You Can Learn from My Mistake
November 16th, 2007 by ChrisWell, maybe “mistake” is too a harsh word. How about an “Airhead Moment?”
The other day, I was working on my computer and I was trying to save something to my C:\ drive. I got the little pop-up telling me that I had low disk space. So I try to clean up, compress and defrag my drive. Not happening. I only had 1% free space, way less than the 15% recommended for defragging.
I started deleted old documents, photos and so on, but it didn’t free up any significant amount of space. I am not sure what made me think about the back ups of ACDSee, but I am glad it occurred to me at one point. I went into my Local Setting Folder, and found man, many backups for ACDSee- over a year’s worth! I looked in my Version 9 Folder, and deleted all but the last four back ups. Then I went into Version 10 and did the same thing. I was able to free up over 25% of disk space, which has made my computer much happier!
What happens is that because ACDSee does not overwrite the back up data, it makes a new folder each time you back up. And since I am a compulsive backer-upper (Is that a word? ha ha!), I had lots and lots of folders.
From ACDSee’s Help File:
Backup location
It’s a good idea to consider where you back up your data, as well as how often. If you’re backing up to your hard drive, ACDSee creates a new folder for each day. This helps to avoid overwriting your backup, and gives you several increments from which you can restore. Backing up the database to a CD or DVD once a week will help protect you in case of hard drive failure. Also helpful is a monthly backup that is stored in a different physical location than your computer, such as a network drive.
To do this in Version 9, the default location is:
C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local settings\Application Data\ACD Systems\Catalogs\90\ACDSeeBK
For Version 10, the default location is:
C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local settings\Application Data\ACD Systems\Catalogs\100\ACDSeeBK
Here is a screen shot of where my folder is located:
Be careful that you only delete backup files. You do not want to delete the Default folder. This folder contains all your organizing information.
You should only delete as many back up folders as you feel comfortable with. I felt that four back ups was “safe” for me. ANd don’t forget it is a good idea to back up your database to a CD or DVD as well.
For more information of backing up your data, click here.
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Nov 16, 2007 - 09:11:16Good advise. I just looked at my backups and I have 771 MB worth of backups!
And yes Chris is correct, you don’t need to keep all the backups. Just how many you feel comfortable with. Also make sure you are deleting the correct folders. Don’t delete the Default folder because this is where you organizing information resides. (Well, unless you have gone and moved it elsewhere, but you know if you did this.)
Another piece of advise. I never save my ACDSee backups in the default location. I save them on my EHD in a folder “ACDSee_Backup_DB” That way if my hard drive were to fail, I would have a copy of it on my EHD. Once I choose it once, ACDSee remembers the location and provides you that choice in subsequent backups.
If you don’t have an EHD or network drive you can save the backup to, then burn it CD/DVD monthly at least.
Ok – here’s a couple of questions, I’m using PM 10 now and I only have 1 bkup with 10 but several with 9. Should I delete all of the 9′s except for the last one? And on that same note, all of my 9 bkups are right around 2MBs or so. My 1st and only 10 bkup is almost 10Gigs! What gives????? Since I don’t have 9 anymore I can’t see what my old settings were any ideas? TY -c-
You probably saved the thumbnails in ACDSee 10 backup. Yes, I would probably delete all the 9 backups except for the last one.