Backing up my hard drive

[jlgx50]

So I need to back up my laptop before i send it to be serviced.

I've got everything backed up, except for my steam games, which is something like 100gig or so, and my portable hard drive is 80 gig

is there any way I can use some sort of software or something that would be able to zip up and shrink the steam folder to a smaller size? so i don't have to download all my steam games again?

 

[BadabombadaBang]

This belongs under Software & Hardware

/moderator wannabe

 

[Swadius 2.0]

I'd recommend you buy another harddrive to put your games on, but according to my research the prices are still pretty high at the moment. Perhaps CDs?

 

[Slawtering]

Winrar?

http://www.rarlab.com/

 

[Kleidophoros]

Built-in steam back up thingy does compress game files.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

Winrar?

http://www.rarlab.com/

It's going to take a few days for him to compress all of that . Besides, I have tried using it to compress stuff, but even on best it doesn't do the job all that well.

 

[hairfree]

Upload to external sites like Mediafire ('cause it has some nice security options) isn't an option, then?

100 gig's is an awful lot to upload, even if you have good upload speed, but then again, since you can store 80 Gb on that back-up HDD, you can just upload 20 Gb on any info-store page. Or less, depending on compression when archiving all that.

It's still going to take a while to upload though. Again, depending on your upload speed, it could be faster or slower than any archiver, but it sure as hell's cheaper than buying a new HDD for the purposes of saving info, and...well...saves the info all the same.

Downside is, you'll still have to download that info later...

 

[jlgx50]

Hmm, I'm not sure Winrar is  going to help

that thing only compresses files down a few MB

The problem i have is that, when I try to copy some of the bigger games like Empire total war, a single file is 4gig, and won't copy over, and saying that it is too large for the hard drive. which isn't right either.

but i can copy some of the other games over to my spare laptop I have in reserve if I ever need it.

 

[Kleidophoros]

Is your HDD in FAT32 format?
It won't accept any file larger than 4GBs.

 

[jlgx50]

hmm, I did not know this, yes it is fat32

So is there a way around this?

 

[hairfree]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984.aspx

 

[Tuckles]

You can use the exFAT format.

If you really want to keep all 100 gigs of data, my only suggestion is to get a new hard drive. 320 gig HDDs go for as long as like 50 USD nowadays (bought a 1 TB for 100 GBP just a few days ago).

Otherwise, I'm wondering why you want to keep the 100 gigs. Can't you just redownload them from steam? The most important bits are your savegames anyway, which shouldn't be bigger than a few megs total. If you're going for online storage, uploading and then redownloading will just take more time than downloading them from steam all over again.

 

[jlgx50]

I've figured out how to save all 100 gig and i had a look it's actually 150 gig

and yes i can download them again, but it will take me months to download them all again since I don't get 100 gig a month on my internet

I've converted my hard drive to NTFS, so now i'll just save some to my spare laptop an the rest onto my portable hard drive, see how that works out, and if I have to loss the odd game I am happy to lose Counter strike 

 

[Tuckles]

Right, you don't plan on plugging your HDD into a Mac anyway right? NTFS should be fine then.

If that's the case, good for you then. I think it's a perfect opportunity to clear out games you don't play anymore. *eyes my collection of total war games on Steam*

 

[jlgx50]

Problem is I bought so many new games in the Christmas sale, and I installed them all, and now i have no idea which one to play first i end up not playing any, or switching between games so much i never get far in any of them.

though I have to admit, i have spent many hours on railworks train sim 2012

 

[Kevlar]

Not sure if I seen this recommend yet but just burn them to dvds?

If you dont have a dvd burner they are only like $20 and you can get probably 100 or so blank dvds for $20. This is cheaper then a hard drive but a lot more time consuming but if done properly will be the last time you do it and you wouldn't need the games installed as you could simply find the dvd.

Next option which is slightly more expensive (depending on the size) is a hard drive. This would be the quickest way but should your hard drive fail (has never happened to me personally) the data would be lost.

 

[Tuckles]

Plus having a shiny new hard drive makes you feel good inside. :3

 

[Kevlar]

Plus having a shiny new ssd makes you feel good inside. :3

Fixed. Who buys hard drives anymore 

 

[K-64]

Sensible people, I would think.

 

[Lord Burgess1]

People who don't throw money away and actually value the worth of their possessions.