wallet backup frequency

[rmines]

I'd like to verify the following assumption is correct:

Lets say today I have 10 addresses in my wallet, each holding 0.1 BTC and I backup wallet.dat to a safe location.
Tomorrow I'll add another address that holds 5 BTC, but I don't make a new backup. A few hours later, my hard drive crashes and I need to restore the backup of the older wallet.

I will have lost the amount of BTC from the address that has not been backuped, 5BTC but I will be able to recover the 1 BTC from the other 10 addresses?
In other words, you will only need to make a new backup in case a new address has been assigned that has funds on them?

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[Rannasha]

It depends on the wallet-software.

Bitcoin-qt generates addresses in batches of 100. It will use an address from the pool every time you request a new receiving-address and every time you send coins (for the change-address). So you should backup your wallet-file every 100 (receiving-addresses requested + transactions sent).

Other wallets can have different methods to generate address. For example, Electrum generates addresses deterministically using the initial passphrase. No backups beyond the first are needed here.

[rmines]

I'm using Bitcoin-qt (v0.8.6-beta).

There are 12 receive addresses in this wallet, and 4 sent transactions.
So I should be good for another 84 combined (receive addresses+ sent transactions) before making a new backup?

[Rannasha]

I'm using Bitcoin-qt (v0.8.6-beta).

There are 12 receive addresses in this wallet, and 4 sent transactions.
So I should be good for another 84 combined (receive addresses+ sent transactions) before making a new backup?

Correct.

Of course it never hurts to back up more frequently.