Backups

[processedmeat]

After getting all of the software e.g. Windows XP, Gameex frontend etc. on my mame cabinet all up and going, how do you guys backup the setup?

For my Windows 7 HTPC, I would backup the drive every time before I would make a change so that in case anything got screwed up I could reload the drive in its entirety.

I would appreciate any advice, thanks!

[spoot]

I personally use a Bacula server/client setup for everything on my network.

[BadMouth]

I use Acronis WD Edition (free) to make backup images. 
As long as you have a Western Digital drive connected to the PC, it works.
I only back up the entire PC after making major changes.

I keep all emulation stuff in one folder (C:\Emulators).
I copy that folder to a smaller external drive more often, after smaller changes.
It's nice to be able to drop files from it onto my laptop to work out issues and test stuff.

I also keep an external drive of full romsets since I don't keep full romsets on the machines.

[ark_ader]

I don't bother will all that crap.  I buy a drive and clone it.  Wrap it up in an anti-static bag and store it in my closet.  Room temperature is best.

Drives are a cheap as chips.  Why wait forever for a backup to a NAS when you can have a direct replacement?

The more you have (drives) the better. 

Really, how much is a backup worth to you these days?  $1000 or more for everything you have collected?

[Howard_Casto]

Hell I don't even do that much. 

I've yet to have a harddrive completely fail.... they always just start getting screwy and you have have to replace them.  I've had failures over the years.... you buy a new drive, setup the old as slave, and recover the data.  After all these years I've never lost a significant amount of data.  I've still got projects for this site on my current pc... some date back to 99.