Backing up before flashing - what do you use

[giantcrazy]

...and what do you lose?

I've been having a ton of fun upgrading the ROM on my Wing, which I've had nearly a month now. Except now I'm reaching the point where I don't want to lose all my data when I flash (I've got DirectSync running on my own Exchange Server, so I'm covered for contacts and e-mails).

I've seen SpBBackup listed as a good backup solution, but I was curious - what will it back up for me? Will it restore logs of text messages and phone calls after a backup and flash? Will it backup installed programs (actually hoping this isn't the case, since I imagine a flash really deserves a reinstall of programs).

What do you use or recommend if I want to keep as much of the logged data on my phone through ROM updates?

[pulyka]

use pimbackup (2.5) to back up your:
contacts
mms/sms
emails
all calls

;)

[edzilla]

Personnaly, I use Sprite Backup, well worth the money.
You can backup/restore exactly you want (documents, system settings, even system files...). Excellent even when not flashing, after a hard reset for example.
I always have a backup file of a good working system on my storage card, so I can get all my applications back in ten minutes, even away from a computer.

Last time I checked, SPB backup didn't work when upgrading ROM, or at least didn't work well.
I don't know how well it does it now, though.

[giantcrazy]

Thanks guys - I'm going to have to look into them. I was under the impression that SpBBackup was the frontrunner, but that's purely based on an older device that I used to back up (that I never changed ROMs on).

[applecarriage]

I have spbBackup but the only thing I ever used it for was call logs/contacts/text messages/ etc. and I found out the pimBackup does this all for free. So I've switched to pimBackup. Spb backup has a nice feature where it makes the backup files executable so you don't need the program installed to restore your backups, but pimbackup is just a single executable that comes built in with most roms (or in the case that it doesn't you could just place the executable on your storage card.) It works very well for me. Whenever I reflash I like to reinstall and reconfigure anyways (this also helps find any bugs in the rom.)