Realistic Backup System for Home User

1. Multiple copies.
2. Copies off site.
3. Media has write protection (DVDRW can pass this one)


Hard disks in external enclosures fail (so far) on item 3. Without write protection it's possible for the pest or issue that caused a need to restore to obliterate the contents of USB hard disks.

Item 1 is often overlooked as well as item 2.

-> Here's my plan. I only backup what I can't replace. Since the OS and programs are widely available I don't bother with those. I head straight to my pictures, documents and files. So far those fit on 3 DVDRW disks.

Bob

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Lots of discussion about backup strategies...

I always use two internal HDDs ... three including an external HDD which holds for a second copy of my backup) and it's worked for me and those I help since 2001. I sleep well

First hard drive has two partitions ....
- Partition 1 ...the OS and the Apps
- Partition 2 ...all data, downloadsm updates, etc.,

Second hard drive also has two partitions....
- Partition 1 small partition for a swap file
- Partition 2 large partition for image files of both C: and D:

In the event C: becomes corrupt and cannot be quickly fixed thru restore points or other...I get out my Ghost 2003 floppy disk and restore C: (the first
physical hard drive) from one of the images stored on the 2nd physical hard drive. If the first drive dies mechanically ...I get a new drive, install it and restore the images again from the second hard drive. If the original HDD is still under warranty ...I send it back and put the warranty replacement on the shelf when it's replaced. Actually have several spare HDDs so the restore is very quick and as easy and painless as a drive failure can be.

To take it one step further...I copy images of drive C: and drive D: to an external HDD that I can keep safe in my desk at work. I also protect the
system with a good UPS that minimizes data loss and potential corruption from unanticipated outages.

VAPCMD

With today's ever growing hard disk sizes, it's become increasingly important to consider how you organize your overall installation in order to most efficiently support backing up what you need.

I've used this approach and it's made a huge difference for me.

1. I have two partitions at a minimum. The C: partition gets enough space to comfortably hold:
- all Windows core operating system
- Windows swap file
- all critical apps to running the pc in a bare bones reinstall. this means, any anti-virus, partition editing, any special device software that's critical, etc. Think of it as anything that wouldn't let the PC run minimally and safely with the truly necessary functionality there and no more.

2. The second partition (D gets all the applications installed that go beyond those in #1 (MS Office, games - the stuff the PC will run OK without, even though it may not do everything you might need it to do). Just override each during install to change the drive letter to D: (or other drive letters if you have more drives, small drives, etc.)

3. In that D: partition (or elsewhere, again it all depends on how many drives, their size, etc.) I have a directory structure (I use my initials) that holds all my work files (all photos, documents, spreadsheets, midi files, anything you create or accoumulate). You may have to have a "xxx1" and a "xxx2" version on two different drives if you have a lot and have small drives. While this requires you to override the default of putting files you create into the My Documents folders, I find this works much better since I now have a *lot* of documents and doing so keeps my C: partition small and manageable. The industrious among you may choose to reconfigure Windows to default to this alternative location.

Now what this does is allow you manage your backup strategy in a whole new optimized way.

First, take an IMAGE of your C:, the kind that lets your backup software restore it from a brand new store bought drive in case that ever happens. Because you kept this small it will easily fit on a single DVD, and although you may need to get a fresh image burned of it occasionally, it can be done just periodically when you have installed enough new applications to warrant not just reinstalling them in the case of a catastrophic crash.

Second, backup your directory structure that you set up for all your personal data. This is not an image format as in above but rather just these folders in case you have a single file corruption. Keep a few or all generations of this in case a little used file becomes unreadable. You will also likely have some programs that won't let you move where the data files resides for them, so just include those files or folders into this backup. I keep a list of these files/folders for reference even if I switch backup programs, I also include things like my Internet Favorites in this backup. This backup makes all your critical created or owned content safe. You could even view this as the data that needs to go to a new PC should you upgrade.

Third and final, backup your programs you installed on the D: or other partitions (those noncritical apps not needed to run the basic PC after a restore on a new physical disk).

You now have everything in three backups up that you freshen individually as needed. This will mean that if you rarely add programs to your PC and rarely make drastic changes to the base Windows configuration, then you'll only need to update the second set of backups on a regular basis -- the one that holds all your files and data created or stored on your PC.

This also means that during a critical failure you'll be back running quicker from installing a smaller image backup to get Windows running. Also since each non-critical application is installed into a subfolder below D:\Program Files, you could potentially install these individually in the event of a crash to bring up quickly just that one program (since all the registry entries and Windows components got restored with the C: image restore).

Finally, if you're into PC gaming, or trying lots of programs that come and go to better ones later (like the free ones from Google), then this method makes it easy to start fresh with a new clean install of the OS. After the clean install, kill off all the program directories on the D: drive that you no longer care to use and just reinstall the ones you do want while once again overriding their default drive to be D:. Doing so will preserve all the settings you had configured for each of them (like MS Office). About once a year seems to be a good time for me to freshly install my OS and clean house on old applications I'm no longer using, but then I go through a lot of software between being a video editing, MIDI composing, photo editing, heavy gaming buff!

Also, if you have multiple PCs, I make each one specialize in a certain activity which seems to make things more stable...

Good luck and stock up on those blank DVDs!

If you want a simple and cheap solution (excluding the HDD you use for the backup) This is nice backup freeware:

Karen's Replicator
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp

I think the others here have given excellent replies and I am considering some of the suggestions. However, at least having a backup is probably more than most people even do.

Peace,
Dave

Nice thing for your next 'clean' install of a barebone: First of all, you need at least two (or preferably more) partitions. In the first one, you start by installing windows. Immediately after the install, you have the option to change the location of the 'my documents' folder. Right click on the folder and give the new location (D?). If you do this from the beginning, all programs installed afterwards, will put their data on this new location. This way, you separate the windows system and your personal data, making it easy to reinstall windows if necessary, without problems for your user-data. I have a third partition where I keep all downloaded software and all drivers. And next, (since this takes a rather big amount of diskspace (in my situation), another one that contains my pictures, ebooks, and stuff like that.
I never make a copy of windows, since I can allways reinstall it. I make copies of the data on the other partions. All data on every partion fits nice on one DVD. You can do with two partions, if you want, and make copies on different DVD's of the parts of data that you like to have backed up. One DVD with the 'my documents' data you want to be save. Another one with only pictures and other stuff. A third one with downloaded software and drivers. It works for me.
Even if you have only one partion, you can work this way, but it makes things more clear if you keep some things separated on different partitions.
Don't know if this is the solution you'te looking for, but it works fine for me. Anyway, you could use this in the future. Especially the possibility to specify that the 'my documents' folder must be placed on another partion or drive, is an interesting feature that is not knowm by everybody.

I have been using XXCLONE for a long time. It is now out of beta but still free. I back up to an internal hard drive and at times to an external USB drive. I have had no trouble booting from either (a reseting of the Bios is needed).

Hope that this helps.

George

I do a monthly backup Of My OS ( c: ), Program Files ( d: ) and Data ( E: ). This information is back up to a dedicated ide hard drive in a internally mounted, removable hard drive caddy. The drive is slaved of the cd burner secondary ide cable. The drive only spins during the backup process. I use Drive Image 2002 to perform the imaging process (In the past I have used Drive Image 4.0 also). This program runs in DOS and once started runs unattended. The entire process takes less than one hour to complete. In the six years I have been using this proceedure I have had to use the restore process once. The restore went seamlessly and only minimal OS security updates and Antivirus updates were required.
I will provide more information if requested.

The tape drives are very slow,cumbersome and expensive to work with. For a drive your size you would need many tapes.

I just bought an EzBackup sa external hardrive. It just plugs into a USB 2.0 port (or 1.1 but its slower) and has a very easy to install CD with the software. It allows you to make an image of your disk anytime. Takes one gig per minute. In addition, there are several variations of backup that are accomplised with the push of one button on the drive. Go to www.EzD2D.com for details.

Dave

My next home-build will have a Mirrored RAID array.

There is slim to no chance of both drives failing simultaneously unless the PC catches fire.

Current data is always shuffled around using briefcase and so is available external to the computer anyway.

Old files are dumped to CD or DVD and deleted from the hard drive to save space. I then lose the CD or DVD anyway because I forget to label it.

I do PC support privately. When someone has a business and they ask me about backup my solution is one that has to be fail proof.
I advise them to get a second drive and use a free utility available from MIcrosoft. The utility is called Synctoy. It allows you to back up directories with several options. You can keep exact copies or allow changes on the original such as deletions without deleting from the copy. It does not have an automatic feature but thats easily solved by using Windows XP's inherent scheduling function. It is fully explained in the help file of the utility.
I use it and backup my Documents and settings. I have every application put its output under some directory under of Documents and Settings.
You can of course choose to keep your entire drives in sync. I backup everyday. But you can sync as often or little as you want... It only copies the difference so only te first time will be very time consuming. I would advise doing it daily and scheduling it or at a minimum of once a week.
You can also backup on the same drive... but if your drive crashes you will lose everything. The chances of two drives failing at the same exact time are nil.

I'm an attorney who uses a scanner to have a "paperless" office, so backup is really important to me. Mission-critical files are uploaded to free accounts on three different Web-based e-mail systems by attaching them to an e-mail sent to my "backup" list. I also use flash drives, which I keep in my office safe. Long-term storage of old data is done by burning two sets of CD's: one to my office safe and the other to my safe deposit box at my bank. I keep all my current data in folders in My Documents; I use "copy to" (in My Computer) to copy everything in My Documents to a folder (named by date of the copy) on my external hard drive; advantages: easy (so I'll actually do it), individual files can be restored. Disadvantage: no verification option. I also back up the entire C drive to my external drive using Windows XP backup; the downside of this is what you get is one big file, so you can restore everything or nothing, but not anything in between, but there is a verify option. Any time I backup, I check the byte count; if the copy's size matches the original's, I feel pretty confident I have a good copy. I have a large external drive and backup almost daily, so I have lots of backups.

One downfall of all the methods here that recommend the various 2nd hard drives is that they do not enable you to keep multiple generations of your backups.

This can be an issue two ways that could bite you:

1. You may need an older version of a file. This might be because you want a version prior to some edits you made at some point.

2. Another reason that I've experienced is with rarely accessed files (e.g. several year old digital photos) is that the file has become corrupted somewhere along the way and you've been unknowingly backing up this corrupted version for some time until you finally end up trying to open it and can't, and, the backup doesn't help since it's corrupted there.

SO, you can still make the 2nd hard drive copy methodology work for you, but I wouldn't rely on it solely. If you have files you really don't want to take a chance losing, then you should be making periodic backups of these most critical files on a removeable media like CD or DVD. You can find DVD burners starting at $40 today and disks are only 40 cents or less each.

Also, as others have pointed out, if you want to be sure there's no chance of losing everything, you really should get your backups offsite. Talk to anyone that's had a home fire and they'll wish they'd thought of this beforehand but of course it's something you can never anticipate. That's why no business keeps all their backups on site. If you want to be sure you never lose those digital family photos, give a copy of the DVD to a relative or keep it at work.

It all depends on the risk you're willing to accept and how you'll feel if the worst happens.
Brian

I am running Windows XP/SP2 with a 80GB hard drive.
I have a Seagate Barracuda 160GB Internal/removable HD. With Nortons Ghost10 everytime somthing changes it does incremental backups, and once a month does a full backup/clone of my entire computer. This is all set automatically. When I go away/out I take out the removable hard drive and put it is my safe. For me this works wonderfully well so I hope it helps

Good luck

Purchase an external USB HDD at least the same size as the one on your PC.

Download EZBackitup (freeware). This software allows you to do a file by file backup (not compressed) to any source (HDD, external HDD, networked drive, CD, etc.). It has a built in scheduler. Once you setup and run the first backup, the next time it backs up it will only copy the files that have changed. This still gives you a "real time" backup, in contrast to Windows backup which compresses the files to one file, then just adds and appends any changes as you go along.

You will be able to see EVERY file on your external HDD and can copy back and forth if you need to.

I schedule my backups during the night and this software and the external HDD works great together.

There are many (free and cheap) backup programs around. For a simple system either use an old computer, i.e. when you updgre a system keep your old one, or beild or buy as simple system. Add on large hard drive, link it to your main computer via a network or cable and set your backup program to back up to this hard drive. It may seem over the top saving all your date and programs and settigns but it wil give you a complte copy of your orignal. Set it to backup regulalry, perhaps every few hours if not days, and you will always have a full copy without buying or settign up a tape drive or burning disks every so often

I use Windows OneCare to backup to DVD-R. I do incremental backups weekly. Works very well for me, and OneCare makes it simple, as well as providing antivirus, antispy and firewall protection.

Personally, I feel that it's a waste of space to backup your entire hard drive, so I just mark what I need to backup. I also can't afford the extra disk drives to backup every single byte.

The program that I've used for some time now is SyncBack SE. They have a free and also a paid version that includes more features. For example, you have the options to encrypt, zip, compress, or FTP your backups and it can also send an email out if there are any problems. It also has the ability of backing up open files.

You can read about all the features here: http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse-features.html

I've just been impressed by its features and the quality of the software. The paid version is also very reasonable at $25.

I understand that some of the new laptops and computers have a second internal HD whose sole purpose is to make auto mirrors or the primary HD. Is this really the case or do I understand the details wrong? If correct, it sounds very trouble free. What would be the downside to this system?

I have a small network in the office. We have 5 laptops and a server. All have Ghost installed on them.

I have had the hard drive toasted on my laptop. I booted from the Ghost cd and install went perfectly. Interestinly I did not have to recertify Windows XP.

I since have now installed on my 3 user network at home and have upgraded hard drives and it works perfectly.

easy way to back up, update your virus protection scan the hard drive. if nothing found you can use norton ghost if you want a snapshot of you computer store it on another drive or on disk.

easiest way is to hook up a second drive to your cdrom idee cable set the jumper as master. once it boots up and reconises the drive it will ask you to reboot to set the drive. reboot

once you get to the desktop go to my computer and you should see two drives c: and D: right click on d:, click on format. or in windows xp you can right click on my computer and go to manage.

click on disk management in the right pane from this window it will show both drives if everything is good click on d: drive and click delete partition then you can creat a new partition (you can use the help on the tool bar if you get lost) do not assign the drive letter. then you can format the drive. once format is complete close out the window and your ready to go.


you can use windows explorer by right cicking the start button click on explorethis will give you two panes. this is a little advance for most people but this works in all newer windows os's.

thisngs to back up my documents(include my pics, music etc.) xp you have to navigate to documents and settinmgs which user you are back up all the users in these profiles ie mary, john whoever uses the pc.

back up your aol folders pcf, etc

if you use outlook navigate to your program files look for outlook or outlook express copy the wab file looks like a little book,

back up the intuit folder while your in here if you use quickbooks.

then the trained eye will look for other programs that have a data bk special programs.

you can create folders on the other drive to reflect the stuff your coping. DO NOT CUT AND PASTE only copy if you right click on the file and click cut you will remove it for the host drive and many programs will mot work basically your working with folders at this poing.

also look under documents and settings for each user open up the favorites folder and copy all the favorites for each person.

dont bother to back up programs it jst takes up usless space unlees you downloaded the programs from the web i usually save them to a folder on the drive named downloads. back up this folder.

and your done. store drive in safe space this is the cheapest and eaist way i know.

I use the DataKeeper facility - part of Partition Magic (I use v8.1). Although I only backup my own specific files (it is fully customisable) one can specify how many options to keep and where - it runs all the time in background monitoring changes, so a Restore (full or even single file) is possible if anything should go wrong with perhaps, say, a programme install.

Should be worth checking as the default makes total backup if required and you can customise many options so is worth consideration.