Old hat to some of our group, but as we grow more reliant on computers, something to think about.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/04/cloud.computing.hunt/index.html
I’ve been spending my evenings trying to straighten out 20 years of backup files—from two people who are pretty careful about backing up. I couldn’t transfer into the dos system the things I created on the typewriter (Gate of Ivrel, Hunter of Worlds, Brothers of Earth, not even Downbelow Station and Merchanter’s Luck, which were on a cellwriter)..not the things I wrote on an Atari—but absolutely everything after that. I have, for instance, the folders invadera, invaderb, invaderc, and so on down the whole alphabet, full of files that need sorting and comparing. Quel job! Fortunately I found a good software, and I have a good bent for library work, so it’s going pretty rapidly. The fact we have more than 20 whole-disk backups in addition to these—is going to be brain-fryingly difficult to keep straight, but we’re getting there. If you have a similar mess in your own computer files, there’s a nice program called easyduplicatefinder that is friendly, fast, and accurate. Using it on a terabyte drive makes the whole task a little less crazy: we loaded ALL our backup disks onto the terabyte drive, and this program is capable of finding duplicates even in endless sub-sub-subdirectories. FYI.
Thanks for the pointer to easyduplicatefinder! Always a useful sort of tool to have in the armoury…
You could try one of the commercial companies for conversion of old Atari etc files from whatever media you have backup in.
In England I was able to do a search on the web several years ago and then discuss by email what they could do and at what cost. It wasn’t Atari or cell writer just very old obsolete backup archive on tape from obsolete mini computer.
CJ
You have my sympathy! I am a notorious collector of backups. Nothing leaves my office without being copied and/or digitally scanned into the computer for future reference. I only this week received a terabyte drive to dump the massive load of information (this does not include scores of floppy disks and CDs that I have amassed over the years.) In my case, I trudge through. I have the added problem that I have CDs that I failed to mark, so I have to load it and check the contents.
I’ll have to try out that software you recommended. I have been notorious for making a second or third copy of things for fear that I either lost or missplaced the first one, and couldn’t remember if I had actually copied it.
One of the benefits of having your backups in total order is that you can actually FIND a piece you’re looking for, and are assured of getting the right one.
And, again: PLEASE figure out the RAID solution. I’m deadly serious: the current estimate for the life of a hard-drive is about 1 year. After all of this work, if it dies in a year, you’re hosed. Figure out the RAID.
Davimack, under what conditions? In an under-cooled server farm using RAID (Redundant Array of *Inexpensive* Disks) maybe. If I’ve been following the discussion, intra-day backups are being done from laptops to flash cards, so the terabyte drive is only spinning rarely. Also, it’s a backup: the originals are still around. Certainly, once the One True Version of any book is found, it should be put on some fresh media since the original may be very old. And, terabyte drives are down near $100, so getting a second is probably worth the money so one drive can be off site. But no backup system works if it’s too onerous.
(Terabyte drive near $100! Who forgot to pay the reality bill?)
What we’re using the Terabyte for is simply to collate and sort: we still have our original backups, hundreds (literally) of them, but we are beyond redundant. Once we have coherent order in our files, and are down to the actual files, we will bleed the T-drive back down to our laptops folder by folder and create specific-to-project DVD backups, which can be updated in version much more efficiently…
A sample of what we’re dealing with. Cyteen. 24 folders, mostly duplicate, confused with folders from Cyteen ii, aka Regenesis, and sharing some information, not to mention its peculiar dictionary files, etc, etc. A total of some 2000 files, one third of which are not duplicates, since I preserve every stage and edit of a manuscript.
Fortress—four titles, all the same name with number sequences and a,b, c, plus random number sequences like 23o290, to give a critical file a distinctive look. There are probably, counting the lightning strike and rescan, about 5000 files there, collectively, of which about 200 are valid.
And the short fiction, scattered through every project I’ve ever run. With various verions.
And articles. And the occasional manuscript from a fellow writer which has gotten in with my files.
WHen we get this orderly, it will help me locate the actual file to books I want to put into Closed Circle, for one thing.
But no, the T-drive is new, and I don’t trust it for sole storage. I’m a great believer in physical backup, like tapes, none of which we can now read, and floppies (dinosaur leavings), and all these other things we never updated. If we get it down to a coherent collection we can load to a drive and copy back down in a new format, we’ll be much better protected. It’s not just lightning strikes that can get us: it’s time.
Thanks from another about the rec for http://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/
They also have duplicate photo and mp3 finder. Big help!
Real wood fireplace insert here (Vermont castings Winterwarm, an actual Fireplace by itself is a waste of wood, with todays tech..) along with a second stove, a Vermont Castings Vigilant. Both are “catalytic” units, nearly no visible smoke when up to temp and cranking away. We heat almost exclusively with wood, although the house does have a “normal” oil fired forced air heating system as well. For when we are too lazy, or not home to tend the fires.. Nothing like the ambience of a nice fire burning, real Or simulated. Sort of like crouching around the fire in the Cave, with the dog.
oops, wrong thread, I Hate doing that..
Got the comment, however. 🙂
OH MY! ANT (another new thing) to learn about. This could be very useful. It’s going to be a busy winter! *;-)*
This makes the multiple copies of files a co-worker made seem easy to clean up. He would make six copies of the same file and put them in multiple locations on a network drive, many layers deep. Easyduplicatefinder might be of use at work.
I’ve learned to use WinDiff for file comparison.
I use SyncToy for my small backup requirements. It basically allows you to synchronize folders that are in different places. I think it was designed for handling large photo collections and multiple file versions created during the editing process. I like that I can have it run automatically and you can choose precisely how to backup (whether or not to delete duplicates, if an original is changed do you want the backup changed/deleted/added to, etc.)
It also has a nice preview feature where it can show you the files that it found have differences before you actually go through with it, and it doesn’t re-copy files that haven’t been changed.
When you’ve created a master copy of all your old files, minus the duplicates, then why not use cloud computing to create an off-site backup?
Zip and encrypt the master backup, and upload it to some online location. Text documents will zip to a very small size, and you can zip the entire folder structure in one go.
It’s always good to have a backup in another location. If all your data including the backups is in one location, and a meteor falls on the house or something, then your backups as well as your computers will all be lost at the same time. That’s when it will be good to have a backup online, or a set of DVDs at a friend’s house.
Don’t forget the password needed to decrypt it – make a note with the details of the backup and the password and give it to someone you trust.