Backing Up

[TheQwerty]

Prompted by a post in another thread, as well as a recent unfortunate personal experience, I'm re-evaluating my backup and recovery plans.


So what software and strategies are all of you taking to minimize downtime and data/configuration loss?



Possibly the stages of grieving data loss:
Though I replaced the beer and eggs with copious amounts of pizza last night.

[highend]

Depends on the data...

SyncBackSE once per day to a pogoplug device (as a NAS)
for everything that is not already under version control.

Coding things: git

Cloud backups via rsync.

[grindax]

.

[klownboy]

Allways Sync has been good for backing up important files and photos especially to share and sync across 3 different computers. I had purchased the pro version and it's one computer, but come to find out the personal version is free for moderate personal use anyway (with no nags) so I probably shouldn't have bothered. http://allwaysync.com/index.html

I image my 2 most important drives at least every 2 months to portable drives. I used Ghost (in a strictly cold boot) for many years until they discontinued it earlier this year. Now I use Symantec System Recovery Desktop Edition which is essentially a fancier Ghost. I only use it from a cold boot disk (i.e., I never installed either Ghost or the SSR). It may take a bit longer getting started, but you can't go wrong with images when you go that route...and I've had to use them. http://www.symantec.com/system-recovery-desktop-edition

[highend]

@Ken

Take a look at http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm

Best imaging applications ever...
I'm invoking FARR and type re (for re(store)), computer reboots into a linux recovery environment (ofc it's encapsulated through IFL) and then it images my Windows partition back in 35 seconds...
14,5 GB. Ok, I use 2 SSDS... ;-)

You can script these things, so a backup / restore command is everything I need.

[Marco]

Another ImageForDos user here, since 2007. My best purchase together with XY.
I update the system image every now and then, depending on the updates of installed software (flash, pdf reader, firefox, major Windows updates). All the documents, software profiles and portable apps are stored on a different partition and on another external drive, together with system image. I use Create Synchronicity to backup/restore/sync them.
Unfortunately I don't have any SSD so the times are longer, however in 12 minutes I restore the system image and in 5 more minutes I launch a batch files that restores everything else with CS and makes the system fully operative and productive.

[Enternal]

Like the others said, Image for Windows or Image for Dos is great. Awesome stuff.

Alternative is Macrium Free which I think if very stable. You should read:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=97
For opinions on all sort of backup software. They're a great forum and there's quite a few companies and security companies who make their home there.

In terms of file backups, there are FreeFileSync (powerful but a bit of a learning curve), SyncBack (pretty darn good and well known since back in the days), and zback (support scripting and also very powerful like FreeFileSync.
http://freefilesync.sourceforge.net/
http://titan.fsb.hr/~dzorc/zback.html

[Filehero]

So what software and strategies are all of you taking to minimize downtime and data/configuration loss?

1. Weeky proprietary container backups
- everything (OS, data, music, info etc.) except my sample libraries (simply to huge and complelely restorable from other sources), OS backup is shifted one day
- scheduled
- tool: Acronis Image (2008 - 2013), it has always worked well for me

2. Weeky "not-fully-proprietery" container backups
- my data folders/files
- manual (see below)
- tool: batch/7-zip

3. Hourly backups
- my data folders/files, photographs and all music ripped from my CDs
- automatically, every 3rd hour
- tool: Windows 8 FileHistory (replaced my 1:1 robocopy backups)

4. Weekly backup to an external drive (eSata)
- every backup listed in 1.-3.
- manually
- tool: Robocopy
- note: this is a dedicated drive just and switched on just for saving the backups, otherwise it's off. I hope (and always did) to hereby establish sufficient protection from CryptoLocker attacks. For a long time I plan to replace that single drive by a NAS, but I think the really interesting offers will come up with the Intel Broadwell cpu generation.


Cheers,
Filehero

[j_c_hallgren]

What I see missing is this:

5. Weekly off-site or cloud backups of most critical data

Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't really follow that rule myself -but- i do have off-site and cloud backups of the .XLS/.PDF/.JPG, etc that I consider most valuable.

[Filehero]

Hi,

What I see missing is this:

5. Weekly off-site or cloud backups of most critical data

Funny misquote.

Yes, that's the Achilles heel of my approach too. If "my" house burns down some day I expect everything to be gone. Unfortunately, the retail internet upload speeds are still ridiculous over here.


Cheers,
Filehero

[j_c_hallgren]

Yes, that's the Achilles heel of my approach too. If "my" house burns down some day I expect everything to be gone. Unfortunately, the retail internet upload speeds are still ridiculous over here.

Well, you don't have to upload to cloud to protect against fire...just get it somewhere else...like at parent/in-law/relative/friend home or at work or such...just as long as any physical damage issue wouldn't also affect that location...like if you both living next to beach where flooding can occur...once a year, I make a CD of my pix that I've taken that year and put it in safe deposit box at bank with other stuff...ok, so I have a old 2MP camera that fits on CD but at least I've got old pix somewhere safe.

And as quick "off-site" backup, I have a thumb drive with my spreadsheets and such that I keep well hidden in my car...and since my car isn't in a attached garage but outside, that helps...plus it gives me a backup that's with me when I'm away from home.

[admin]

And here's one for the paranoid:

6. Have at least one backup strategy that you don't talk about in the internet.

[Nighted]

Encrypted RAID storage server.

Source, software and working files get backed up onto 2 portable drives using Syncovery (formerly Super Flexible File Syncronizer).

[klownboy]

For those, and I think there were quite a few (highend, Marco, Enternal), that use Terabyte products for "imaging" such as Image for DOS or Image for Windows, which product do you use? When Norton discontinued Ghost I was thinking of buying an alternative and Terabyte was one I've looked at a number of times over the years. I even watched their videos.

You know how it is though once you've started with a product, especially if it's working well for you tend to stick with it especially in this case for backward compatibility with old images. I see Image for DOS comes with the Image for Windows product so maybe that's the best option just in case I want to migrate to the Windows product. As I said above I've always done my images from a cold boot disk and never installed a product. Do any of you use a boot disk to start the image software or do you start via Windows?
Thanks,
Ken

[highend]

I use Image for Linux.

Why?
I'm used to backup / restore from a "clean state" (no running OS).
IFD supports Raid Arrays but it's rather slow regarding read / write performance.
It's a DOS issue, not a Terabyte's one.

Ofc you don't have to repartition to install any mini linux system, IFL puts everything
it needs into a container and boots this one. It allows me to modify it (I'm using TBOSDT
to do so) so this "image" knows exactly what to do, when it is booted.
Speed is what your hdds / ssds can deliver, it only takes a bit of time to boot this
mini linux system.

As long as you don't use a raid array you could probably use IFD instead. Boot time
inside the image is only about 1-3 seconds and then the backup / restore starts.

I've created a custom recovery CD with IFL that allows me to just insert it and the
main image is restored automatically after booting from the CD + an unmodified one if I
want to something "unusual"...

I've bought the full package 5 years ago for about 35 $ so I can use whatever suits my
needs