Backing up your thesis

convert

Given the time of year and the fact that a huge number of postgrads are madly trying to finish theses I said I'd post a reminder to all to regularly and continuously back up your thesis and any other relevant data.

My laptop just died this morning - and all my PhD work - chapters, photos, data, etc., etc., etc. was on it. Thankfully I'm absolutely paranoid and back up all my files once a week, as well as emailing myself a copy of the chapter on which I'm currently working every day (just incase!), so I'm lucky enough that I haven't lost anything, but I'd hate to think of the situation in which I would have found myself had I not been regularly backing up my work.

So I said I'd post a reminder here to all postgrad students and urge you to back up all your work now. What takes a few minutes now could save you months in the long run, not to mention avoiding all the stress that would accompany such an incident.

mecco

I use this software to help with the process:
Unison File Synchronizer

Once set up it'll synchronise a folder across two machines....means you can do some work on either machine and it'll push the changes to the other machine when you tell it to.

Your mileage may vary, etc etc

Red Alert

Time machine on my Mac and also copy it to Dropbox.

Time Magazine

Red Alert wrote: »

Dropbox.

Bingo. Dropbox is program that runs in the background and will automatically back-up any files you want to the net. Even if your computer crashes, the last-saved copy will still be safe on the Dropbox server.

Dinkie

This is my ultimate nightmare!

My laptop backs up to Dell datasafe, so thankfully everything should be o.k.

Din Taylor

Good idea. When I was writing my thesis I saved on my laptop and then saved onto the department's server when I was visiting my supervisor (usually twice a week). Found out I could also do this remotely - I'm a bit of a Luddite I'm afraid. Thankfully I never need the backup.

The Black Oil

Good advice. I use Time Machine for my Mac, can in handy recently due to my self-inflicted silliness and incorrect deletion.

Re Dropbox, how much flexibility is there with what is/is not shared by you as a user? Also, does it mind if you've journal articles (copyright, etc)?

Red Alert

Nothing's shared unless you share a file to be public.

ulysses32

Thanks for the dropbox idea folks. It's great- all collected data and thesis drafts are safe as well as being updated automatically. Great!

Vojera

Cool, thanks for the recommendation. I'm always giving out about saving papers/figures in different places.

El Siglo

Dropbox ftw!!!