Backing up data

[Marty]

Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

[Mike Easter]

Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

It would seem to me ...

If you are Win, MozBackup is simplicity itself and very popular,

... but ...

if you use a more powerful generic backup app, you could have the
advantages of such as incremental and differential backups.

Discussions can be found in the forum and in these moz kb articles:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Third_party_profile_backup_software_and_services
Third party profile backup software and services

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Backing_Up_and_Restoring
Profile backup

http://kb.mozillazine.org/MozBackup MozBackup

--
Mike Easter

[Al Lawrence]

Marty said the following on 5/5/2013 7:00 PM:

> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.
>

I would highly recommend Mozbackup..

[Cal Tinson]

On 5/5/2013 7:00 PM eastern, Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

With the cost of decent 500GB portable hard drives around $50 these
days, I recently switched from DVD backups to portable hard drive
backups. MUCH faster, more convenient, etc. As a result, IMO there's no
real point in using Mozbackup any more.

However, after the switch, I finally took the time to figure out why
Perfectdisk, a defrag program I've used for years, was taking bloody
forever with one file. Turns out Mozbackup puts EVERYTHING for TB (ditto
FF) in a SINGLE file. If you're a packrat, as I am, and have used TB
forever, the single file is HUGE!!

[Frank]

I'm using a portable HD now. I found out last year that Carbonite did
not back up my profile. Maybe you have to buy the more expensive
version but for that you could get two portable HD's.

Then there was the time factor. Carbonite was always intruding on my time.

[Keith Nuttle]

On 5/5/2013 7:26 PM, Cal Tinson wrote:

Yes but Mosbackup is so simple to use, click the icon, click a couple of
question and forget it.


You only need the most current back up and the previous one.

[David E. Ross]

On 5/5/13 4:00 PM, Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.
>

I do it manually because I have non-Mozilla data that I want to backup.

I have two physical internal hard drives. Drive C contains software,
including Windows XP. Drive D contains data. I usually backup weekly,
using a three-week cycle:

Week #1: Total backup of non-Windows directories on Drive C,
incremental backup of the Windows directory on Drive C, and incremental
backup of non-photo data on Drive D.

Week #2: Incremental backup of non-Windows directories on Drive C,
total backup of the Windows directory on Drive C, and incremental backup
of non-photo data on Drive D.

Week #3: Incremental backup of non-Windows directories on Drive C,
incremental backup of the Windows directory on Drive C, and total backup
of non-photo data on Drive D.

This gives me a total and two incremental backups of each: non-Windows,
Windows, and data. I keep a full cycle plus a partial cycle of each.
When a partial cycle becomes full (total and two incrementals), it is
time to delete the older cycle and start a new cycle. Data from Drive C
is backed-up to Drive D and vice-versa.

In each week, I also do a total backup of my Desktop and System State
from Drive C as as single backup, keeping three.

I also backup photo files from Drive D when I have added some; this is a
cycle of four (total and three incrementals). And I backup from a flash
drive my accumulated software installer files, also using a cycle of
four; again, this is done only when I have added some.

Upon completion of a weekly backup task, I copy the photo and software
backups to a portable hard drive that I otherwise keep away from my PC.
I PGP-encrypt the Windows, non-Windows, and non-photo data backups and
move the encrypted files to the same portable.

No, I have never needed to use a backup to restore a failed disc.
However, I often use a backup to restore a file that I have so mangled
that I cannot undo the damage.

--
David E. Ross
<http://www.rossde.com/>

Are taxes too high in the U.S.? Check the bar graph
at <http://www.rossde.com/taxes/trickling.html> to see.

[Ron Hunter]

I back up my wife's profile for TB and FF daily to my HD. I also backup
several of her other data files, daily. She was somewhat less than
impressed when I had to reformat her HD a couple of years ago and she
lost her mail files, and addressbook, so I now have them on two
computers. My files I backup to my laptop when I think I need to.
Picture files are on all three computers.

[Roger Fink]

-------- Original Message --------
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

Back-up should be more than an email-o-centric event.

I use ViceVersa Free to back up email, docs, browser profiles, and music
to an external drive. It is a no-nonsense program that is easy to use,
has meaningful user options, and made data transfer a breeze when I
upgraded computers.

Email takes twenty seconds, if that.

http://www.tgrmn.com/free/

[Keith Nuttle]

For general back up, I have two computers and a 1tb external drive.
The desktop and the laptop are routinely synced so all data on one is on
identical to the other. This includes Genealogical data, personal date,
and pictures. The desktop is then backed up to the external drive.

With the price of hard drives (1 tb for $50 to $70) there is no reason
to loose data.

[Mike Easter]

I very much like to read about people's various backup strategies.

My feelings about the blogs and other allegedly/presumably knowledgeable
sources is that those are not nearly as informative or usefl as such as
these 'man on the street' type reports.

My own style is not nearly 'perfect' and I frequently consider/ponder
how I should modify it, so I look forward to others who are lurking and
posting here having their own say about how they backup in general and
Tb in particular.

--
Mike Easter

[Chris Ilias]

On 2013-05-05 7:00 PM, Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

What's recommended is that you back up your data. *How you do it* is up
to you. Just do it. :)

--
Chris Ilias <http://ilias.ca>
Mailing list/Newsgroup moderator

[Ron Hunter]

Or to lose it either. Grin.

[Big_Al]

Marty said on 5/5/2013 7:00 PM:

> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

I have a batch file that copies the profile to a thumb drive. I use
robocopy in C:\windows\syswow64\robocopy.exe with the /MIR switch to
only backup changes. (win 7 or 8 64 bit). I have the batch file
backing up about 4 gigs of files of which only a few change daily, so it
only takes a minute or so and I know all the good files I would hate to
lose are safe.

One thumb drive and one double click and I'm fixed up.

A monthly image also catches all the other stuff just in case.

[s|b]

On Sun, 05 May 2013 19:00:09 -0400, Marty wrote:

> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

I recommend doing both.

--
s|b

[WaltS]

On 05/05/2013 07:00 PM, Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.
>

I backup my profiles using the stand alone profile manager.

This is an old image using it with Firefox.

<http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/32/screenshotprofilemanage.png/>

More information.

<https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Profile_Manager>


--
openSUSE 12.3 (64-bit) KDE 4.10.2
Thunderbird Beta 21.0b1

[EE]

On 2013-05-05 16:00, Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

Given that the Mozbackup program is for Windows, and I use Mac OS, I do
it manually. It is not that hard to do.

[Herb]

On 06.05.2013 00:00 UK Time, Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

I use SyncBack to back up all my user data, and I can highly recommend it.

--
Herbert Eppel
www.HETranslation.co.uk

[tb]

On 5/5/2013 at 6:00:09 PM Marty wrote:

> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it
> manually.

There is also an add-on called TEBE that apparently can do the job. I
have never tested it, but you can read more here:
<http://www.customsoftwareconsult.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2957>

For firefox there is an add-on called FEBE...
--
tb

[Marty]

On 5/5/2013 7:00 PM, Marty wrote:
> Just curious if you recommend the Mozbackup program or doing it manually.

Thanks to all who responded. I followed the path of least resistance and
downloaded and ran Mozbackup. Although I selected only the Thunderbird
profile to back up, it showed in the default components selection list
things that don't seem to be a part of TB, such as Bookmarks, History,
Extensions and Cookies.

I am assuming that the backup included all necessary account
information, mail messages and address book, although I also exported
that one separately in addition to the profile.

I further assume that if I should need this backup that I would also use
Mozbackup and select restore profile, although that seems to be too
easy. I hope I don't get to find out.

Again, thanks to all who offered advice.

[The Real Bev]

If the backup is just one huge file (mine would be 2-3 GB), what if you
just want to restore one file, or even just LOOK at one file?

cp -r myprofile/ /myprofilesave/ is pretty easy too :-)

--
Cheers, Bev
==============================================================
"I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns and
women join the unqualified men in running our government"
-- Cissy Farenthold