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I hope I am not stepping into a snakes pit here, sighhh
I think it depends on how you back up your data files.
First, I am not talking about mirror images of your complete system, just the data files created when I do photos, word processing files, spread sheets, that sorta thing.
I back up the data on my main family data base frequently, actually, the program has a nice little utility on shut down, offers me the chance to back up the file into a nice little zip file. Will save to the same directory on my hard drive each time. Pretty easy, quick and gentle reminders, nice stuff.
When I do back ups of data from the hard drive to MyBook, or storage place of choice, we all know there are many wonderful choices, including online, I do NOT overwrite my old backups. I have back ups of files from so far back I cannot even remember, but know they go back further than 1999. I do not destroy the old files, I save em.
A couple of years ago, I did one of those really stupid things we all do to our data, I made a change and well, wiped out well over 300 sources on my family history data base. For someone that is into sourcing, this was next to a catastrophic happening.
I had done a back up of the data base just a couple of days prior. I was able to retrieve the backup, install on one computer, used it to refer to and 4 months later, had all the corrections done on the other computer. It took that long to fix it all. I did not want to restore the backup and move on, because I had done other changes to the data base, LOTS of adding of new people, new names, new facts, new photos. I was not in the mood to try and recreate all that. It was easier to just correct the sourcing deletion. It also gave me a great opportunity to do a major overhaul of the way my sources were compiled, a silver lining as it were.
Nope, I never OVERWRITE data files, make backups yes, but, never overwrite.
Well, hope that is about as clear as mud. SIGH
Not intending to insult or upset anyone.
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