Tips on Backing Up Please?

[Antar Bolaeisk]

There are currently several computers in the house that I wish tp provide back-up solutions, one of them is my own running a RAID 1 array on which I store all my sensitive documents the other a Dell computer which belongs to my father. Would I be correct in assuming that a similar RAID array would be difficult to achieve on the Dell, I have looked in the motherboard BIOS for anything that stands out and, unless there's a hidden menu somewhere, have found nothing helpful.

I was thinking of perhaps getting some sort of NAS device onto which to store any backup data from both computers but I'm not entirely sure the best way to go about it. Or perhaps there are alternatives that I am unaware of.

Quite simply this is really unknown terrain for me and figured I'd once again turn to the OcUK boffins to seek assistance.

Thanks in advance,
Antar.

 

[rpstewart]

Firstly RAID1 is not a backup, all it provides is redundancy and the ability to continue working in the event of a single HDD failure.

I would suggest an external HDD rather than a NAS, it'll be quicker, cheaper and if it's only for backups then it doesn't need to be (and shouldn't be) permanently attached to either system.

 

[NathanE]

I've setup SyncToy to do nightly folder synchronisations. Seems to do the trick.

At the end of the day the only true "backup" is to a data center somewhere.

An external hard disk is just as vulnerable as a RAID1 array to things like fire or theft. And unless you physically unplug the external hard disk afterwards it is still vulnerable to a power surge or virus infection.

I have an APC UPS to protect my PC from surges or small power outages (and hence file system corruption - although not likely on NTFS).

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Thanks rpstewart and NathanE

Firstly RAID1 is not a backup, all it provides is redundancy and the ability to continue working in the event of a single HDD failure.

I would suggest an external HDD rather than a NAS, it'll be quicker, cheaper and if it's only for backups then it doesn't need to be (and shouldn't be) permanently attached to either system.

Which only shows my ignorance in the whole area though I was just using it in case of drive failure. The only reason I was considering a NAS was that I was thinking of using the sync toy/robocopy on both computers to back-up the files in the dead of night when no-one would be on the either computer, I can do a lot of weird things in my sleep but successfully moving an external hard-drive from one computer to another would be a bit too extreme. The other thing as well is that I want to try and make this as automated as possible as Dad doesn't want any hassle, he just wants it to work.

I've setup SyncToy to do nightly folder synchronisations. Seems to do the trick.

At the end of the day the only true "backup" is to a data center somewhere.

An external hard disk is just as vulnerable as a RAID1 array to things like fire or theft. And unless you physically unplug the external hard disk afterwards it is still vulnerable to a power surge or virus infection.

I have an APC UPS to protect my PC from surges or small power outages (and hence file system corruption - although not likely on NTFS).

Is there any way to create a back-up of an entire drive so that if something goes terribly wrong, say a nasty virus, that this can then be transferred back onto the computer and leave it working as nothing had ever happened?

Any of the very important data like photographs, certain documents etc are stored online on Skydrive at the moment.

 

[theheyes]

Is there any way to create a back-up of an entire drive so that if something goes terribly wrong, say a nasty virus, that this can then be transferred back onto the computer and leave it working as nothing had ever happened?

You can get software that takes an 'image' of the hard disk which is a snapshot of the current system state at that time. Windows 7 has a built-in tool for this, you can get paid-for software from Acronis and Norton or you can use a free utility like CloneZilla.

In my opinion and experience image-based backups work best when combined with a parallel, more regular file-based backup.

 

[Namsnik]

If you use an external drive then you can disconnect it apart from when you are backing up - thus adding resilience from power surges etc. You could even keep it at a different location thus reducing risks of loss from fire etc. If you share that drive over the network then you do not need to plug your external drive into different computers to do the backups.

You can use Robocopy or synctoy or a million other backup solutions to archive on a file by file basis. Synctoy though only keeps the latest copy of a file. If it has become corrupted (technically or by the user accidentally deleting key data) then you only find out after you open it and you may not have an earlier copy. So incremental backups and using the archive attribute to tell wherher a file has been backed up become important.

However to create a backup of the entire drive I have started using Reflect to creat an image of the disk. If you have a Seagate disk in your PC then their Disk Wizard does something similar. With both of these you can apparently restore individual files and the image is compressed but the real beauty is when disaster strikes you can just restore everything back to a time when you were happy it worked.

So the backup routine I am evolving is based on occaisional Disk images PLUS more regular backups on an incremental basis of my data files. (I haven't yet worked out what to use for that - too many options!).

 

[Antar Bolaeisk]

Righto, thanks guys for all the info.

 

[bledd]

Acronis True Image live boot cd - for creating full drive backups (I do one every few months or so)

Robocopy - commandline copying program that will only copy new or updated files..

to use it.

robocopy /e "c:\source folder" "d:\destination folder" I run this whenever I add files to say Music or Videos

I have a file for each of my media folders, Music, Videos, Photos, so I just run photos.bat and it'll scan for changes and copy the new files to my backup drive.

Works over network too