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From: Stubby on 3 Aug 2010 07:59
On Aug 3, 1:27 am, Jim H <j...(a)invalid.com> wrote:
> D.Duck wrote:
>
> > And then if the house burns down you better have backed up to a HDD kept
> > in a family members home or use one of the on-line storage services.
>
> > I believe you can never have enough backups of critical data.  Hey...I
> > wear and a belt and suspenders.  8>)
>
> Once a quarter, I start a new DVD, and take my latest DVD to the safety
> deposit box at the bank. Worst case, if the house burned down would be
> data that is up to 3 months old.

Let me add a bit of concern: I've heard that the old, expensive DVDs
(and CDs) have a very long life. However, the newer, cheap DVDs
start getting errors around 10 years. So the older ones might be OK
for archives but the newer ones should only be used for backups. The
key is to actually verify that archives can be read, say, once a
year. Revert to your second copy if not.
From: John Pollard on 3 Aug 2010 08:16
R. C. White wrote:
> Hi, John.
>
> Right!
>
> Backups are to make sure that what I saved yesterday is still usable
> today.
> Archives are to make sure that I have a record of what happened two
> or ten years ago, in case I ever need or want that information.
>
> Two different ideas for two different purposes. Both valid and
> valuable, but each for a different purpose.
>
> What Ray originally asked about is kind of a hybrid of these two
> ideas: To remove obsolete data from the current operating files so
> that (a) we don't trip over it, and (b) so that it doesn't slow down
> or otherwise hinder current activities. This WAS a valid purpose
> when we were dealing with those large books that I mentioned. Those
> suckers got to be cumbersome! :^{ But Quicken on a reasonably modern
> computer is neither slow nor cumbersome, even with 20 years' data
> instantly available, for most of us. So I think that the practice of
> annually "closing the books" and removing last year's data is
> obsolete and unnecessary.

Pretty much what I was saying.

I wrote programs to archive (and de-archive) data for my company many
years ago. Not long after I wrote them, they became obsolete, as the
capacity of hard drives and the speed of disk access became so great and
the cost so low, that archiving no longer made any sense ... indeed, it
added unnecessary delay and complexity to the access of old data.


> "John Pollard" wrote in message
> news:i37rss$v72$1(a)news.eternal-september.org...
>
> Ray wrote:
>> a long time Quicken user --just some personal accounts... nothing
>> elaborate...
>> .. just wanted to know what is the purpose of Archiving Quicken Data
>> files... I backup on a weekly basis or when needed.. can't see the
>> need for it... am I missing something.. thanx :)
>
> I think others have already noted that your understanding of
> "archiving" isn't correct. It's not backing up.
>
> I suggest you ask to have someone demonstrate - *conclusively* - what
> the advantages of "archiving" are. I don't believe you will find any
> conclusive evidence that "archiving" is advantageous in the current
> world. Guestimates don't count.

--

John Pollard
news://<YOUR-NNTP-NEWSERVER-HERE>/alt.comp.software.financial.quicken
Your source of user-to-user Quicken help


From: Jeff on 4 Aug 2010 17:58
On 8/2/2010 7:38 PM, Jim H wrote:
> Jeff(a)nospam.invalid wrote:
>
>> I also like to keep all my data and have not archived, but it leads me
>> to wonder if these are concerns:
>>
>> a) Large files are more prone to corruption than small files. While it
>> is true that backups add a layer of safety, one may not detect the
>> data corruption until years later when all the backups are also
>> corrupted.
>>
>
> Unless something is broken, files are not prone to corruption at all. I
> used to write software for testing disk and tape storage. Disk storage
> is very reliable, and it has extensive error checking to insure that
> when a failure does occur, it can be detected, and often corrected. The
> errors that can't be corrected are usually severe enough that the data
> can't be used at all.
>
> Most data corruption is caused by faulty software, or a defective disk
> drive (which is almost always completely destructive of the data). In
> both cases, file size has no bearing on it. But, even if it did, Quicken
> data files are certainly not large files. A single DVD image is at least
> 10 times the size of a quicken database.
>
> If you are using USB thumb drives with no error detection or correction,
> then all bets are off.
> --
> Jim
>
>
That is good to know. I am using my PC's HD, but in a volume encrypted
on the fly by True Crypt (which adds to complexity). I make regular
backups to an external USB HD. Do not use flash drives for Quicken.
From: Jeff on 4 Aug 2010 18:00
On 8/2/2010 8:55 PM, D.Duck wrote:
>
>
> "Ray" <nospam(a)aol.com> wrote in message
> news:C56dnQETIJWqzMrRnZ2dnUVZ_tydnZ2d(a)atmc.coop...
>> On 8/2/2010 6:26 PM, R. C. White wrote:
>>> Hi, Ray.
>>>
>>> Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away...
>>>
>>> I was an accountant. I kept books. BIG books! With pen and ink (remember
>>> those?). Each year's books for one company might weigh 10 pounds. A
>>> set of books
>>> for 20 years might outweigh me! To keep the physical labor of
>>> handling those
>>> books manageable, we would "close" the books each year-end. Then we
>>> would open a
>>> new, slimmer set of books for the new year. If we needed to look back
>>> in 1970 to
>>> see what had happened in 1965, we had to - first - FIND the 1965
>>> binders, and
>>> then carry one from the vault to our desk, open it - then take it
>>> back and get
>>> the other binder, the right one, we hoped... You get the picture.
>>>
>>> When I first started using Quicken - in 1990 - the situation was some
>>> better.
>>> But still, with those floppy diskettes and even with the humongous 5
>>> MB (yep, M!
>>> B) HDDs, it often took a good bit of disk shuffling to find
>>> information from
>>> just a few years ago. Especially if we continued the pen-and-ink
>>> model of
>>> closing our electronic books each year and creating an annual
>>> archive, deleting
>>> prior years' data from our working file to make room for the new year's
>>> transactions.
>>>
>>> Finally, as disk drives grew, we could store 20 years' data in a
>>> single file
>>> using only a tiny fraction of a hard disk. Nowadays, many (most?) of
>>> us Quicken
>>> users like to keep ALL our financial history in our current working
>>> file. My
>>> Quicken file has data back to 1990; its total size is a little over
>>> 50 MB now.
>>> That's, let's see, 1.6667e-4 of that 300 GB HDD. (I don't read
>>> scientific
>>> notation very well, but that's a very small fraction!) Even with a dozen
>>> backups, there's plenty of room. So I don't feel a strong urge to
>>> remove enough
>>> data from the file to save disk space. And, I don't notice any
>>> slowdown in
>>> performance, sp that doesn't motivate me to shrink the file, either.
>>>
>>> What does motivate me - to keep the data intact and at hand - is the
>>> ability to
>>> look back and see that I paid $71.88 for the local phone company to
>>> install my
>>> telephone on November 13, 1990, including the first month's service.
>>>
>>> I think I recall trying to archive the first year or two of my
>>> Quicken data, but
>>> haven't tried it since. I know the option is still there in the 2010
>>> program
>>> (File | File Operations | Year-end Copy), but I have no interest in
>>> using it.
>>> But I don't mind if Intuit leaves it there for those who want it.
>>>
>>> RC
>>
>> there is nothing anywhere in Quicken that states you gain anything
>> except some file space .. in this day and age .. no more floppies.. so
>> DVD-RW disks .. flash drives... and external hard drives are the
>> norm.. seems like there is no worry about the file size anymore...
>> looked to me like it was kinda useless...
>>
>> I questioned this because a friend of a friend uses Archiving but has
>> no idea why he uses it except that someone a while back told him to..
>> go figure..
>>
>> I found this link.....a number of items in Quicken explained
>> http://financialsoft.about.com/od/quickenforbeginners/tp/Work-With-Quicken-Data-Files.htm
>>
>>
>> as well as this
>> http://financialsoft.about.com/od/advancedtutorialsandtips/ss/q04_archive.htm
>>
>>
>> I've been using Quicken Backup to a DVD-RW disk for a while now... I
>> also Backup to a 'My Quicken Backup' folder I created on one of my
>> hard drives separate from the main Quicken folder.. as well as backing
>> the entire Desktop up to an External Hard Drive
>
> And then if the house burns down you better have backed up to a HDD kept
> in a family members home or use one of the on-line storage services.
>
> I believe you can never have enough backups of critical data. Hey...I
> wear and a belt and suspenders. 8>)
Not too sure about entrusting my financial data to the cloud. One never
knows.....
From: D.Duck on 4 Aug 2010 23:23


<Jeff(a)nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:i3cnuc$etn$2(a)news.eternal-september.org...
> On 8/2/2010 8:55 PM, D.Duck wrote:
>>
>>
>> "Ray" <nospam(a)aol.com> wrote in message
>> news:C56dnQETIJWqzMrRnZ2dnUVZ_tydnZ2d(a)atmc.coop...
>>> On 8/2/2010 6:26 PM, R. C. White wrote:
>>>> Hi, Ray.
>>>>
>>>> Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away...
>>>>
>>>> I was an accountant. I kept books. BIG books! With pen and ink
>>>> (remember
>>>> those?). Each year's books for one company might weigh 10 pounds. A
>>>> set of books
>>>> for 20 years might outweigh me! To keep the physical labor of
>>>> handling those
>>>> books manageable, we would "close" the books each year-end. Then we
>>>> would open a
>>>> new, slimmer set of books for the new year. If we needed to look back
>>>> in 1970 to
>>>> see what had happened in 1965, we had to - first - FIND the 1965
>>>> binders, and
>>>> then carry one from the vault to our desk, open it - then take it
>>>> back and get
>>>> the other binder, the right one, we hoped... You get the picture.
>>>>
>>>> When I first started using Quicken - in 1990 - the situation was some
>>>> better.
>>>> But still, with those floppy diskettes and even with the humongous 5
>>>> MB (yep, M!
>>>> B) HDDs, it often took a good bit of disk shuffling to find
>>>> information from
>>>> just a few years ago. Especially if we continued the pen-and-ink
>>>> model of
>>>> closing our electronic books each year and creating an annual
>>>> archive, deleting
>>>> prior years' data from our working file to make room for the new year's
>>>> transactions.
>>>>
>>>> Finally, as disk drives grew, we could store 20 years' data in a
>>>> single file
>>>> using only a tiny fraction of a hard disk. Nowadays, many (most?) of
>>>> us Quicken
>>>> users like to keep ALL our financial history in our current working
>>>> file. My
>>>> Quicken file has data back to 1990; its total size is a little over
>>>> 50 MB now.
>>>> That's, let's see, 1.6667e-4 of that 300 GB HDD. (I don't read
>>>> scientific
>>>> notation very well, but that's a very small fraction!) Even with a
>>>> dozen
>>>> backups, there's plenty of room. So I don't feel a strong urge to
>>>> remove enough
>>>> data from the file to save disk space. And, I don't notice any
>>>> slowdown in
>>>> performance, sp that doesn't motivate me to shrink the file, either.
>>>>
>>>> What does motivate me - to keep the data intact and at hand - is the
>>>> ability to
>>>> look back and see that I paid $71.88 for the local phone company to
>>>> install my
>>>> telephone on November 13, 1990, including the first month's service.
>>>>
>>>> I think I recall trying to archive the first year or two of my
>>>> Quicken data, but
>>>> haven't tried it since. I know the option is still there in the 2010
>>>> program
>>>> (File | File Operations | Year-end Copy), but I have no interest in
>>>> using it.
>>>> But I don't mind if Intuit leaves it there for those who want it.
>>>>
>>>> RC
>>>
>>> there is nothing anywhere in Quicken that states you gain anything
>>> except some file space .. in this day and age .. no more floppies.. so
>>> DVD-RW disks .. flash drives... and external hard drives are the
>>> norm.. seems like there is no worry about the file size anymore...
>>> looked to me like it was kinda useless...
>>>
>>> I questioned this because a friend of a friend uses Archiving but has
>>> no idea why he uses it except that someone a while back told him to..
>>> go figure..
>>>
>>> I found this link.....a number of items in Quicken explained
>>> http://financialsoft.about.com/od/quickenforbeginners/tp/Work-With-Quicken-Data-Files.htm
>>>
>>>
>>> as well as this
>>> http://financialsoft.about.com/od/advancedtutorialsandtips/ss/q04_archive.htm
>>>
>>>
>>> I've been using Quicken Backup to a DVD-RW disk for a while now... I
>>> also Backup to a 'My Quicken Backup' folder I created on one of my
>>> hard drives separate from the main Quicken folder.. as well as backing
>>> the entire Desktop up to an External Hard Drive
>>
>> And then if the house burns down you better have backed up to a HDD kept
>> in a family members home or use one of the on-line storage services.
>>
>> I believe you can never have enough backups of critical data. Hey...I
>> wear and a belt and suspenders. 8>)
> Not too sure about entrusting my financial data to the cloud. One never
> knows.....

I look at it this way. All my financial institutions keep my data on a
server in the "clouds". No way to get around that.

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