Backups - general query

stillsearching · Post by **stillsearching** » 19 Feb 2008 21:04

I hope this is not a silly question. I make a point of backing up every time I use Family Historian but, of course, that means I now have a lot of backup files stored on my computer. Do I need to keep them all or just the most recent one? Are the backup files sequential or cumulative? Thanks in advance.

ID:2760

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 19 Feb 2008 22:19

As the zip files are small I keep all of mine, I think I have 400 or so at the moment. It's up to you how far back you keep them, I like to restore back to before merges occasionally.

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 20 Feb 2008 08:33

I keep a month or two but not beyond that as I try to keep my whole FH directory tree to under 2 GB for a USB drive (I have failed but don't back up certain large PDFs).

Ideally I should keep a proper archive as well - i.e. specific backups of certain points in time when I have made key changes to my tree

stillsearching · Post by **stillsearching** » 20 Feb 2008 09:49

Many thanks for your replies. I think my way forwards is to keep 1 - 2 months worth plus any other manual backups that I may make and archive the others to CD. Thanks again.

markmason7 · Post by **markmason7** » 20 Feb 2008 13:23

Hi Ralf,
I noticed you mentioned PDFs. As far as I thought FH doesn't create PDFs does it?

I always keep all my back ups out of habit, but I don't suppose I'll need to restore any of the earlier ones. I have about 130 and they take up about 58 MB, so this day and age that's not that much I suppose.

RalfofAmber said:
I keep a month or two but not beyond that as I try to keep my whole FH directory tree to under 2 GB for a USB drive (I have failed but don't back up certain large PDFs).

Ideally I should keep a proper archive as well - i.e. specific backups of certain points in time when I have made key changes to my tree

RalfofAmber · Post by **RalfofAmber** » 20 Feb 2008 13:35

What I didn't explain is I keep all my sources in the same tree, and this is not just census scans but many PDFs I have bought from local family history societies , mainly parish registers.

I also have some (enormous) material I downloaded from Google Books including an old Burke's peerage and a topographic history of Norfolk.

Lots of magazine CDs have directories on them in PDF which I also store by county.

I find it easier to have one tree for everything for backup and working between a desktop and a laptop

ChrisBowyer · Post by **ChrisBowyer** » 21 Feb 2008 09:31

stillsearching said:
Do I need to keep them all or just the most recent one? Are the backup files sequential or cumulative? Thanks in advance.

The answer to the second question is, each backup is a complete copy of your Gedcom at that time.

The answer to the first is it depends what you're trying to achieve. If you want to be able to restore your family tree to it's individual state yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that and so on, you need them all. It's probably a good idea to keep an occasional one somewhere you can recover it from if your PC crashes or is stolen... probably on CD, but I'd copy it and then make sure you can restore from it before putting it away somewhere safe. Apart from that, the last few weeks (so you can backtrack if you mess it up) is probably ample.

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