Help me move my backups.

[aimeeandbeatles]

OK, my external might be going bad. Its a 500 gig drive. Here are the other backup options I have:
-- A few spindles of blank DVD-Rs.
-- A 40 gig external hard drive
-- Three USB sticks: 256MB, 2GB, and 32GB

Here is what I have to backup:
AppData: 66.6 GB. The majority of this is made up by unfinished BitTorrent transfers.
Documents: 1.62 GB. Majority of this is savegames and "The Petty Archives."
Downloads: 5.35 GB. No majority, really, here.
DVDs: 98.5 GB.
Music: 12.6 GB
Pictures: 2.12 GB
PortableApps: 537 GB
Videos: 21.2 GB.

Ways to reduce size, I think:

AppData: Delete everything except for the custom settings or unfinished bittorrent transfers.
Documents: In the savegames, a lot of the stuff is unedited INIs and stuff the game installs there. If I delete evetything except for the savegames it may save a lot of room.
Downloads: I have a few Linux Live CDs here, which can be deleted and re-downloaded if needed. I dont like to delete much here as I once did that to save space and when I went to re-download it the site was gone.
DVDs: Dunno. I have a lot of them on discs already but since I scratched up one to unplayability I dont like to have it as the sole backup. I suppose I could use DVD Shrink to remove the stuff I dont want but I dont want to re-encode anything.
Music: Dunno.
Pictures: Dunno.
PortableApps: Delete programs that I havent used in a while.
Videos: A lot of this is just encoded versions of videos in DVD folders. That can delete a lot.

Any other suggestions? Also, would you put specific things in specific spots?


EDIT: I just realized. Some of the stuff in the BitTorrent folder are things that have completed but are still seeding and I had a copy elsewhere on the HDD. That can save quite a bit!

 

[Tarkhan]

I usually cant be bothered backing up AppData and saved games out of my documents.

It's just too much of a pain in the butt.

Wait...what is a PortableApp?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

http://www.portablefreeware.com/about.php

Id like to save my savegames. Some of the custom settings in the AppData i could re-set easily, anyways, so Im not too worried about those. one of them has a database for the program with all the info which took several weeks to manually enter so I wanna keep those

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Stick everything you can into archives. Depending on the files, you may be able to squeeze a couple gigs out fo the file sizes.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thanks.

I noticed the savegames folder was huge and I looked into it and it was because there was an installer for the BtS patch in there. I deleted that and it lost some weight.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

OK, bad news. I gave the warranty papers to my mom. She lost them. Then she dropped the external while examining it. I haven't plugged it in since.

What should I do now? Do I need those papers to get an RMA from Seagate?

 

[Zelig]

I recommend finding somewhere to live where you mother is not present.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Im working on it ....

 

[Cutlass]

Join the Army or Navy. It'll give you independence and an income.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Plus its Canada. All you'd do is defend the border from old Americans trying to get cheap drugs.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Uh, Afghanistan?

 

[Cutlass]

By the time you complete training, Canada will have little presence there. And little of it will be support troops that are in any danger.

Seriously, your options are limited. And anything that gets you away is worth considering.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Either ways, Im not so sure Id be eligible for any military because Im ataxic. (I found that out recently from some old medical papers).

I just thought of something. I have several computers not hooked up at the moment. They have various different OSes on them, mainly old Windows versions, one has Linux. If I connected them to the network but not to the internet directly would they suffice as a backup until I can get the drive RMAd?

 

[Abaddon]

Couldn't you just buy another? They are pretty cheap

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

We're poor.

 

[Abaddon]

Plug it in, is it still workng?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

It works but its making the clunking noises during "normal" usage but not as severe.

 

[Cutlass]

If an old PC works, and its hard drive has enough space, it will serve as a backup platform. But if you can, use more than one of them.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

OK, so I went to delete everything off my external to make sure that I didnt lose it. And I noticed that some of the checksums for identiical files had changed. Is this a bad sign?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

OK, heres the deal: We finally found the receipt and mom took it back to the store. The store would only do a 30-day return but the warranty was for five years. My mom said that we have to wait for the company to send up the packaging before shipping it off -- Im not quite sure what shes talking about though.