When developing or upgrading your code, how often do you back the project up, and where to? I back up daily to a network storage box, a USB stick and cloud storage. I also back up when I've do a large chunk of code, so can be hourly. Am I being paranoid? I've been programming for about 40 years (started with Cobol on punched cards!) and I've only ever been caught out ONCE from not having backed up - I lost 2 days work, but it seemed like more.
🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉
Not many can claim 25 years on the Internet! Join us in celebrating this milestone. Learn more about our history, and thank you for being a part of our community!
I try to commit at least once every day, and push before leaving work.
I don't know how often work does backups, but I'm sure it's at least daily.
Commit to version control (same computer, same disk): after each working feature or bug fix, at least once a day but as often as once every five minutes depending on what I'm working on.
Backup to other computer on LAN: two to four times a day, usually. Also backs up to other disk on my main computer at the same time.
Backup to USB stick: once a week. I alternate between two USB sticks, and I always keep the latest one in my pocket so that I don't lose it if the house burns down.
If you use a version control system and you push changes to a separate server you automatically have two up-to-date copies of your code: you only need a good backup of the files on your PC (e.g. to a NAS unit) or your VCS server (e.g. to a cloud service like GitHub), maybe daily, to get the assurance of a third copy. Backing up both produces 4 or more copies of your code, but it remains a good idea to simplify creating and restoring backups. Other files would need a separate backup strategy, e.g. a NAS and a file storage cloud service.
With obsessively frequent backups, you should ensure that they are properly incremental and/or that old backups are purged to reclaim storage space.
I back up at least every day - just zip my cpp and h files and save it to my google drive.
If I plan overhauling something complicated, like a collision system, then I'll back that up before I start. A few times I made changes that broke other parts of my game and I had to reset.
Using a version control system is a must have in software development. Not that you can just go back a few revisions if something breaks, you are also able to undo changes easily. I had an USB stick in my early days which was always up to date but using SVN or even p4 shelves is just a way saifer and more convenient way of doing things. Backups are then done by the provider of those servers, I never had any issue with their service, even the free ones.
I'm currently using a free SVN server for my hobby stuff, GitHub as a mirror and p4 at work
Independent of where you backup, you should use a version control system. It makes it as easy as “git push origin” and “git push usbstick” to have a working backup of the whole history of your project. zip files are not sustainable in long term, you can not easily look up what you changed a month ago without unpacking and diffing hundreds of zip files, which makes you not do it cause it will be too cumbersome.
Yes, version control is essential, but shouldn't be used as your only backup. I have git for my serious projects, and I commit after anything minor is fixed (so once every few hours). Then I have two separate cloud backup services that are constantly running, and as a final safety, a USB drive that is configured to backup as soon as I plug it in (this I do about once per week).
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
