Taking storage for granted and 'The Importance Of Backups' part 362

I backup regularly on my home computer, using:

* SuperDuper to create a bootable clone of my Mac - if the Mac's HDD dies or starts showing problems, I can just boot from the external backup disk and keep going

* Acronis True Image on my Windows server - not a truly bootable solution but enables me to recover the system pretty quickly

Backup software on PCs is fairly mature, but it's not used by the majority of consumers. Why not? Because it requires:

* some thought (e.g. "WTF's a Backup Set?"😉; and,
* usually some user interaction.

Now consider how less mature system backup software is for mobile, and how much more fragmented, and you have even fewer users taking care to safeguard their data. Mobile backup apps may back up one or more of your:

* contacts
* SMS
* calendar
* memory card contents
* SIM contents
* (whatever else I've forgotten)

Nokia's PC Suite Backup utility does take a fairly complete backup AFAIK, but this still requires some user interaction.

In order for people to use them without having to think about them, backups need to be complete and transparent. For example, (and yes here I go with the iPhone bit...) when I plug in my iPhone, a full backup is taken. When I need to restore, the last backup is automatically used, and my phone is restored in exactly the same state as that backup. Call log, pictures taken, SMS sent - everything. No need to tinker to get things just as they were - because they already are. This is what other manufacturers need to implement to make backing up a mobile simple.

Ok, so the iPhone backup scenario above isn't granular enough for everyone, but for those people other backup software is available. The reason I've never upgraded the firmware on my S60 phones is that is just seems such a PITA. I'd love to see a simple backup and upgrade solution for S60 - whether via USB or OTA. As mobile device storage increases, I think doing full backups OTA will be difficult, but there's no reason why a selective backup can't be done in this way.

I use Vista's backup utility to great effect and its quite seamless when its all setup. I always save everything to an external drive and that in turn is backup to an NAS.

Nokia's backup utility has been improving lately in what it does allow you to backup, but it would be great if it allowed all of one's apps to be backed up and restored.......both java and native apps.

I always use Nokia PC suite for taking backups of my phone. So far, I have not had any problems. There have been a couple of isntances, where I took a backup, reset my phone and then restored the backup. Nothing went missing except the bookmarks in the web browser (Bookmarks in the services browser were intact). It backs up and restores everything - messages, contacts, calendar entries, my preferences for various settings, etc.

I however, never use PC suite to backup files on the memory card. The only things I have there are music files, pictures and videos, of which I always keep a copy of on my PC. Other objects on the card are themes and applications, but its ok if I ever loose them, since I have the installer files with me.

This method of backing up data has been working great with me for quite some time now. Anyone have any suggestions???

Orophin Anwarunya wrote:Nokia's backup utility has been improving lately in what it does allow you to backup, but it would be great if it allowed all of one's apps to be backed up and restored.......both java and native apps.

It does. Do a full backup including the memory card (if the memory card is where the apps are installed, else card not needed) and when you restore, all the previously installed apps are restored too - atleast the native ones. Java apps, unfortnately, do need to be re-installed.

Yay for Apple's Time Machine!

I generally use Nokia PC suite to take the backup of my contacts. I don't use it for other backups and always believe on myself. The music files, pictures, etc. are all stored in my computer in a separate folder and that gets updated manually whenever there is some new content is there in the phone. Tedious, I agree, but it saves my data. For example, with PC suite 6.83, I never lost contacts after I updated firmware. Recently I formatted my phone, and while synchronizing my contacts back (using 6.85 version), I lost all! Probably, the phone's blank database wrote over the PC suite's database. But luckily I still had the .db file, and strangely after installing back v6.83, everything was normal. Not necessarily a storage problem, but still, I think, backups are to be made manually. Even contacts, as .vcf files.

Hi all and special HI to malerocks

Just wanna ask you in regards to your useful suggestion to Orophin Anwarunya,

i understand that if we make a back up to the memory card it will restore the installed apps that were installed on memory card,

Here is my question:

1) Does this method work when i update my N95 OS firmware, so i restore the backed up data of phone and memory card?

2) what if i firmware update, but keep the memory card same way it is, could i still maintain my apps that were installed on memory card?

for the second question i tried that with my Old N73 i updated my firmware without touching the memory card, the result was that i had only few apps that were installed on memory card still working, rest of the apps ended up broken, without the possibility of uninstalling it, so i had to format my memory card.

does making a complete back up (memory card included) will help prevent this problem?

Thanks so much

This is the single most important advice in today's world. I had specially bought an enternal harddrive to back stuff up after I got burnt once. But as usual, like we all do, got lazy!
I am now backing up my computer as I speak! Thanks Steve! 😊

Fortunately backing up the phone has become a habbit since ages.

I use Outlook to backup my Nokia.

I was thinking about buying a ipod (not an iphone) either the 80GB or the 160GB. I know I wouls never fill either, but I was wondering how and where you would back up an 160 Gb's. my pc doesn't have that spare. :con?

The point Steve's making here is that any form of flash memory, and to a certain (but lesser) extent, desktop / laptop hard drives, are becoming inherintly un-reliable.

I regularly see problems with high capacity flash cards in new phones - partly due to firmware bugs in the phones, partly due to the storage media themselves.

In order to talk about backup strategies, we can safely ignore the pros and cons of particular OS / backup products and simply say:

If it's on a flash card (in your phone) copy it all to a "real" hard drive. Don't use phone > PC software for this, do it manually and you'll have a far better state of the card.

If the data on that flash card is really important, you then copy it's PC copy onto a CD or DVD. But beware, optical media like this aren't infalable. They fail without you even touching them (especially re-writable disks in direct sunlight)

If that's still not secure enough for you, do what I do (sometimes) - copy the entire shooting match, i.e. phone, PC, everything... to another, seperate, removable hard drive. Then take care of it! One good point about data densities going up so much is the fact that it's now viable in cost terms to use another hard drive as a backup device.

Oh and Steve, I know it makes for easier maths and all, but it's always 1024...

I backup my phones quite regularly, but the other day about 2 dozen (out of about 500) pictures taken with my Sony Ericsson K850i became corrupt (about a dozen of which I'd not yet backup up)... Doh!

I backed everything up and reformatted the memory card (a Sandisk 2 GB micro-SD) and it's been fine ever since 😊

But it made me think - I realized that I'd been using that same memory card since getting my Nokia N95 in April. I'd been swapping it around various phones ever since, adding and removing music from it, and taking 1000's of pictures on it.

It's easy to take this level of reliability for granted...

PS: Time Machine on the new Mac OS X Leopard is a real lifesaver!

Afreet wrote:
i understand that if we make a back up to the memory card it will restore the installed apps that were installed on memory card,

This will work only if you use Nokia PC Suite to back data to your computer, not backup data to the memory card. When you backup stuff on the memory card, it only backs up phone memory. You cant back up the memory card on the memory card.

Afreet wrote:
1) Does this method work when i update my N95 OS firmware, so i restore the backed up data of phone and memory card?

2) what if i firmware update, but keep the memory card same way it is, could i still maintain my apps that were installed on memory card?

I have tried this once with my n93 after a firmware update. All the native apps were back on the phone after the backup restore. Java apps, however, as mentioned earlier did need to be re-installed. Also, this method works if you backup and restore the memory card as well. In such a case, I would recommend formatting the card as well before starting the restore.

stuclark wrote:I regularly see problems with high capacity flash cards in new phones - partly due to firmware bugs in the phones, partly due to the storage media themselves.

I agree. I have already lost 2 2GB cards in the last 18 months. I have been taking really good care of the current card ever since and am very very regular with backups.

i love it

sex

I back up my phone onto my laptop and my wife backs her Palm up onto her MacBook every weekend. I then back up the data folders/partitions of both laptops onto a 20GB external hard-disk, which I keep in a locked drawer in my office at work; I have 3 of these disks, and use them in rotation. I do something similar for all of our media, using larger bus-powered external hard-disks, which are also used in rotation and which are also kept at work.

As an added bonus, we have an Excito bubba server (great piece of kit) connected to the WiFi router, which has a 750GB hard-disk, to which we can also copy files on the fly...

It might seem a bit extreme, but so far we've never lost anything important...

Cheers, Ian.

Thanks alot for the help malerocks
it seems that the best way is just to keep the memory card same way it is no restore no back up, and make sure that all the apps are installed on mcard, its the best method when i firmware update. since all methods will lead to the same result native apps will remain others will end up broken.