Accounting Talk

Herbert C Lebovitz · Guest

I use Quicken 2008 and XP
I have been backing up my system to a removable megadisk for some
time.
It is now full.
How do I safely remove some of the older backups???
Thanks,
Herb

R. C. White · Guest

Hi, Herb.

When you are sure that you no longer need a backup, just delete it - like
any other file.

What is a "removable megadisk"? Can you use normal DOS and Windows commands
on its files and folders?

You'll want to keep the 5 (by default) automatic weekly backups that Quicken
keeps in its BACKUP folder, of course, along with your up-to-the-minute
working fileset. And you probably want to keep a few "milestone" backups,
such as at each year-end. And for each of the past few months, maybe each
month of the current year. Any more backups than these is probably
overkill.

If you have a known-good backup as of 12/31/07, why would you want one as of
11/30/07? After all, everything that is in 11/30 is also in 12/31, isn't
it? If you know that the 12/31/07 backup is good, then you probably don't
need ANY earlier backups. Is there any chance that you would ever Restore
the 11/30/07 backup. or even the 12/31/06 backup, and enter all your data
since then?

Multiple copies of the current backup are advised for safety, not for
redundancy or history. If fire destroys your house and your computer, then
ALL backups stored in or near the computer will be lost, too. So you
probably want multiple copies of a current - or at least recent - backup,
each in a different physical location: computer, computer room, safe
deposit box, or even stored online or in the home or office of a friend or
relative. But multiple copies or multiple generations on a hard disk in the
same room as the computer itself are almost as vulnerable as your main hard
drive.

Of course, if you delete transactions and other data at each year-end, then
those annual backups are important. But most of us (including myself)
simply continue to add transactions. Unless there has been file corruption,
all my 1994 transactions are just as safe in the backup that I made today as
in my 12/31/94 backup - even if I could find that backup on my floppy disk
or my SyJet removable hard drive cartridge (which hasn't worked in at least
5 years).

Multiple current backups in separate locations: Good!
Multiple successive backups on a single drive: Of limited benefit, except
for the latest one.

At least, that's what I think.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Quicken 2008 Deluxe in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)

"Herbert C Lebovitz" <lebovitz@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
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Andrew · Guest

R. C. White wrote:

R. C. White · Guest

Hi, Andrew.

Yes, I should have emphasized to delete the complete "fileset" each time.

Thanks for the catch.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Quicken 2008 Deluxe in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)

"Andrew" <andrew@jkl.com> wrote in message
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