'CLICKFREE HD801' Computer Back-Up? (DEFINITELY NF)

[Photoz]

I just happened to spot an article (TORONTO SUN P. 45) this morning concerning this nifty-sounding piece of equipment. I an SO O O O backward at computers that I ALMOST have to consult my manual to turn mine on & off. This thing sounds so simple that I think I could almost use it. I only have about 4 gig of files, lots of text files, which I backed up last spring, but have added some since. I don't really care much about the price (supposed to be under $200.00, taxes in) if it is as simple as it sounds. The write up wasn't clear on what you do when you wish to back up again . . . just enter over the OLD info? If any of the computer whizzes out there can give me some advice on this, I'd appreciate it. Can't seem to find anybody in Canada selling it though? Edited October 3, 2008 by Photoz

[BillM]

Errrrr..... can you give us the website addy or somewhere we can read up on it? $200 to backup something seems awful fishy. You'd be better off to buy an external harddrive and do it that way.

[Photoz]

Here's the website . . . http://www.goclickfree.com/ it doesn't tell me a lot . . . except all ya gotta do is click a button. Hm m m m . . . . . I gave one of my neighbours a nice salmon (he's new in the country) last month . . . he has 2 very studious-lookin' kids . . . perhaps they could give me some back-up tips? Kinda embarrassing when ya gotta ask kids how to do simple computer tasks?

[carp-starter]

I backup my data onto about 12 CDs once a week- PICS, word documents and whatever else. Each CD has common data - stuff is not mixed. Everything that is backed up onto a CD resides under one major folder and so I just copy a folder onto its CD.

 

I have a CD or a MAJOR FOLDER for -

 

Fishing, fly fishing, fly tying info, fly tying recipes, fly tying tutorials, fishing PICS, Canon-scanned PICS and so on. So, you have to ensure that your data is organized on your hard drive. I do not copy more than one folder onto a CD - i.e. copy fly fishing and fishing onto 1 CD. If I have not changed the data within a folder, I do not copy that folder.

 

If my computer dies, the most I have to lose is 1 week's of data - it is better than losing everything. Around last March 1st, my computer did die. About 3 years ago I was forced to to do a hard drive reformat. In both cases I would have lost everything if I did not have any backups.

 

Photoz, it is easy to do a backup onto a CD. Once you do it, the next time is easy.

 

To get the data back from a CD, all you do is insert the CD and then from your CD drive do a "copy and paste" - that is all.

 

I suppose one can get someone to recover your lost data, but it will cost $$$$$$.

 

carp-starter

[BillM]

Drag and drop to an external hard drive is so simple. 12CD's per week? Cheaper solutions out there...

[jace]

with only 4Gigs, you would be much better off buying a dvd burner and a stack of discs. $30 for the burner and $40 for 100 standard single layer discs. You'll get the entire 4G on 1 disc, they hold 4.5G. If you go over that and want to stay with single disc backups, you can pay a premium and get dual layer discs which are double the capacity.

[bassjnkie]

with only 4Gigs, you would be much better off buying a dvd burner and a stack of discs. $30 for the burner and $40 for 100 standard single layer discs. You'll get the entire 4G on 1 disc, they hold 4.5G. If you go over that and want to stay with single disc backups, you can pay a premium and get dual layer discs which are double the capacity.

 

I agree. I have about 8gigs on 2 DVDs and I do it weekly

 

http://www.goclickfree.com/ waste of money. They have seperate cd's for backing up from pics to music and they sell a storage device $159.99, just get an external hard drive and copy and paste.

[Photoz]

How embarrassing . . . . . I already have a DVD burner, which I'm not very handy with . . . . but I got the loan of a 12 year-old kid for a half hour . . . (SEE . . . I TOLD YOU I WAS HOPELESS WITH A 'PUTER) to show me how to transfer 4.2 gig of info from my hard drive to a DVD. When I asked his dad if he could show me how to do this, the young lad looks at me kinda funny . . . . thought I was kiddin' him! I just saved about $170.00 by utilizing what I had . . . . kids are great . . . when they belong to somebody else, eh?

[BillM]

Bah, just take notes....you'll feel smarter next time!!!!

 

Glad you got things sorted out.

[muddler]

Well thee are a few cost effiecent ways to backup your important data.

 

First, you are sure that you will be saving(backing up) less than 8 Gigabytes of data then a USB flash drive (pen) is a good choice. Just plug it into any USB port(connection) and backup your data. A 8 GB usb drive costs about $20, so cost is a one time thing. You cab reuse the flash drive over and over again.

 

If you need a lot of storage get a notebook hard drive and an enclosure. Enclosures start around $10 and up, and notebook drives vary in price depending on size ant type. You can get a 120 GB HD for about $55. Put the notebook drive into the enclosure(instructions are usuall straight forward) and format the drive. It uses a USB cable to connect to your computer. Usually no other power source is needed to power the notebook drive. Backup your data to the portable drive and you're done.

 

There is some free software that will backup your data from your PC to an external drive (usb pen or mini drive). Go to freewarefiles.com and type 'backup' in the search box. From there you can pick the software you want.

 

My personal favourite is one call "dsychronize". You can set it up a few different ways. I plug in my external drive and then I just select the folders I want backed up, and then select the external drive as my destination. Click on Backup/synchronize and I'm done. The first run of this program copies all the files from my source folders, but all the future backups only add new or changed files.

 

Here's alink to "dsynchronize" http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

 

It take a bit of messing around to set it up, but once it's set, it easy to use. Plug in your external usb staorage, launch dsynchronize and click on backup/synchronize. That's it.

 

Good luck. Muddler

[carp-starter]

Drag and drop to an external hard drive is so simple. 12CD's per week? Cheaper solutions out there...

 

What can be cheaper than using the same 12 R/W CDs every week? Or, did you think that I am using 12 new CDs every week? They are R/W CDs and they are reusable. I do not need X number of backups of the same thing.

 

Actually it is 24 CDs - I always have 2 backups of each folder of common data - just in case a CD becomes bad.

 

carp-starter

[Beats]

Not even the cost of it, but the speed. You can get a tiny usb flash drive, as stated above, for around 20$ and then you just drag and drop stuff onto it. You could fill the thing way faster than you could ever burn 1 of your 12 cd's. I'm just saying that USB has it all beat as far as cost, speed, size, ease of use, portability are concerned. But if you are happy with how you are doing it, then perhaps there's no reason to change.

[jrego7]

Not even the cost of it, but the speed. You can get a tiny usb flash drive, as stated above, for around 20$ and then you just drag and drop stuff onto it. You could fill the thing way faster than you could ever burn 1 of your 12 cd's. I'm just saying that USB has it all beat as far as cost, speed, size, ease of use, portability are concerned. But if you are happy with how you are doing it, then perhaps there's no reason to change.

make sure you buy a premium brand. I bought a 8 GB off ebay it worked fine until I wrote a certain amount of data to it. I guess some sectors are corrupt. What a waste of money and a lesson learned.