We need a Backup reminder, at least.

[stonecherub]

One of the few things I remember fondly from IDImager is the back-up nag screen that would pop-up at some pre-set interval. Oh, Yeah, I forgot - click!

I have looked all over hell for any backup function in the IMatch menus and the apps and the scripts - nothing! May I respectfully suggest we need something rikki-tik.

Two weeks ago, I wrote my IMatch folder to a spare drive in my box just on general principles. Yesterday, an unexplained re-boot that occurred while I was elsewhere destroyed my active database leaving the two-week old version as the only one. All I lost was yesterday's work but that was a lot.

Ideally, the backup function would permit writing the applicable files to at least two places.

[Mario]

IMatch 5 does not include backup features by intention.
Backing up only your database does not help in any way. You also need to backup all your preferences, scripts, images and other data. But not only from IMatch, but from all your other applications as well.

Windows comes with an easy to use built-in backup feature. There are software products like TrueImage, Duplicaty and many cloud solutions which perform backups automatically, daily, without the user interfering. Such solutions are much preferable to a "Do you want to backup your database now?" functions you might remember from LR. It does not help at all just to backup the IMatch database when you don't backup other things as well. Like, the rest of your APPDATA folder, the Windows registry, etc.

I find it better to mention in the help in several topics to perform regular daily backups using one of the built-in, free or commercial backup software solutions. I might be wrong, though. All users let me hear your comments.

When IMatch asks "Don't forget to backup your database!", will users ask "How?"
Should I develop a built-in backup which backs up the database and other important files? If so, how far should we go? Implement daily backups, with retention times, automatically deletion of backups older than two weeks, ...
To do proper backups, you need the features already available in the built-in backup of Windows or one of the other solutions. Does it really make sense to spend a week or more to implement a small IMatch-only backup feature ?

[Gerd]

Question:

If I have exported all categories, including file-names and no metadata-pending files, what other important infos are stored in the IM-database?

[JohnZeman]

Question:

If I have exported all categories, including file-names and no metadata-pending files, what other important infos are stored in the IM-database?

Layouts, file window tip, attributes, metadata layouts, and the thesaurus come to mind off the top of my head.

[Mario]

I strongly encourage everyone to read the help topic 'Backup', which explains what is stored where, and how to properly backup your system. You find it by simply typing the word backup into the help index.

[picolo]

Mario,

I have never used the build in backup of my other DAM software I use.
However, I think to invest some time in a "backup" feature would be very much appreciated by the IM5 user community.
Not every one wants to invest into backup strategies, but in case of a crash - such a user using only the IM5 backup will be then very happy user

Still thinking that the pack and go feature would be something that could be used for this...
Just my 2 cents...

[stonecherub]

Thanks, Picolo, that's what I was thinking of.

Of course I DO have a back-up, three in fact. I have a local disk backup that saves stuff onto another drive in my box (it holds four). Alas, this one runs on start-up, does incremental saves, and takes five minutes. The wrecked database over-wrote the one from the day before while I was reading the news, unaware of the waiting disaster.

I also have Backblaze that writes stuff somewhere in "the cloud." It runs in the background while the computer is on. I'll have to admit that I never thought of going to backblaze to recover the database, that probably would have worked even though it is also incremental.

Every couple of weeks, I bring home an external drive from my wife's pottery studio, do an incremental backup to it, and then take it back. Just a little extra paranoia I got dirt cheap.

Picolo's suggestion is a very good one, Mario, YOU are the only one who can decide which files should be in the kind of back-up set I needed to recover from my disaster. I had saved all the files from my IMatch5 folder but I can't remember all of the stuff I did that got lost.

[ColinIM]

Still thinking that the pack and go feature would be something that could be used for this...

Sorry if I missed an earlier reference to "pack and go", but what is meant by "pack and go"?

Thanks.
Colin P.

[ColinIM]

I'd be content to have a "reminder" nudge to take a backup occasionally while I'm working, but to me it's logical to pause and to take a fresh, incremental backup each time I take a natural break from my desk anyway.

I've plonked a shortcut labelled "ad-hoc backup" deliberately in an untidy place near the middle of my Windows Desktop, and I click it as I leave my desk.  Yes, it's true that in order to get an ideal backup of IMatch I must close my currently open IMatch database ... so yes, I do that too.

On deciding what to backup, I find the information in the Help system to be all I need.  I simply include those key areas in my existing backups, on a well-established dated & timed schedule. (I've added a note about my overall backup regime at the end of this post.)

It's likely that if IMatch 5.x did include a(nother) backup scheme which was specific to IMatch and to our IMatch-managed photo-sets, then yes indeed I could employ it too, but - to echo Mario's point above - where would be the "end" to requests from Users for variations on those IMatch-specific backup "features"?   Just like cats, and just like favourite foods, we would all prefer to have a different permutation of the many possible "features" that could feasibly be included in any backup scheme.  The world of backup programs is a technology nightmare exactly because no two backup scenarios are alike!

Given the probability that this  (so far hypothetical) IMatch-5-specific backup scheme would not in fact be a fully-fledged, all-likely-disaster-circumstances-covered backup solution, then Mario would surely get recurring calls to "please add this too"; and he'd be asked "what about my favourite backup habit", etc..  And even if it was an almost infallible IMatch-only backup scheme, we could bet that the Feature Request list would still get peppered with special-case scenarios for which Mario would (hypothetically) need to refuse development time, or at best to prioritise for later ... while consequently not being able to focus on this program's main purpose.

I can totally understand why Mario delegates responsibility for all this, back onto us!

On our home computer systems, or on our business computers, we should (surely?) be maintaining a good, credible backup scheme already for all of our other sets of important data, not only to backup our IMatch stuff and our IMatch-managed files.  The big difference (I suppose?) is that unlike the majority of our "daily changing" data on our computers, rather, when we are working with IMatch and with our photos then significant portions of our data will change minute by minute.  So - I wonder - is it really that difficult to add a periodic step, perhaps manually-triggered, more frequent (than overnight) additional backup into our existing backup regimes?

On the days when I'm doing photo-editing I use a SyncBackSE script via a Desktop shortcut to make  ad-hoc, IMatch-database backups, usually multiple times per day, along with the changed photos for each session.  In an earlier era I would use a scripted WinZip task to do the same job.  For this purpose WinZip and SyncBackSE are equally effective, and with both programs it's (relatively) easy to maintain dated backup versions or archives.

(In this Forum I'm surprised to 'hear' myself spouting all of this ... and shouldn't I instead just refer readers over to the IMatch 3 Forum topics where backups have been talked-over in great depth many many times???!  I suppose the difference is that IMatch version 3.x did include a basic  backup option (database + optionally program files too) ... but I always preferred to wrap my IMatch 3.x backups into my own backup patterns anyway, so I rarely used that built-in option.)

I've waffled long enough ... sorry.

To conclude, as promised above, here's how I do my 'main' backups

My overnight incremental 'changes' on selected folders are backed up by scheduled WinZip backups plus other SyncBackSE scripts, onto my NAS.  I still use trusty old JungleDisk to push smaller sub-sets of changed data overnight to Amazon S3.  On alternate days I take full disk image-backups to my NAS and to my nearby Windows Home Server respectively, and on weekends I switch between a pair of nearly-full 2TB external drives, held in turn at my son's house, many miles away.

Colin P.
Edit: Minor clarification in second paragraph.