The Importance of Back Ups!

[JIb228]

I know people have often said it before in other topics, but I have a tale to tell.

So on my PC I have 2 installs of TRS12. One is my working full install. Its got all my 3ed party stuff, all my payware, and WIP's of my own on it. My other is my MP Verifying and planing install. It has all of my MP routes, its all so what I used to make sure all content included in an MP route is on the DLS.

They other night I was hosing my weekend long TOPSIG session on my MP install when the power went out a few times. Each time it would come back on my PC would try to reboot itself only to get stopped by another power outage. This led to my PC getting pretty screwed up and having to revert to a point when it last worked right. Some how while doing this my working install became corrupted. Files got moved between multiple locations resulting int he game not loading. After placing all the files back where they belong I was able to get Trainz up and running. Only to my dismay to find that my biggest project, my Saginaw sub was gone!

But lucky for me I am a smart cookie. Every Friday I save it, and any other content that I am working on to CDP's. I then put these files on a flash drive.I also make a back up of my local folder to an external hard drive. Lucky for me, the last time I worked on the route was just before I made my back ups. So thanks to my measures taken to back up every thing I was able to get my route and other assets back in only a matter of minuets.

So, I know some of you dont have external hard drives, or storage for lots of stuff. But I highly recommend doing some thing to keep your stuff safe. You never know what might happen to your PC at any moment.

 

[CattyPatty]

how much do external harddrives normally cost

 

[JIb228]

Between $30 and $200. Depends on how much space you want to get.

 

[JCitron]

how much do external harddrives normally cost

Between $30 and $200. Depends on how much space you want to get.

I paid around $75 a few months ago for a 2TB a Seagate GoFlex Drive USB 3.0 External. It's a Godsend to have something like this. In addition to my 2TB drive, I also have a 3TB desktop model. Having backups of backups is the best thing to do, and I should keep one offsite somewhere so I don't lose both backups in a catastrophic situation.

I too have been lucky with backups. Read my extensive post about losing 2 hard disks and a power supply about a week ago. I had cliking hard drives and continuous reboots. My multiple backups saved me. I was able to restore 1.5TB of backed up data. This was a combination of documents and Trainz data. If it wasn't for the backup, I would have been hosed.

John

 

[Dermmy]

I lost a heap of stuff recently to an SSD failure. Though I do back up my own stuff, getting my huge collection of 3rd party stuff back is an ongoing nightmare! External backup of the entire Trainz install is now my normal procedure.....

 

[CattyPatty]

can you back up your whole computer on the external harddrives?

 

[mcguirel]

Run secondary drive in Raid and set to back up every 30 minutes.

 

[rebel57]

I have uninterrupted power supply on both computers, I had few power outage. It will shut itself off on low battery warning!! save HD from corrupt files! Wonderful equipment!!!

John

 

[oknotsen]

I "only" lost 2 weeks of route building this week due to thinking I made a recent back-up yet discovering I did not.

It is good to see reminder topics like this every now and then although I fear most people will start to make back-ups after they lost something for the first time. I can only hope it is something small. A lot of people still live with the "that will never happen to me" thought, untill it does.

 

[Robert2d6]

Hard drives, both old and new can always fail. I use Macrium Reflex to make continuous backups of both the files on my HD and the image. http://www.macrium.com/ This way, even if the entire drive goes bad, I can buy a brand new HD, place it in my computer, and reload everything from the backup to the bare metal harddrive and I am as good as new. No reinstalling windows, or programs. The question of hard drive failure is not "if it happens, but when it happens". External hard drives are so cheap today, it's a no brainer. Macrium also does an incremental backup of all my files every two days, so if a file becomes corrupted, I can go back a day or two up to a month or two, and find a working copy of it..

 

[jjanmarine3]

Hard drives, both old and new can always fail. I use Macrium Reflex to make continuous backups of both the files on my HD and the image. http://www.macrium.com/ This way, even if the entire drive goes bad, I can buy a brand new HD, place it in my computer, and reload everything from the backup to the bare metal harddrive and I am as good as new. No reinstalling windows, or programs. The question of hard drive failure is not "if it happens, but when it happens". External hard drives are so cheap today, it's a no brainer. Macrium also does an incremental backup of all my files every two days, so if a file becomes corrupted, I can go back a day or two up to a month or two, and find a working copy of it..

That sounds the way to go.

 

[cascaderailroad]

I use DVD+RW which some say are bad, as they can be over etched by the laser, and become faulty.
I use an 8Gb Sandisk memory stick on sale for $19 (which roughly equals @ 2 DVD+RW at 4.67Gb each).
I have a 1Tb WD External HD for $89
I have a 2Tb WD External HD for $99

As my "Local" file in TRS2006 is 487Gb I put a copy on my External HD regularly, and delete the oldest local file, when I have 3 of them stored (I rename each one @ 2012June, 2013Jan etc).

 

[normh3]

UPS's work great, but I would stay with a name brand that will allow you to replace the battery(s) every 2 years or so. Also there are 2 types of hard drives. The one that fails and the one that eventually will fail. Back up your data..somewhere.

 

[clam1952]

I use Paragon's Backup and restore, which will restore a whole disk image, came in handy when replacing the system drives with SSDs's as well, plus I use FreefileSync which synchronises my backup install of TS12 and my creation files to backup on main PC and also on second PC. Plus monthly I backup the backups to a third PC. Don't use external USB drives as had too many fail, I use the spare capacity of PC's and add internal drives for backups, really important stuff get burned to CD or DVD. Also recommend have a live Linux CD or similar to hand if you don't dual boot, can come in handy if Windows fails.

 

[jrfolco]

I use Genie Timeline to backup my work. Genie Timeline works in the background while you use your computer. It's called Timeline because you can go back to an earlier date in the backup and restore files. It's very much like Windows System Restore. If you're interested, you can check it out here: http://www.genie9.com/Home/Genie_Timeline_Home/overview.aspx

In addition to my main 1TB hard drive, I have a separate 600 GB internal hard drive that I use to store my backups. If either drive goes bad, I can still save my work.

I also use an external 150GB USB hard drive to store my important files on, in case something drastic happens to my computer.

I have a tendency to build large routes which take a year and a half to two years to build, and, needless to say, losing one of these routes would be a real disaster.

Joe

 

[Robert2d6]

I use Genie Timeline to backup my work. Genie Timeline works in the background while you use your computer. It's called Timeline because you can go back to an earlier date in the backup and restore files. It's very much like Windows System Restore. If you're interested, you can check it out here: http://www.genie9.com/Home/Genie_Timeline_Home/overview.aspx

In addition to my main 1TB hard drive, I have a separate 600 GB internal hard drive that I use to store my backups. If either drive goes bad, I can still save my work.

I also use an external 150GB USB hard drive to store my important files on, in case something drastic happens to my computer.

I have a tendency to build large routes which take a year and a half to two years to build, and, needless to say, losing one of these routes would be a real disaster.

Joe

I wouldn't rely on windows restore to count on it backing up everything. Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. And if your drive goes south, so will windows restore.

 

[rrfoose]

Just to get some people's opinion on this topic...

I have a WD external hard drive that I use to use to back up my computer. However, the syncing program on the external is extremely slow to work, and unreliable. Now, it takes a whole day just to sync my Trainz folder - and it's not that often I'm willing to give up my computer for such a large amount of time (as it really slows the comp down to the point of being unusable...touch the program before the sync is complete and it will freeze). Should I get a new external hard drive, or is there a free program for doing the syncing from my computer to the drive? Coping each individual newly installed file would take forever to do, and obviously isn't practical. For those that use EHDs, what's your normal manner for actually backing-up/copying the files from your computer to the external? Thanks!

 

[JCitron]

Just to get some people's opinion on this topic...

I have a WD external hard drive that I use to use to back up my computer. However, the syncing program on the external is extremely slow to work, and unreliable. Now, it takes a whole day just to sync my Trainz folder - and it's not that often I'm willing to give up my computer for such a large amount of time (as it really slows the comp down to the point of being unusable...touch the program before the sync is complete and it will freeze). Should I get a new external hard drive, or is there a free program for doing the syncing from my computer to the drive? Coping each individual newly installed file would take forever to do, and obviously isn't practical. For those that use EHDs, what's your normal manner for actually backing-up/copying the files from your computer to the external? Thanks!

I never recommend using those programs because, as you've found out probably the hard way, they don't always work.

If you have a lot of data, it'll take some time to copy the stuff and this is the reason why I do this type of thing overnight. I setup the backup just before I go to bed, and let it run uninterrupted. To help speed up the copying process, I have turned off search-indexing from my destination drive as well as malware file scanning. These processes will slow down the data transfer as the data is being copied to the external drive. I have never found the Windows Search or file indexing useful, and I figured that the data has already been scanned for malware once during the download process. There's no reason to scan it again as it's being transferred offline unless malware has been detected during a system scan. If there is anything found, which is very, very rare for me, then I will scan my external drive. The other thing too is keep your external defragmented unless it's an SSD or thumbdrive.

If you are interested in a freely available filecopying program, I recommend FastCopy.

http://ipmsg.org/tools/fastcopy.html.en

There are options to synchronize the data as well as move, copy, delete, and other diff options. The program also just copies the data without calculating the number of files first which can take a very long time.

John

 

[bl4882]

I recently had a crash for a reason I do not know, but was able to reconstruct everything I had been working on for years. I have to say, an investment of $50 or even $100 for an external drive to save your work is the cheapest investment you will ever make. I'm a believer.

Bernie

 

[Robert2d6]

I recently had a crash for a reason I do not know, but was able to reconstruct everything I had been working on for years. I have to say, an investment of $50 or even $100 for an external drive to save your work is the cheapest investment you will ever make. I'm a believer.

Bernie

It's not only having the hard drive, but having a program , like the one that I posted a link to in my previous post, that automatically does a backup is what is important. You can have 5 backup drives, but if you don't have some kind of automated system to back up your data, sooner or later, you will lose some of your data, and much of it may not be replaceable.