How many backups needed?

norwega

A complete backup, 20+ years, is .8Gb. I'm ok with using 25GB for Quicken, but I'm currently using 180GB.

My thought is to start deleting the oldest backup each day until I get to the last 5 years.

Thoughts?

splasher

Personally, I make/keep a single "daily" backup when I have made any changes to the data file. I keep those for about 6 months, then I delete everything but the last backup of the month for the next two years and the end of the year backup after that. My data file goes back to 1996.

I also save the backup of the data file that I used to do taxes.

Now, my file is not as large as yours, about 79MB. I do NOT store attachments in Quicken since the only way in or out is via Quicken one at a time, they are encrypted, so even if you pull them out of the Quicken data file, you can't view them.

Another important thing is that my backups are NOT on my local computer hard drive since if it dies, so would my backups and I don;t use Quicken's automatic backup feature.

Boatnmaniac

How frequently to backup and for how long to keep the backups is a personal choice matter. I don't usually come across someone who has such a long history of backup files as you do. It is far more common to come across people who save only a few days of backups or none at all….and many of those people do come to regret that.

As opposed to @splasher's practice, I use Quicken's automatic backup feature almost exclusively.

I rarely make a manual backup file because I already backup after every session (which is 1, sometimes 2 or more, times a day). When I do make a manual backup file it is usually for a specific purpose while I'm experimenting or troubleshooting something. And it is usually deleted within a day or two after the specific purpose or troubleshooting is completed.

My automatic backup settings: Save after after every session and retain the last 35 files. That gives me roughly 1 month of daily backup files. Rarely do I need to restore a backup file from more than a couple of weeks ago.

I backup all of my data, document and backup files (not just for Quicken) to a thumb drive 1X per week using SyncToy. The next week's backup is more of a sync with the SSD so it matches what is currently saved on the SSD.

I also keep the last session backup from every quarter on my SSD, on a thumb drive and on FidSafe (a Fidelity cloud storage site).

My backup files go back about 5 yrs although I am questioning the need for saving any backup from more than a year ago and I am seriously thinking of deleting all backups from more than 1 yr ago.

I run 4 different data files (that are not test files). My largest data file is about 180MB. My smallest is about 17MB. I apply the same backup protocol to each of them.

For taxes: I export my tax reports from Quicken to Excel each year and save those. During my tax prep I bounce all of my receipts and tax statements against those exported tax reports and make/save any changes/modifications in those Excel files. I retain those tax reports as hard copies along with my other paper tax return documents and as soft copy files for at least 7 yrs (also saved on FidSafe). So there is no need to keep the Quicken backup files for anything more than the past tax year.

norwega

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20374995#Comment_20374995

Thanks much for your advice. I've followed it and am down to less than 15GB for Quicken and TurboTax! I hadn't realized how many different backups I had, moving from computer to computer over the years. It's all in the cloud so accessible if needed. Now I need to do the same for photos, as I know I have multiple backups for the same reason.