Backing Up
 

I think it's time I had a bit of a re-think as to how I back up my laptop as I had a near disaster today (corrupted zip file - luckily for me I had an identical copy on the zip disk for the previous night).

Anyway, my current solution (as old as 100 meg zip disks - really, so feel free to laugh) is:

1. 100 meg zip disk drive.
2. 12 zip disks.
3. Numerous other zip disks that store stuff I archived off because I don't use often.
4. A script I run at the end of each day (just a dos script) that zips up anything important and puts it onto the three zips (no disk spanning used - just directories associated with specific disks).

At the moment, I'm beyond the capacity limits of this (I've had to archive off and start again with emails a couple of times recently.

As always, what I want to know is what do you all use and trust?

In terms of new hardware, I would prefer a device that's quite flexible in terms of USB/USB2/Firewire etc (looking forward to new hardware soon).

Generally, I like open things I can get at using the standard tools available to me (the reason I don't use proprietary system I probably wouldn't trust) but if anyone can recommend a "trustworthy" bought in solution, I'd be interested.

Regards
I

One option is to do what you're doing, just back it up to different (bigger) media. Brand new 20gb Iomega Peerless disk cartridges can be picked up for about $120 on Ebay.

I use Stomp! backup for NT/2000/XP(formerly known as Backup Exec) and back everything up to a 120gb USB 2.0 attached hard drive on a weekly basis. It works great, and I'm very happy with it. 120gb external USB/Firewire drives can be had for less than $175.

So, if you're comfortable with the system you have now, back it up to a big USB drive that you can transport to your new system when you get it.

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 08-14-2003).]

Yep, I backup to a USB external drive also. I have a 40GB Maxtor and I also am adding the 250GB Maxtor that I have on another computer. I don't bother to erase the old backups, just backup my major files to a new folder each time.

For a trustworthy, closed solution, look to Veritas. We just deployed Netbackup Pro here at our HQ office and it's just great, though I don't think you can buy in qty 1.

If you religious about keeping all of your personal data under Documents & Settings, simply copying to a disk connected elsewhere would probably suffice, like one installed in a dock or a separate firewire disk. The only thing you have to do then is remember to do your backups.

I think the key is a separate hard disk with its own controller -- firewire or USB assures complete separateness. As opposed to copying to another hard drive that has the same controller card as the first drive. That can be trouble.

Seperate external USB drive is good... Also the "Ghost" product from Norton is good to make a baseline Win XP OS image with all your apps installed (everything except music files, documents, other data files etc, etc)

I keep a bootable Cd with Ghost on it and a DVD-ROM that can be used to recover my notebook if for some reason the drive or something else dies. (and I replace the notebook)

A separate networked PC, a second hard drive, and plent of CD-R's (cheap and easy).

I am having a tough time finding this solution...how silly is that? Any link?

I do a full backup every couple of months to either CD or DVD if the DVD disks are cooperating (usually CD because they are free, and using 14 or them or whatever is no huge deal), then weekly do an incremental to CD.

I use the stomp product.

Backing up is cool but restoring is the object of the game.

Anyone had a disk crash or a lost/stolen/destroyed laptop and had to restore from a backup?

What were your experiences?

Restoring is the issue... That is why I ghost a known good image first to restore the OS first, quicker than a restore.

Yes, you and NickP have hit the nail on the head. I've worked on far too many testing projects where the restore is a case of "don't worry, the restore instruction will be with you sometime in the next phase". Also, I've witnessed a two week outage where the backups appeared to be working (Arcserve, I think) only for the restore to fail completely. I don't even test a backup until I know I can write a small file to the tape/cd/disk and retrieve it first and this is why I distrust proprietary stuff.

A good low cost USB hard disk (going to much bigger USB2/firewire2 one at some point after I replace my laptop) looks like the order of the day for me, perhaps with a CDRW drive or DVDR drive. Ghosting too seems like a very good alternative to installing XP from scratch so I'm actively looking at that.

As always, it's nice to go to work for the day and come back to all this good advice. Thanks everyone!

Ghosting is the way to go if you want a full restore, my hassle with it for home is I don't have any media that can support the full image (I know the PC has firewire and USB, so a second external drive isn't that much money, just never got around to it).

I would never try to restore the OS for the current versions of windows from backup, I would restore the OS first, then probably the applications, then bring back just the data from backups.

Remember 3.11 when you could just copy a programs directory to another machine and it ran just fine? Miss those days sometimes.

Stomp! Backup: http://www.stompinc.com/bump/bump-retail.phtml?stp

USB disk (120gb): http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/SaleSearch?satitle=usb+120gb&ht=1&so sortproperty=1&from=R10&BasicSearch=

USB Disk: (250gb):
http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/SaleSearch?satitle=usb+250gb&ht=1&so sortproperty=1&from=R10&BasicSearch=

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 08-15-2003).]

I think USB is too slow. USB2 is faster but I don't know what's available in terms of devices yet.

I would buy an iPod and use the firewire connection. Just copy over whatever you need. It will cost you in the same ballpark as an external HDD and you get a cool music player to boot.


------------------
-alan in sitges, home of Si-Do

I tempt fate.

I've never backed up.

Ever.

Seriously, not once in twenty years of owning a computer.

Does everyone really do this? Is it all that worthwhile?

I have a CD-ROM writer, but how would I set it up if I wanted to start backing up?

[This message has been edited by robb (edited 08-15-2003).]

Well it depends on whether you would mind losing all the data on your computer. Even if you only use your machine to check email, wouldn't you like a copy of those if the machine goes tits-up? Could be as easy as downloading Nero (www.nero.com - free trial edition) and dragging the files you want backed up onto a CD-R.

ME: Raid5 with 120GB U3W SCSI drives, 110Gb SDLT streamer and weekly DVD copies of all files (not my apps). Also, synced copies of "my documents" to my notebook en bi-daily copies of my active Outlook PST file.

I don't bother ghosting Windows as it changes so often it wouldn't make sense. Reinstalling all my apps is a 2 hour job.

ScottC; nice thing about being at a larger company is we have full and incremental backups done of our Exchange mailboxes. We've had two systems die in the last 2 years, causing downtime. In each case our IT folks had us restored within 45 mins with no loss of mail.

PST's "suck"... I've seen problems past 1GB of file size. Yeah I know... I shouldn't have a PST that size... But who has time to archive

Fair enough. I never used to back up myself (other than the odd vital doc to a floppy) before the PC started becoming a lot more than just a toy to me.

Also, I'm a bit more paranoid these days (currently patching my laptop up as if my life depended on it) given the more uncertain world we live in.

Also, for the past few years, my PCs have travelled with me (I haven't owned a desktop for a while now) so I have to manage the risk of my laptop breaking (or being forcefully taken off me).

Edited to add: Help!!!! Where did my quote go????

[This message has been edited by Internaut (edited 08-16-2003).]

I also used to have just 2 PST's, one outlook.pst (1.2Gb) and one archive.pst (several Gb) but now and after lot's of hard work I've split them. Outlook actually told me that my PST file was TOO LARGE http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...um/biggrin.gif

I backup my documents, pst's, mp3's and jpgs. I can't replace the docs, pst's, and jpgs, and I don't want to re-rip all the mp3s. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

The Stomp backup will write to cd-r's. If you have drive letter access (DLA) installed, the MS backup that comes with XP can be used too, you just write the backup to the cd-r driv as a file. In addition, You should have some free software that came with your cd-r that will backup too.

[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 08-16-2003).]

USB 1.1 is plenty fast enough for backup, especially on restores (compared to tape or CD-R's).

USB 2.0 is pretty ubiquitous now for extenal drives. If you don't have a 2.0 port on your desktop, you can pick up a pci adpter for about $6 (plus shipping). Cardbus adapters for laptops run about $10

By cardbus you mean a PCMCIA card with a USB2 port????

I've been wondering about backups now, too. Basically, I don't want to backup, I want to image.

I have a networked desktop in my office. Critical files are located on the network, but mirrored using MS Briefcase on my C drive, my 256MB pen drive, and an external 2.5" HDD. So, at the end of the day, all get updated, and I effectively have one original (server) and three copies of my data. Programs are not a problem for me because my employer provides me with what I need.

At home, have a Thinkpad R32. The USB Pen Drive (containing what's on the server) gets mirrored onto the R32's HDD. So that's another backup.

I want, however, to be able to image the R32, if only because it will save on doing a full restore. I wouldn't be out anything if my HDD failed on the laptop, because my employer would outfit it again. Anyway, I'm doing some online research on imaging options. Will report back if I decide to go with anything.

Cardbus adapters are PC-Card's supporting a 32bit interface. All NEWER notebookes support this... May also be called "32 bit PCMCIA, etc.." Older PC Cards (think 5+ years back) only support standard 16-bit PC Card.

16 bit PC Card basically used ISA technology
32 bit PC Card basically is a PCI interface

Has anyone ever played with a bootable USB pen drive? I'd like to make one with a full XP image on it...

I have a 2001.pst, 2002.pst, 2003.pst...

Much easier to manage...

Stomp is a funny name for a backup product.

The history of that backup program goes as follows.

It is a Seagate origin. Seagate sold lisence rights to Microsoft, who incorporated a watered down version in Windows. It is still there. I do not know if it is still under license rights.

Seagate sold the whole program to Veritas.

Veritas sold the program to Stomp, where it went nowhere until stomp started selling it as backup program by Veritas.

The program is excellent for the small user, and has the feature of considerable backward compatability. It also writes directly to CD-R's which is a safe and cheap way to back-up and grandfather. I restore frequently from them, as I do not allow any excess interconecting or networking of any of the office computers. We transfer with the CD's.

Once you backup, store the backup or the prior backup in a different location. I had a breakin, and all computer equipment was stolen, including the oddball tape machine we were using for backup. The tape from a week ago was not taken.

Zip drives are too fragile for backup.

I think maybe smart cards, etc will suffice for the casual laptop user. compact flash cards are now 500mb big and the reader is tiny, making them ideal for a laptop

I've been playing around here and there with something similiar. You can start and get pretty close with a bootable CD-ROM connecting to a network share and mounting a RAMDISK. Problem with the PEN drives it two fold at this point - you really need to have USB2.0 and the largest I'm able to find USB2.0 in person is 512 (found it in HKG for about $100 USD). When I head back to HKG in two weeks hopefully they will have the new 1GIG ones in. I was last there three weeks ago and they said they were expecting them soon.

The only other catch is ensuring your motherboard supports booting from USB.

Time for me to take a look at the specs for my Inspiron (3 and half years of age). The ability to use USB 2 would add a little to my notebook's life while I look at replacements (which, of course, get better all the time).

Regards
I

Well, I certainly use my computer as more than just a toy, but I've always been a paper guy when it came to the really important stuff, so I always had a hard-copy to refer to. In fact, I always wrote deisgn specs in ink on paper without going to the computer at all. The tablet has changed some of that, and I'd like to get more stuff stored electronically.

My work email is stored on an IMAP server, so no problem there, and I'm tolerant of losing my personal email.

I've observed, like Scott, that installing all my applications takes just a couple of hours and is always a good opportunity to make sure you're installing the latest upgrades anyway.

I've only ever once had a hard drive fail and it wasn't that big of a problem. Other than that, I've upgraded hardware often enough that it hasn't been a problem.

So, I guess I still haven't read the answer to my question. How should I get started if I want to start backing things up? Also, what should I back up and how do I manage it?

How often do you typically back up and how much time does it require?

From my research into imaging software, my two final choices were:
1. Norton Ghost. This is the front runner, both for personal use and corporate use. You can image to a CD set, another partition, or a file on another partition or on another computer via the network or via a USB connector.
2. PowerQuest DriveImage. Never used it, but it's from the Partition Magic people, so it must be good.
3. Partition Magic lets you image to another partition. Since it also lets you repartition your drive in place, you can imagine that it could fill most of your needs if you have lots of hard drive space.

I backup 5 machines across the network, once a week. I use the aforementioned Stomp (Seagate/veritas) backup as a scheduled job, using my "server" machine that is hosting the USB 2.0 hard drive to control the backup. 2 are wireless, 3 are wired, they are all sharing the C: ad D: drives to the server machine.

It starts at 11pm and is finished before 6 am.

I backup everything (including the OS folder) as I've got the space on the disk, the bandwidth on the network, and I'm too lazy to separate out specific folders. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

In the event of a crash, I'd likely reinstall the OS and applications, then restore the docs and other important stuff from the backup, in that order.


[This message has been edited by skofarrell (edited 08-18-2003).]

Is there a way to automate the image process with Ghost or the other programs?

What I like about my setup is that it is Tivo in nature. I set it up once, and pretty much don't have to think about it again (unless a machine is powered off, or a network share does bad).

The answer is this simple, Robb, for me anyway:

1. purchase an external USB 2.0 or Firewire big hairy hard drive. I like the Maxtor series, at least 100GB, or the 250GB.

2. Plug it in to your computer and let it install itself as it usually will. Get it installed so it becomes recognized as an additional drive.

3. Periodically, like every few days, create a folder on the external drive called "my backup 8-18-03". Open up a window on your computer showing your folders. Drag your folders including your mail, and anything that changes frequently like your work folders, into the new folder on the external drive.

4. That's it! Congratulations! You are WAY AHEAD of where you were before. If your computer crashes or gets carried away by aliens from Mars, you will have your precious work and email files to restore on a new machine.

Everything else is probably nice but icing on the cake as far as I am concerned. The important thing is to START BACKING UP WHAT YOU CANNOT EVER REPLACE, NOW.

Looking at the Systemworks 2003 manual, and performing a google search using the term "scheduling ghost", I'd say not.

A primitive solution would be to use a robot and create a macro but how flexible this is (ie. backing up to a different image each time) depends on how sophisticated (and expensive) the robot software is.

I guess if I had a clean install, I'd want to image the machine to save me time on a potential reinstall. but considering I've done one OS reinstall in the last 2-3 years, I'm not sure it is worth the effort.

I'm mainly interested in saving the files I've listed above, and my current backup strategy meeds that need.

If the machine totally dies, I think I'd want to take advantage of having a fresh install vs an "old" image reload.

It's definitely also worth having some kind of removable solution though (CDR/DVDR, Zip etc). I always worry about hard disks dying on me (though I'm definitely going to get one http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

Just about any backup program out there (probably ever one) lets you choose if you want to back up all files or just changed files. Run a backup of all files, store that someplace. Then just every whenever run one of all changed files, it will go much quicker for you.