Backing up wallet...Simple Question

[the joint]

I want to make a simple dual-backup of my wallet.

Can I simply do this?

1.)  Exit client.  Insert USB stick.  Copy wallet.dat to USB stick.   Remove and Store USB stick.
2.)  Email copy of wallet.dat to myself.

In the event that my wallet gets corrupted or lost, I can simply reinsert the wallet.dat back into the roaming/Bitcoin folder and reload the client, correct?

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[vuce]

Yes. But you have to do this every so often (every 100 addresses).

[the joint]

Yes. But you have to do this every so often (every 100 addresses).

You mean I have to make a copy every 100 addresses that my client creates?  Not every 100 blocks?

I'm pretty sure I'm a lonnnnnng ways off from generating 100 addresses.

[vuce]

Yes. But you have to do this every so often (every 100 addresses).

You mean I have to make a copy every 100 addresses that my client creates?  Not every 100 blocks?

I'm pretty sure I'm a lonnnnnng ways off from generating 100 addresses.

Yes. It will take a while. You could also use a parameter to force pre-generation of any number of addresses - although I wouldn't know how.

[the joint]

Yes. But you have to do this every so often (every 100 addresses).

You mean I have to make a copy every 100 addresses that my client creates?  Not every 100 blocks?

I'm pretty sure I'm a lonnnnnng ways off from generating 100 addresses.

Yes. It will take a while. You could also use a parameter to force pre-generation of any number of addresses - although I wouldn't know how.

Awesome, thanks!

BTW if anyone else can confirm that'd be great.

[jake262144]

Firstly, it's more like doing the backup every 100 actions.
No matter whether you receive funds, send funds, or generate new receiving addresses, each of those actions uses⁽¹⁾ one of the pre-generated keys.

Secondly, you can run bitcoin-qt with the parameter -keypool=<n>  to tweak the pool of pre-generated keys. Sane values are <1000.

Code:

c:\Program Files (x86)\Bitcoin\bitcoin-qt.exe -keypool=256

Notes:
(1) Actually, receiving funds only uses a key from the key-pool if the funds are sent to the address currently listed as "my address". Receiving bitcoins with any other previously-generated address does not influence the key-pool. Therefore, you will generally be safer than you think you are as far as using very old wallet backups is concerned.

[Gabi]

2.)  Email copy of wallet.dat to myself.

Yes you can but please encrypt it before emailing it to yourself. Giving the private keys to the email service owner? Not a clever thing.

[Garr255]

Just an added confirmation, it is wise to backup every 100 actions, not blocks or addresses.

[brunoshady]

Backup more often, better safe than sorry