Best back up method

[Bazzards]

Hi Guys

Following a bit of a nightmare with my computer being unusable for the day, due to an update that went awry, I am looking for a back up solution. I would only need to back up a single 1tb drive. What would be the best solution?

I have some spare 3.5 inch hard drives and an external enclosure for connecting these to my pc via usb, but perhaps there are better solutions.

Thanks

Just to add, in would be a mirror of the drive in question so should Windows go awol again, I can re-install from a backup.

 

[mickyflinn]

The Cloud and or your external enclosure, preferably both .

 

[Bazzards]

Hi Micky Any particular software to use for home backup? What are the preferred cloud services? I presume I would use local backup for the morror and cloud for individual folders?

 

[mickyflinn]

Hi Micky Any particular software to use for home backup? What are the preferred cloud services? I presume I would use local backup for the morror and cloud for individual folders?

I use Acronis True image to back up my stuff you have to pay but I like it.

Always make sure you have multiple back ups as well as the cloud , I use Google for files and photos as well.

Acronis True Image is now Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office

Acronis True Image is now Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office

www.acronis.com

 

[Disco_P]

You wanting to back up a bootable OS or just access to files?

I use Veeam to backup my OS to an image file that I can easily restore from. Does this every day seamlessly in the background to my system's internal hdd.

Then I have freefilesync back those image files and other loose files (pics, videos, audio, documents, standalone programs) to a pair of external drives which I rotate, keeping one out of my home in case of fire etc.

 

[Bazzards]

Thanks Micky, I shall check out acronis.

Disco, yes a backup of the whole c:drive, so about 780 gig. I note that other than the first backup, future backups only update files which have changed, which is handy. Will check out veeam.

 

[Snapshot]

I've used Acronis True Image for many years but I stopped upgrading at version 2019. They've bloated it into 'Cyber Protect Home Office' which is subscription only and has a reputation for being buggy.

O&O DiskImage looks worth investigating as it sounds decent and it's cheap if you get on their mailing list and wait for the frequent special offers.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

I use a combination
Multiple backups (image files)
In Multiple places
But also more than 1 drive with windows installed
Gives the option to boot to another drive
To rule out its a hardware issue
The other drives have windows and the bare essentials installed
Unlike the main drive where I do loads of stuff
So can quite easily be a software issue/windows issue

I still like macrium
Even if the free version will no longer get updates
It should still work fine
Unless Microsoft make a major file system change
Which has only happened once in all the years
I have used macrium
Microsoft did something to volume shadow copy or something
I also like I can add macrium to the boot menu
So I can boot into it without hunting for where
I put the rescue usb lol

I got the latest acronis free with motherboard
Doesn't even work for me
Acronis schedule error which even after contacting support
Their fix didn't work
So I binned it

Check if your motherboard or drive manufacturer includes a free
Software to do it
A lot of them do give one
But there's definitely plenty of free options out there
Why pay if can do it for free
Others to look at
Easeus,aomei, ashampoo are 3 that come to mind
Can't remember which are free off hand
But they all tend to do either giveaways of their older version
Or big discounts regularly ashampoo in particular

I would definitely recommend getting either a ssd or m2
Or fast external drive to store images
Restoring from a hdd will be really slow
Especially if you're talking 780GB (before image gets compressed)
Something like a Samsung t7 can do 1GBs
Assuming your pc has the usb ports to support that speed

 

[Bazzards]

Thanks Mcnumpty. I have run a full drive image with Macrium, how do I create a rescue disk/access boot menu? Is this an just an option in software?

I dont need extensive backups really, I dont hold a lot of personal documents on this PC. Just want the ability to restore to a useable system should something go awry.

I have a b550i motherboard, can I assume this will have fast enought usb ports? it has a single USB 3.2 type c and standard 3.2 ports. If fast enough will look at the Samsung T7.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yeah should be fast enough
Even if could only use usb c to usb a cable it would still
Be miles faster than a hdd

Yeah create rescue media/add to boot menu
Is an option in the software
May be under tools/other things
Forgot exactly but it's top left when you open macrium

 

[Disco_P]

Thanks Micky, I shall check out acronis.

Disco, yes a backup of the whole c:drive, so about 780 gig. I note that other than the first backup, future backups only update files which have changed, which is handy. Will check out veeam.

780GB is quite a lot for image file backups. I split my OS drive with 200GB for OS and 750GB for games. The OS and programs uses 100GB but it gets compressed to about 70GB so about 10 minutes write time to spinning rust.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yeah 780GB is a lot
But at 1GBs it's approx 13 minutes

In the old days with Norton ghost
An hour for a much much smaller backup
Was pretty common lol
Even installing windows back then 45 minutes or so

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

@Bazzards of course we are assuming
That your windows drive is a m2 nvme drive
Otherwise you won't get 1GBs
Even a sata ssd you would still get approx 500MBs anyway
And the t7 would give some future proofing
If that were the case

 

[Bazzards]

Thanks guys, sorry missed these posts. Yes, my system is all NVME.

I have created the rescue media/boot menu. How would this work if the system goes down? I thought it would create a rescue disc on a usb or something, so if all failed, I could boot from usb then copy the image across.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Thanks guys, sorry missed these posts. Yes, my system is all NVME.

I have created the rescue media/boot menu. How would this work if the system goes down? I thought it would create a rescue disc on a usb or something, so if all failed, I could boot from usb then copy the image across.

you can do both
add to boot menu and create recue usb
just go to same place
other tasks-create rescue media
if you dont have a usb inserted it will only show add to boot menu
or create iso
shove in a usb drive and that option will become visible too

 

[Bazzards]

Perfect thanks McNumpty. Rescue disc created, this should hopefully see me sorted.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Perfect thanks McNumpty. Rescue disc created, this should hopefully see me sorted.

You're welcome mate
Not sure about free versions
But you may also be able to install
Macrium viboot
It can mount your backup images in its VM
To test them or copy files from etc
Though must admit never tried that with such a large image
As you will have
You may not even have enough drive space to do it anyway

 

[Bazzards]

I may have a look over the weekend. It may be best just backing up my windows install. My only issue is that my c drive has both my install of windows and games etc. I think if I only backed up my windows install it would be minimal.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yeah modern games can be huge
Only got 38Mbs here
So wouldnt be fun having to redownload them
Luckily my motherboard has 5 x m2 slots
So I have my games backed up too separately from
My windows images

 

[Tom B]

worth noting that a mirror is not a backup. If you accidentally delete a file it's removed from both.

I'd mount some external drives as individual drives and use a scheduled task in restic to back up to them and set it to keep a year's worth of snapshots or whatever.

You can then sync the drives with the cloud and back up your backups offsite. I wouldn't bother backing up anything big that can be easily redownloaded though (e.g. games) as it's a lot of space, just select folders you actually care about.