Backup up solution

mattyg · 23 Mar 2011 at 13:08

Hiya folks.

I've had a hell of a week My vertex ssd died (jumper wont work either) and retrospect backup didnt do an image only a few files

So i'm now looking at a proper backup solution.

Win7 backup has my empty E:drive and my data Raid F: as sytem drives for some reason so it wont system image as it needs nearly 3 TB.

So looking for another way.

Macrium reflect seems to be highly rated. Is it worth buying the cheapest one or get the all bells 4 user with additions.

I have 3 pcs and a laptop but only really need backup of 2 of them.

Thanks
Matt

SiriusB · 23 Mar 2011 at 14:27

I use Macrium Reflect for all my backups and cannot rate it highly enough. Whether or not you buy two licenses or the 4-user pack is down to you.

Stelly · 23 Mar 2011 at 14:44

Couldn't agree more with Sirius I use it every day without any issues, great British made products

Stelly

mattyg · 23 Mar 2011 at 16:46

SiriusB said:
I use Macrium Reflect for all my backups and cannot rate it highly enough. Whether or not you buy two licenses or the 4-user pack is down to you.

LOL Yeah the license was a silly question but what about the backup with the additions

Edit:
Seems such a stupid question... Looks like the additions is just another license

crazybones · 24 Mar 2011 at 06:31

Having used imaging programs (mainly Acronis True Image) for years, I've learned the hard way that a multiple backup srategy works best! The time that you need to use the image, you find that it has a problem.

You may wish to think about network attached storage - I've bought a Synology DS211j and it is a truly amazing piece of hit. All your pc's can backup/sync with it and it also has DNLA, so can link to the TV etc to play videos.

It comes with backup software which is installed on each PC. It only backs up files, so does not create an image although you could use it to backup up an image.

It's just saved my data, as my SSD died yesterday. The bonus was that I just grabbed a laptop and downloaded from the NAS all the files which had been backed up from the SSD.

SiriusB · 24 Mar 2011 at 09:05

As above, it is important to backup any important data more than one way. In addition to imaging, I also create file and folder backups [using Macrium] for important directories.

I also regularly check both the images and file backups to make sure they aren't duff.

bledd · 24 Mar 2011 at 09:59

One awesome thing with Macrium (some other imaging tools can do this too) is the ability to convert the backup image to a Virtual PC file, so you can mount it in VirtualPC/Virtualbox/VMware

SiriusB · 24 Mar 2011 at 10:13

bledd. said:
One awesome thing with Macrium (some other imaging tools can do this too) is the ability to convert the backup image to a Virtual PC file, so you can mount it in VirtualPC/Virtualbox/VMware

This is an awesome feature. You can also mount your images and browse them like a regular HDD. Great if you need to recover a single document or folder.

mattyg · 24 Mar 2011 at 12:34

One of the biggest things is all my password etc. Oh and ton of emails I've lost. I use it for business. Luckily most is on a separate server. Which will also be getting the macrium treatment.

I've downloaded the free version for now Just to make sure my limited knowledge allows me to use it.

It did a image backup of my OS drive (new install) in under 4 mins. Does that sound right.

Its compressed from over 30 GB to just over 14gb.

I'm going to set it up to do a new image each night and store on 2 different locations. I assume by running it twice or can I get it to save to 2 locations on its own.

I may also use acronis to do a weekly backup image.

SiriusB · 24 Mar 2011 at 13:09

mattyg said:
One of the biggest things is all my password etc. Oh and ton of emails I've lost. I use it for business. Luckily most is on a separate server. Which will also be getting the macrium treatment.

If your email database is held on the other server and you image that, it will backup the database. You can also probably backup the email database using a File/Folder backup [instead of full image].

I've downloaded the free version for now Just to make sure my limited knowledge allows me to use it.

It is very easy to use. There are also some fantastic guides here:

http://www.macrium.com/tutorial.asp

It did a image backup of my OS drive (new install) in under 4 mins. Does that sound right.

Its compressed from over 30 GB to just over 14gb.

It is very fast. Reflect will not image certain files - notably the hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys files [it will image empty versions of each]. That will automatically save you a big chunk of data. On my system, I save 6GB. If used hibernate it would save 12GB! :eek:

The compression is also very good.

I'm going to set it up to do a new image each night and store on 2 different locations. I assume by running it twice or can I get it to save to 2 locations on its own.

You could just image to a secondary HDD, then run a batch script that copies the image files to different locations. My set up at home:

Server. Desktop. Laptop.

Each does a daily image to secondary HDDs/partitions. Each also runs a nightly robocopy script to copy the images to the server. The server in turn copies all the backups to an external HDD.

I may also use acronis to do a weekly backup image.

It may seem prudent to run two solutions, but to be honest I have never had Reflect fail on me.

mattyg · 24 Mar 2011 at 13:37

Thanks Mr B

I've got it to run 3 times at the moment.
1 local
2 Server
3 Server 2nd HDD

I have an Iomega Home media network drive that I was also going to use but i cant get macrium to see it. (i'll keep reading though it'll be somewhere)

I was going to say once bitten, But stupidly this has happened before but I assumed (I know) That the backup I had running would suffice.

SiriusB · 24 Mar 2011 at 13:42

You can try putting in the UNC path yourself

e.g.

Code:

\\iomega\share\backups

Or perhaps map it to a network drive.

mattyg · 24 Mar 2011 at 13:59

SiriusB said:
You can try putting in the UNC path yourself

e.g.

Code:

\\iomega\share\backups

Or perhaps map it to a network drive.

What and what??

Thats where my knowledge-base ends.

Although I'm learning.

Off to research map network drive

MikeTech · 28 Mar 2011 at 05:14

I use Handy Backup, it's a good and reliable backup solution fo Windows 7.

Credo · 28 Mar 2011 at 17:21

Whatever backup regime you use, you should do a 'Disaster Recovery' test to see if you can actually get at your data should a worst case scenario occur. For instance, imagine your HDD is completely dead - how easy is it to read your backup data, and to actually restore it? I create a file backup to an external HDD using Robocopy of my whole system - once established it's quite quick to complete as I only copy the new / changed files. I do another of just my Photos drive to an internal HDD. A Windows 7 image is done as well, which should be OK as I have the Win 7 disk to boot from... hopefully these two backups will suffice, at least with the Robocopy backups I can access the files from any PC...

SiriusB · 28 Mar 2011 at 18:17

mattyg said:
What and what??

Thats where my knowledge-base ends.

Although I'm learning.

Off to research map network drive

When it asks you for the destination path for the backup image, you can use a UNC path. This takes the form

\\servername\sharename\subfolder

So if the name of your NAS is "iomega", you have a share called backups and another folder called say "main PC backups" you could try entering:

"\\iomega\backups\main PC backups"

Mapping a network drive takes the above UNC path and lets you assign it to a drive letter in Windows. So to you, and applications, it looks like another hard drive.