backup plan with remote offsite access

thenewoc

thenewoc

thenewoc

Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2012
Posts
10,083
Location
West Sussex, England
Hi

With the pending move to a new OS (W8RP) I thought it was time to consider a better backup plan, to include an offsite element. Having said that I'm not very keen on trusting my data to a third party so was wondering if something along the following lines is possible?

Whether a family members computer at a different location to mine is usable for this? We are due to have the same W8 OS once it has been released, for now I'm using W8RP to become more familiar with it prior to updating their machine.

I have found some software called CrashPlan which would appear to achieve backup and remote storage but as yet not available for W8. Not sure how it secures a connection between client and host either, as to whether this is more or less secure than an alternative.

Therefore I wonder if I could break the task down into using a good backup application and a separate process to securely sync/copy backup to remote PC?

I'm not sure what the right way to connect to the host PC is?
  • Connecting LAN's
  • VPN
  • Remote Desktop
  • Remote Sync App

Somehow I want to be able to schedule the sync/copy over to remote PC so that it just gets done without relying on remembering to do the process manually.

I figure the first issue is going to be a dynamic IP on the host but think I could get round this using a service such as Dyn DNS.

Anyone currently using such a solution, would be great to get your input please.
 
Do you want to specifically backup to a remote PC, or are you suggesting it as an alternative? The security of CrashPlan looks fine if you take up their private password option.
 
Hi

I think it would be better to backup locally, then transfer backup to remote PC. That way if the connection was flaky or the process failed I would still have the local backup.

The CrashPlan option looks a strong contender for when they add W8 support, although doing some more digging I came across another app (Toucan) that also used blowfish encryption, but say they moved away from it due to file corruption issues. It seems CrashPlan uses 128-bit encryption for securing connection too but doesn't say whether that is only when connecting to their cloud storage or also when using your own remote PC's.

Toucan has shifted to AES-256 and has sync options but whether that can refer to a remote PC I don't yet know. It also doesn't appear to have been updated for almost 2 years and no word on whether there is due to be a W8 version.

http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/toucan

As far as the backup aspect at the moment is concerned there are very few applications that are claiming W8 ready. I've narrowed it down to Paragon Backup & Recovery Free.

http://download.cnet.com/Paragon-Ba...2187.html?tag=dropDownForm;productListing;pop

I could use this in the short term until a better evaluation can be done sometime post W8 launch.

That would just leave finding a way to do the separate process of scheduling secure remote connection and sync file...
 
Carbonite might be worth looking at too, I've heard good things about it. I wouldn't bother with a remote PC myself I'd rather it be stored in "the cloud" (encrypted of course) as its one less thing to worry about especially if you're willing to pay for such a service. A lot of them will back up incrementally too (I know Carbonite does) so you minimise the risk of corrupting a whole backup and are much less reliant on a persistent connection once your initial backup is done.
 
One of those cloud services would be the easy option but I don't wish to trust my data to one of them, so would prefer to find a way of using own / family resources.
 
Hi, I currently have around 225GB of which 125GB is music/pics/video. It would be nice to have a regular full backup supplemented with incremental or differential. As for regularity, it would be nice to capture any file mods on at least a daily basis. I would say the size has been fairly static but with a new computer I would say I'm about to make more use of it so I expect that to change. For instance I intend to also use this as a HTPC and gaming, including Steam.

I'm thinking I could split media out into its own backup set to spread workload when it comes to full backups. These aren't likely to change in terms of file mods, only new files being added. Could perhaps get away with 1 full backup per quarter on this with incremental inbetween.

I would say the non media, everything else would remain fairly static but most likely to include file changes, to office documents etc. Perhaps a full backup once a week with differential inbeteen.

There are two things we wish to guard against one being the easiest and most likely at some point, a hard drive fail, recoverable from local backups on separate physical disk, at worst we loose a days work. The second scenario being a complete disaster of fire / flood / burglary means having the remote source. I think there would need to be some compromise on backup regularity to remote source of it just being copied to once a week. In this second scenario I don't think loosing at max a weeks worth of data would be too bad.

If I later get a laptop I would sync backups to that also if I were taking that to work with me or easy to grab in the event of needing to escape a burning building.
 
Last edited:
Just posting some useful links here to continue this research once I've switched over to the new PC.

I've decided to use the Paragon Backup & Recovery 2012 Free to create a full backup of user data on the old PC using an external drive. This is because the XP Backup program doesn't exist in W8 so I think it's best to use a program that is compatible on both OS's.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33153_...ader-poll-whats-the-best-free-backup-program/


http://lifehacker.com/5902654/use-y...rehensive-guide-to-remote-controlling-your-pc

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/configure-vpn-connection-windows

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/is-freefilesync-better-sync-software-than-microsoft-synctoy-windows/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2288745,00.asp

http://owncloud.org/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom