Best backup utility for web designers?

[DXL]

I've been doing design work on the same computer for about two years. Needless to say I have a ton of stuff for my clients, some of which I file away on ZIP disk. I'm not much of a hardware guy, though, so I need some suggestions.

I want to back up the entire contents of my computer somewhere. From every style and font I have in photoshop, to every web page I have saved as a favorite on explorer. In case my computer gets crippled I want to be able to load everything I had onto a new PC exactly as I had it before.

Do I need to buy some equipment? What will do the best job without breaking my wallet? I have a 40 gig hard drive (though the comp says 35), Im only using like 13 gigs of that. Im mostly concerned with keeping all my photoshop and frontpage settings and work. thanks!

[fathom]

For me > hands down is CD ReWriter or DVD ReWriter.

Once having final project approval overwrite old archive, and remove from drivespace.

A note of caution > from a guy that learned a hard lesson regardless of backup method > keep 2 copies at all times for each client and one archived previous "final project approval" version.

A long story > but cost me dearly when I didn't! :(

[deejay]

In case my computer gets crippled I want to be able to load everything I had onto a new PC exactly as I had it before.

as far as hard drive insurance goes, get a second hard drive and have it ghost copy your current hard drive. If your hard drive dies, you can be back up and running in minutes with an exact and full copy of your machine, current to within minutes of the old drive dieing.

Doesn't help if the power supply goes or something and takes the rest of the machine with it though.... in which case CD backups.

Set up a regular schedule of backups.. every couple of days, once a week at minimum if you're doing any quantity at all.

Make sure your directory structure/backup setup is such that as you add folders/material to your machine it will automatically be caught by your backup and you don't have to update the backup settings everytime you add a folder.

Rotate two sets of CDs so that if your machine goes down mid-backup and takes the CD you have a copy from the last cycle at least.

And, as Fathom says, keep archive copies of your files too. My setup is that as well as the twice a week rotating discs, every three months I take a full set of archive backups which I file away and keep permanently..... it deals with those situations where a rarely-used but important file is accidentally dumped and you don't realise it's gone until a month later, by which time the rolling backup discs have been overwritten several times.
...

of course this is the setup I have put in place at work when i started there three years ago. I'm ashamed to say that I've never had backups of my machine at all until my pc died a month ago. Horrible experience that I never want to repeat, even though the hard drive actually survived intact. Now I have much the same setup as above, but I'm not yet regimented in my backup shcedule as the machine is still being customised.

[griz_fan]

Hi DXL,
You've already recieved two excellent answers, so here's a small tip that will help no matter what backup route you take. From what you've described, it sounds like you have files you want to keep scattered all over your hard drive. The problem with this is that the only back up method that would really work is a Ghost copy of your hard drive, anything less wouldn't restore all you need. You should track down all the files you *really* need and try to keep things a bit better organized. Let's say something happened just to Photoshop and you had to reload it. Could you restore all your fonts, styles and other customizations? Same with FP. If something were to corrupt just that program, would you be able to restore all your web projects?

Short of a bit-by-bit copy of your current hard drive (which, after a few days is no longer accurate), there is no way you can get an exact backup. Hard truth is, you need to spend some time cleaning house on your hard drive and getting better organized. Know the files you need to keep and know how to restore them. Try to keep all of your important stuff the least amount of folders possible. Remember, backing up your data is only 1/2 a solution, you will need to restore it in some useful manner before that backup has any actual value.
So, the best job without breaking the wallet all depends on how much work you're willing to put into this. Feeling lazy? get a 2nd hard drive and ghost a copy to the 2nd hdd and hope for the best. (though if your PC dies, you' out of luck).
Willing to set aside a Sunday afternoon and put some work into it? Get a cheap CDRW drive, some black CD's and CDRW disks. Buy some good backup software. Track down and organize each and every file you need to keep, and back it up. Don't forget to rotate your backup media and verify that actual data can be retrieved from those disk! (dumn mistake I made once....)
I worked a few years in the tech support department for a major PC manufacturer, and I saw plenty examples of the fallout from assuming that simply backup up as much stuff as possible would cover your a$$ in case of a PC failure. If you don't take the time to plan both the backup and restore, you're rolling the dice.

[Woz]

Oilman put me onto a great program some time back called Handy Backup. The idea is you set up proceedures to backup important data and then run the procedures either automatically or manually. Some of the features include autozip, backup to CDR/DVDR, incremental backup so it only backsup whatever has changed, and so on. Inexpensive shareware, well worth it.

Onya
Woz