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BACKUP!!!!

Started by Sneftel Aug 5, 2003 at 5:36 PM 17 replies 800+ views

Original Post

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:36 PM

Everyone out there currently working on some sort of game (or, heck, any software project): Ask yourself, when was the last time you backed up your source code? Hard drive crashes are unlikely, but by no means impossible, or even especially rare. Are you ready to trust days/months/years of work to the stability of a piece of spinning metal in your computer? Consider, for a moment, the ramifications of losing EVERYTHING, of having to start from scratch. Would you have the motivation to do everything over, let alone the time? Methods of backing up:

Email the code to yourself. Worthless unless you store your mail somewhere other than your computer, but quick and easy.
A diskette/zip disk/CD-ROM. A bit of a hassle, but very reliable. (remember to label and date the thing)
Another computer. Email it to a friend, FTP it to a geocities webpage, put it on your university UNIX account... you get the idea.

Useful tip for backing up: Clean your project before backing up. The resultant archive will be much, much smaller. BACK UP THIS VERY SECOND! Then post a smug, self-satisfied message about how you're not gonna lose everything.

How appropriate. You fight like a cow. [edited by - sneftel on August 5, 2003 6:42:19 PM]

OOCCO

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:38 PM

Grass is green, the sky is blue and George Bush is a fucking moron. Oh sorry, I thought this was a thread about stating the obvious.

Raduprv

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:40 PM

I backed up my code 2 weeks ago, on a CD

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Sneftel

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:41 PM

quote:
Original post by OOCCO
Grass is green, the sky is blue and George Bush is a fucking moron. Oh sorry, I thought this was a thread about stating the obvious.

You''d be surprised. I''ve worked long enough at tech support to realize: nobody ever backs up.

How appropriate. You fight like a cow.

Yann L

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:43 PM

Speaking of backups: I bought a DVD writer yesterday. This thing is just cool - if you hate the hassle of making backups over multiple CDs, annoying file-splits if an archive ends up just a little bit larger than a CD, etc, then get one now. They are not very expensive anymore, and making large backups (best on DVD-RW) is a piece of cake.

Karelian

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:45 PM

No need to be rude OOCCO. Most people know they can lose everything in a blink but still they don''t really expect it to ever happen. I hear complaints about lost data due to HD crashes constantly and in most cases, the user knew the risks of not having backups. Methinks backupping just isn''t stressed enough.

Estese

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:46 PM

I''ve lost too much work too many times *not* to back up. Now I back up everyday -- One local copy of my source on the hard drive, and one copy I store on the mail server (e-mail to myself via yahoo mail). It''s also useful in case you ever want to ''rollback'' to a previous build.

Michalson

Aug 5, 2003 at 5:48 PM

quote:
Original post by Yann L
Speaking of backups: I bought a DVD writer yesterday. This thing is just cool - if you hate the hassle of making backups over multiple CDs, annoying file-splits if an archive ends up just a little bit larger than a CD, etc, then get one now. They are not very expensive anymore, and making large backups (best on DVD-RW) is a piece of cake.

Yes, I want one of them too (prices are coming down, almost to the point where I''ll find it worth it [bought my first CDRW drive when they where about $400 for a 4X]). And I have other things I''m buying right now.

OOCCO

Aug 5, 2003 at 6:01 PM

quote:
No need to be rude OOCCO. Most people know they can lose everything in a blink but still they don''t really expect it to ever happen.

You''ll have to accept my apologies in this instance but I deal with people every single day who are stupid enough to rely on *FLOPPY DISKS* to store their important work without a backup. I''ve always wanted to shout "Don''t be a fucking moron" or similar and you don''t get a bigger medium than the net. But the relief .....

benjamin bunny

Aug 5, 2003 at 6:11 PM

Good advice. I had a complete hard disk failure a couple of weeks ago, and I lost everything except my most recent codebase, which I'd fortunately (just by sheer blind luck) backed up a couple of weeks previously. Since then I backup my most important stuff a 2/3 times a week.

[edited by - benjamin bunny on August 5, 2003 7:12:09 PM]

OOCCO

Aug 5, 2003 at 6:14 PM

You know ... A lot of mods have hard disk failures. I''m starting to get concerned about what you''re doing to your systems!

BlackSheep

Aug 5, 2003 at 6:29 PM

i backed up last week. normally i do it every 4.6 years or so, but i made a real mess of the registry by buggering about with it, and you could just tell that xp was getting ready to blow some seriously bad shit at the next opportunity, so i nipped it in the bud by getting busy with the cdrs and formatting that badboy before it could pull any wiseass stunts. one nil to me uncle bill!

Jakarta

Aug 5, 2003 at 6:59 PM

Hmmm.... I suppose I will get screamed at. I NEVER backup. I never had a hdd failure. I understand that it is possible but I do think that it is very rare..... Oh fine I''ll tell the truth... I''m too lazy to back up. There happy?

Dreddnafious Maelstrom

Aug 5, 2003 at 7:06 PM

if laziness is what''s driving you then back up right now, i lost my first Cpp 3D engine and my well polished VB 3D engine in one fell crash. Wait until your re-coding your intialization and enumeration routine in DX on a new 6 month mission to reconstruct your 3D engine, its not very nice.

DakeDesu

Aug 5, 2003 at 7:10 PM

quote:
Original post by Dreddnafious Maelstrom
if laziness is what''s driving you then back up right now, i lost my first Cpp 3D engine and my well polished VB 3D engine in one fell crash. Wait until your re-coding your intialization and enumeration routine in DX on a new 6 month mission to reconstruct your 3D engine, its not very nice.

That is one of the reason this script is scaring me--I have currently a lot of work done on YearNeo, which I do not want to lose if sourceforge.net were to crash.

AnonymousPosterChild

Aug 5, 2003 at 7:59 PM

I back up once every version to either a cd or minidisk. It works very well for me.

"A socialist is a communist who didn''t try hard enough."
- Me

Colin Jeanne

Aug 6, 2003 at 3:29 AM

I last did a major backup on July 2nd. I usually do a major backup (burning all of my personal files to a CD) every 6 months and if I have anything smaller that I''d like protected between backup periods I write it to a floppy. What I need to do is repartition my hard drive into a partition for personal files (things that rarely ever change), code (always changes), and install files (which changes often) so that I dont always have to backup things that are on other backup CD''s.

Qui fut tout, et qui ne fut rien
Invader''s Realm

liquidAir

Aug 6, 2003 at 3:35 AM

Wow, I just thought of this like weeks ago. There're actually 3 computers with my source files, but I was wondering, what if all 3 crash at the same time. It's very unlikely, but not impossible. Possibly a virus just runs through the network undetected (hopefully not though), I just can't risk that.

I once got infected with the VBS_REDLOF_A or whatever and it was just freaking annoying. I had to reformat the hard disk but everything's back to normal now

EDIT: Btw, all my downloads are stored in one folder and when it's about 600MB or 650MB, I burn them to 2 or 3 CDs just to be safe. Now, I shall proceed to upload my source files to safe locations...

[edited by - liquidAir on August 6, 2003 4:41:09 AM]

Xtremehobo

Aug 6, 2003 at 3:43 AM

I backed up all my code to my server today because i think my harddrive might be failing

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