| I use Cobian Backup (
http://www.cobian.se/), which allows me to have
generations
| of data. For my document folders, I can reach back in time several
months and
| fetch a deleted document if I need to. Oh, and it's free too.
|
| There is almost never a reason for backups the moment you save a
file. If your
| system is that unreliable, it's time to fix the system, not try to
snatch the
| data before it's lost.
|
Programs such as Word, Excel and other office type programs create
backups and perform file saves at regular intervals, so I tend to
agree, most regular users don't have a need for instant backups.
It's not a matter of reliability of the system typically, but rather,
more a matter of the activity taking place. Primarily programmers
need frequent backups, particularly if the program under development
might crash the system or corrupt the hard drive during
debugging/testing (a good example is while writing device drivers or
writing programs that read/write to disk). I remember developing a
win31 program that wiped out my entire windows\system folder (of
course, I had reliable backups, but one still looses the time to
perform a restore). However, it was easier to corrupt system data
structures with win31 compared with the much more robust "protected
mode" NT kernel.
Lack of a UPS might also create a need for very frequent backups
(e.g., backing up to a USB memory stick).
I've sold my sync program to several programmers. We want backups as
often as hourly when programming, so as not to lose more than an hours
work when that iddy bitty program error causes big problems with the
system. We also like a simple click or two to create small folder
backups, even tho we are well versed in writing batch programs that
perform the same function. Finally, I'm aware one should have and use
a "test system" for testing software under development and a
"development system" for programming, but it doesn't work that way as
a matter of convenience in some cases.