Backing up to an External Hard Drive

[siskin]

At the moment I back up all my family history to a memory stick or an external hard drive.
I have decided to buy a new external hard drive and was wondering if anyone knows the advantages or disadvantages of using an external hard drive that I would connect to the laptop all the time I am working and it saves and backs up while the laptop is being used.
Is that better than saving the whole project at the end of the day?
Any help would be much appreciated.

A confused and technically challenged, siskin

[[Ray]]

Hi

Suggest you use it as additional to any/all other backups.

Every time you make a change to your tree(s) save it/them with a date prefix/suffix in the filename itself. Suggest you do not just rely on "date created/modified"

You could also save an extra copy each time as a gedcom not just the natural software-based (eg ftm) backup.

Ray

[siskin]

That is just the sort of help I need. I will do as you suggest.

Thank you very much.

siskin

[silvery]

Have you thought about using an online facility as well?

Tribal pages is free.   http://tribalpages.com/

[[Ray]]

Please do not forget the free foto albums debacle on Fotopic.net

The number of people who put the only copy of their fotos on fotopic !
Fotopic wound up = no fotos.


No, be the master, or mistress, of your own destiny.


Soapbox away for the week.

[siskin]

Thank you silvery.

I have thought about tribal pages but have decided that I would rather keep all my own backups myself.
I keep a few different backups, at different locations, so if the worst was to happen I would not loose all my research.

Regards siskin

[siskin]

Thanks Ray

My feelings exactly!!!

siskin

[silvery]

I do agree to keep stuff yourself.    I wouldn't trust any one place.   I too have backups and backups.   But I've heard of hard drives and memory sticks failing and just hope it never happens to me.   
You can't be too careful.   

[Latchfordian]

I certainly wouldn't recommend using a memory stick for anything other than temporary storage. They are nowhere near as reliable as an internal or external hard drive. I do a daily backup to an external hard drive and a monthly one to online storage. I tried BT Digital Vault for a while but found it was often unavailable so I now do my monthly backup to Microsoft SkyDrive which gives you a massive 25Gb of free storage.

http://www.windowslive.co.uk/skydrive

I feel comfortable using this because, love them or hate them, Microsoft are unlikely to disappear overnight!

Jim