolute control and with regular backups taken in case of computer failure. There are numerous Genealogy databases available (some free, some to buy) for installation on your computer in which to store your family and ancestors and all your research. If you must have your tree on an internet site you can do it by a GedCom file exported from your primary database. I don't have my tree on A**Y but I do have it on G*R*.

So -- lesson learned please -- if you have created your tree on-line you need to download a Genealogy database NOW and export your on-line tree as a Gedcom and import it into the database on your computer. Make all your amendments only in your own database, back up your data regularly and export a new GedCom to update your on-line tree if you must. With your data backed up, it matters not if you have a computer crash and lose your programme. You can always reinstall your Programme and reinstate your data from the backup.

All the best to LizzieB -- I hope A**Y have a backup they can reinstate. The wait must be agonising.

[LizzieB]

Hi Malcolm,

One more sleep to go. Let you know. Lizzie

[LizzieB]

Malcolm ........ G O N E! Liz

[Mutley]

Hi Malcolm,

One more sleep to go. Let you know. Lizzie

Time to wake up.....

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u55/BJ_BOBBI_JO9/BED%20and%20sleepy%20smileys/sleep03.gif

[DorothySandra]

LizzieB - I have no advice, just hearfelt sympathy. I hope you can retrieve the data.

[LizzieB]

Hi Dorothy/Malcolm. No .... gone ...... cannot be retrieved. As devastated as I am, I have already started over. Fortunately I don't have to send away for BMD certs again and had kept a heck of a lot of profiles I'd printed off to work on early on and other hand-written details from visits to the local LDS centre when I was starting out. Thank you for your kind wishes. LizzieB

[Ed McKie]

Forlorn hope perhaps--the wayback machine has archived Ancestry pages. latest are 2009. I could not get on today so have no idea if the archive contained the family trees- but it has to be worth the try.

cheers..ed

[Mutley]

Commiserations, it must be dreadful
but I am glad that you feel able to start again, this time learning the lesson of looking after your own stuff and maybe helping others, reading this thread, to consider just where all their hard work is stored.

Good luck

[LittleSpark]

I've always used Family Tree Maker and never had problems doing back-ups until the computer crashed last year and we bought a new one with Windows 7.
I'm not very computer literate so my daughter backs up my Tree. Since having Windows 7 we've encountered many problems which we didn't have with XP.
Whenever she does a back-up now on to a disc, the actual programme is wiped from the computer (everything disappears) and then she has to reinstall a back-up from the disc she's just done. We cannnot 'look' at the disc either. With XP we could look at the copy which was 'read only'.
It's very frustrating and fear that one of these days when she does a copy I will lose everything altogether!

XP was so much easier......

Sheila

[arthurk]

I'm not very computer literate so my daughter backs up my Tree. Since having Windows 7 we've encountered many problems which we didn't have with XP.
Whenever she does a back-up now on to a disc, the actual programme is wiped from the computer (everything disappears) and then she has to reinstall a back-up from the disc she's just done. We cannnot 'look' at the disc either. With XP we could look at the copy which was 'read only'.

When I got a new computer with Windows 7 I discovered that the built-in backup facility created files that could only be read back on or imported back to the computer they came from; I may be wrong on this next bit, but I've a feeling they were in some kind of archive format rather than being simple copies of the original files. This wasn't at all what I wanted, so I now back up by simply copying (burning) files on to a CD. This can be done either in Windows or with a CD-burning program, and is very similar to what I used to do in XP.

I don't like the sound of the program being wiped from the computer - unless it's that the back-up utility is set to move files rather than simply copy them. And ideally you should only need to back up the data, not the program itself.

Arthur

[Ms Tarfgi]

I've just acquired Dropbox, on the advice of a more computer-literate nephew. I wanted it mainly to keep my MacBook and my iMac up-to-date with each other. I use it for my photos, my publication work etc as well as my family tree. It has the added benefit of course, of being backed up on their website. I also have a backup on several cds which are in various places"off-site" including the garden shed!

Heartfelt commiserations to LizzieB - what a nightmare!

[LittleSpark]

When I got a new computer with Windows 7 I discovered that the built-in backup facility created files that could only be read back on or imported back to the computer they came from; I may be wrong on this next bit, but I've a feeling they were in some kind of archive format rather than being simple copies of the original files. This wasn't at all what I wanted, so I now back up by simply copying (burning) files on to a CD. This can be done either in Windows or with a CD-burning program, and is very similar to what I used to do in XP.

I don't like the sound of the program being wiped from the computer - unless it's that the back-up utility is set to move files rather than simply copy them. And ideally you should only need to back up the data, not the program itself.

Arthur

Hi Arthur,
Yes the programme opens but all data has vanished - completely empty! My neighbour's son is very good with computers and even he doesn't understand it - so me being a computer novice has no chance.
I will try copying straight to a disc as you say using windows and hope that works.

Sheila

[bibliojunkie]

Oh LizzieB so sorry to hear about your disaster. I know how I felt when I lost work stuff but to lose personal work over such a long period must be devastating.

I am a bit of a Luddite. My genealogy research info is not computer/techno dependent but in four binders (so far) stuffed with paper. Copies of certs and family tree updates are posted to two other relatives who are interested just in case anything happens to me or bibliojunkie towers.

Ali

[LizzieB]

Hello to all the above,

At least my disaster has lead to a lot of discussion about the importance of backing-up to keep one's records safe and the dire cirumstances of not doing so. I'm going to give my age away when I say I still have a head 'like a boarding-house pudding'. I'm running on adrenalin and anger. However I'm plugging on and now have 98 (or is that 89) people back on the tree although I'm cutting it to the bone for now. When I think of the dozens of researchers who 'borrowed' my records that I now don't have .....! It means so much to know you wonderful B-G people are out there and genuinely do care that this has happened. Thank you all. LizzieB

[mfwebb]

LizzieB, I am so deeply sorry that all was lost. I feel for you as we all do here.

Regarding backups -- I have never used the in-built back-up facility in any computer. I can't explain why -- I suppose I haven't really trusted them. I prefer to copy my data onto a memory stick which I can use on any other computer. This stems from my days at work where several of us shared a computer in the early days and we each stored our own data on a real floppy disk.

Everything which I create on my computer is stored in a master folder which I call "Data" which is sub-divided into other folders as required. That way, I just need to copy the "Data" folder and all my important stuff is backed up. The "Data" folder is now very large so I copy it weekly onto a CD. The important sub folders I copy onto a memory stick after each useage. I have one called "History" where all my family history stuff is kept; another is "Brother's Keeper" where all the data from my genealogy programme is kept.

I also have an external hard-drive and a little gadget called "Click-Free", a type of USB stick which has backup software installed. I plug the external hard drive via the click-free device into my PC and it automatically starts an incremental back-up of files which are new or have changed. I am reminded to do this every 3 days.

[Ed McKie]

Another little warning on this subject- just learned myself. Dont forget to check the backups you have made on your genealogy programs. Have just tried to restore a backup file in Legacy and found that it was corrupt. So there was I thinking how carefully I was backing up all my changes and they were unreadable anyway. so belt and braces from now on- backup and a gedcoom.

cheers..Ed

[Wortle]

I've always used Family Tree Maker and never had problems doing back-ups until the computer crashed last year and we bought a new one with Windows 7.
I'm not very computer literate so my daughter backs up my Tree. Since having Windows 7 we've encountered many problems which we didn't have with XP.
Whenever she does a back-up now on to a disc, the actual programme is wiped from the computer (everything disappears) and then she has to reinstall a back-up from the disc she's just done. We cannnot 'look' at the disc either. With XP we could look at the copy which was 'read only'.
It's very frustrating and fear that one of these days when she does a copy I will lose everything altogether!

XP was so much easier......

Sheila

OOOOOh thats a bit worrying as I have just invested in FTM if it ever gets delivered. BUT what version of FTM are you using as only 2010 and 2011 are windows 7 compatible. Could that be the problem?