best backup practice

What backup practice do you use for your laptops, especially if you have a 2nd hdd in caddy like me?

Would a synchronization of data hdd to external hdd be practical and efficient or a clone/image of the data drive?

I'm aware that sync would be faster as it updates modified files and clone would be slow (100gb data) and take lots of space, esp. if backup weekly. However, with sync, if i deleted a file in a folder on my data drive and sync it, it'll be deleted from the backup drive also, correct? That means I cannot retrieve deleted or modified files/folders.

What do you guys suggest?

 

Baqckup is important but whaqt level and how often is your personal choice. I do my personal laptop about once a month. I don't store that much data that would upset me if I lost it on this computer. My work computer is only a portal to a offsite cloud so not too much to backup, the IT folks do all the hard stuff like nightly back ups. I don't much care if I have to reinstall the OS, in fact several times a year is about right.

 

Depends on your Sync Settings. If you select do not propagate deletions (or similar setting), it will not replicate deletions on the backup drive.

As for cloning, its harder to access and retrieve files from an image.

100GB is fairly small data to backup, i would just do overnight syncs daily.

 

THanks for the fast response guys.

Any suggestions for backup software that would allow for complete sync and discarding deletions? Preferably free..

Another thought: If i'm working on "DocumentA" on the 10th, for example, and made modifications on the 12th, can the backup create a copy, such as "DocumentA_1", instead of replacing the existing doc?

Is that clear?

 

There are many free sync programs out there. Microsoft SyncToy for one should be able to do it, and its free. I use Goodsync which is very good but isnt free.

As for your Document_A issue, Heres what i basically do:

I have about 50GB of critical data in My documents folder and i have two 2TB external hard drives for backup.

I create Mon/Tue/Wed/Thursday/Friday folders in the backup drives. I create 5 Sync Jobs for each day of the week to their respective folders. This way i have 5 different copies and versions for each day of the week.

I alternate between my two external hard drives either daily or weekly, so in case the first backup somehow fails or gets destroyed, i have a secondary backup (with minimal loss)

 

I sync specific folders with an external HDD every now and then. I do that manually using "SyncBack" - it's a small but easy to use program. Looks old but perfectly does the job for me - I didn't want to install and run a whole software package, and deal with thousands of options I'll never use. I wanted something light and simple and after a few other programs I tried, I found SynvBack to be what I was looking for.

Of course if you find something similar but better - let me know, would be interested

 

Ya, i tried synctoy and syncback before, i believe both are similar.

 

I've tried both synctoy and syncback, found them both difficult to configure to get to do what i wanted.

Recently found Allway Sync, give it a look/go

 

I used Allway Sync for a while before switching to SyncBack - was not satisfied for a reason I no longer remember, but I was forced to look for another solution. If I'm not mistaken the free version had some limits that prevented me from syncing what I sync, whereas Syncback is completely free.

 

I backup my Op Sys drive with Win 7 backup and restore to ext USB drive-once a week, that works for me.


Cheers
3Fees

 

I backup to my external and my online, and sync too. I am a bit anal, but have never lost data. I actually have 4 backups of all my pix and music, 3 of all my work docs and such, as well as my drive image. And... well, just know I am OCD about drives failing. Although I have only had a few in 20 some years fail.

 

I took Gracy123's suggestion and just used "SyncBack" free version which works well except for backing up my iTunes in Windows 7 Home Premium: it seems to be having trouble to back up songs in foreign languages.

I was able to use Microsoft AppLocale with SyncBack to take care of songs with Japanese and Korean titles. But I am having trouble with song title in German where AppLocale says my current system settings can already accommodate in this language and it is not offering any compatibility support for German.

Any suggestion to resolve this issue (get around or other free software suggestion)?

Thanks in advance!

(PS: Please pardon my English as it is not my first language.)

 

Same here, I do a Complete PC Backup (Windows feature) about every week to an external HDD. Never had an internal or external drive failure though (knock knock) but good practice nonetheless.

 

For my laptop, I use Windows Live Mesh to sync all of my important data (pictures, documents, etc) to my main desktop. On the desktop I do local backups using Windows Backup, but I also have a BackBlaze account, so all of my data is then sent to the cloud as well. This way, I have local backup and remote backup. I also make a Windows image once a month on my laptop, just in case

 

I'd never use remote clouds for backup. What I do not have, I do not own. And I certainly backup private content and not just my cooking recipes.

 

For me it's a second level of protection. What if my local backup is stolen, or what if there is a fire or flood?

 

What are the chances of both your back-up and your laptop get flooded or burned to an extend that both storage devices get ruined? If you are paranoic about your data you certainly shouldn't voluntarily share it with third parties either! Make a second backup and put it in a safe or give it to e friend to store it for you.

Uploading it somewhere is the worst idea ever.

Just my 2 cents.

 

Anyone using NAS? It it even a "backup option"?

 

NAS is a backup location - it can be right next to your PC or in the next house joined by a long wire or wireless n. It is great if you have more than one device that needs to throw its backup to a central place. (ex: holds all the family's backup/files)

adv:
- you own the hw and control it. you can easily upgrade it if you like.
- you can put an encryption on its hard drive and thus cannot be easily removed and attached to a computer to retrieve the data.
- not only as a backup location; but you can also make it your central media hub for storing music, movies, data and stream it to all your devices.
- now making it accessible via the web can be a bit tricky and risky also if you don't know what your doing. You're risking all your sensitive data and backup to be accessible to mischievous hackers if proper security measures are not set.

dis:
- you are the support and implementer of the features.
- you have to study and learn how to implement and troubleshoot features or problems that might occur.
- you will have to devote a lot of you time in it.



If I had my own family; I would set this up in my home:
(1) streaming server/application server/ dhcp/dns/etc. (backs up to NAS too)
(1) NAS - strictly as a backup location (images) and for personal user data of every member of my family (like a local dropbox).

and if money permits; I will attach a Tape drive to the NAS for a backup of the backup Then bring these tapes to another physical location in case my some natural disaster hits my house.

 

I'm using Syncback (free) and customized the profile for backing up. However, if I the source file is newer than backup destination, it would replace the old with new. But I don't want that, I have it to "prompt me" on what to do hoping I could change file name from text.doc to text_1.doc, for example, but it's not.

Any other ideas?

I wanted to do the "folder for each day" trick, but I couldn't find the option. Daily would be too much for me, so I thought I'd do weekly. Maybe SyncToy can do this?

 

any ideas, guys?

 

I feel kind of glad I don't deal with "mission critical" files day in and day out.

I have Windows back up my C partition on a weekly basis and that's it for now. I did do backups of my games/pictures/music drive, but it's not old so I never bothered setting up a backup for it. Once I get a SSD I'll go back to backing that up. I do weekly because I don't actually change enough files on my computer to bother with daily backups.

I just backup everything to a 1.5TB eSATA drive.

 

For personally use, I find the following the easiest and most cost effective.

1. image backup of OS(use builtin feature) when I have all my apps installed
2. daily selected file/directory backup to external media(network share/external USB) again using built-in feature.

In that way, I can get back my basically working environment from sratch using (1) in about 30 minutes. And personal things from (2) very quick too.

And there are all automatic wich W7 would do it while I sleep.

 

I do use cloud but there are just BLOB being pushed to Amazon S3. It is basically the equivalent of 'disk encryption'. It is ok for people to get hold of my disk as I hold the key.

Of course, how to deal with court order or water boarding is another issue

 

Get a secure fireproof/waterproof safe to store your backups.

 

I recently rethinked the all backup thing. I don't do large backups anymore. I forgot tottaly about music and films I had, it was about 4TB. I now subscribe services of my ISP that provides me unlimited music. I can have it on my cell phone too. As for movies I've a pay per view service that also allows to download. Since my connection is 200mbps I've no problems with that. When I download and see a movie I just delete it. If I want to see it again I just download it again. It's fast. Since I've a samsung smart tv I can browse for films in my network and watch them. I pay like 10€ for these additional services.. It's really cheap considering it's only 120€ per year.
So the only thing I need to backup are my photos and programs and other stuff. It takes about 600Gb.
I've a NAS connected to my router and synced daily backups. I also backup daily to an external HDD just to be safe. Once per week I backup to even other HDD that I store in safe fireproof and waterproof location.
I already had problems with my NAS and lost all the data. And 1 HDD went bad. Fortunately redundancy is our friend =)
Everything is almost automatic and I just lose about 15min per week reviewing the data and making sure things are working ok.
I've considered a cloud service but I'm not comfortable with putting sensitive data on a unknown god knowns where server. I could setup my own server but I don't think it would be much more safe.
The question to make is "how valuable your data is?" "how much it would cost to recover?" "how much a backup solution costs?"
My data is really important. Because of my work basically if I lose my data I lose my source of income.

 

I use Cobian (free) and do 3 backups: Daily, Weekly, and Monthly.
The backups are incremental, thus quicker and allows you the ability to restore older files if you accidentally delete something.
Set them each to backup on a different day. There's a lot of options to do it the way you like.

 

I use the freeware version of Uranium

Uranium Backup: TAPE backup software - NAS, FTP, ESX and SQL Server, Blu-Ray

 

I used this for a while http://www.sentrysafe.com/Products/275/QA0121_FIRE-SAFE but then I gave up in favour of a wall safe that can also be used for other things and also offers the flexibility of choosing your drive and enclosure. that's what I use once per week. Peace of mind is everything.

one thing that I always wanted to do and have been unable to is to backup an encrypted drive. It's my handycap. Despite having some secure folders it's no where near as secure as for example a truecrypt partition.
I feel very insecure when I carry my notebook around.
Does anyone have any tips?

 

THanks for the suggestions.

I want to be able to backup my critical folder each week, NOT synchronization, and each week backup should be in a different folder. For example, by the end of November, I should have a folder called /week1/, /week2/, etc.

I would also like SYNC for that critical folder, is that possible with any of the above apps?

 

Windows Home Server... /thread