BackUps: storage, software, techniques, et al

Much is written about it: the warnings, the disasters of not having adequate backup, and so on ........

More & more hardware is being developed & marketed for external backups;

Same with software and on-line backups: it's a growing market.

Since it's rather a blend of hardware and software, I didn't know where to post this thread, so please move to correct forum.

I've been spending a lot of money and time recently on back up hardware and software:

I've tried Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare (version 1 and beta 2), a big part of which is oriented towards backup;

Software: In the past I've used everything from Retrospect to BounceBack to Windows' own built-in backup tools, and everything in between.

As for hardware, I've used several different external USB harddrives, used DVDs, CDs, (and yes, in the good ol' days, even floppys!) as well as USB thumb drives and tape drives.

And after all this, I'm more confused than ever, as to which is the preferable way to go.

Additionally, I like to do a complete OS system re-install (format and clean install) a couple of times a year, but I spend literally several days restoring everything back to where it was before (only cleaner & faster, hopefully). I must be doing something wrong.

Sure, photos, music, videos, and documents are the easy part of the reinstall; the hard part is all the drivers, utilities, and programs that have to be gathered up (or re-downloaded) and restored. There MUST be an easier way. (I'm pretty organized, but this task is a nightmare!).


perhaps some of this stuff could make for interesting discussions and tips and pointing some of us in the right direction when it comes to this painful topic of backup !

Or is this topic not esoteric enough for most OC forum members? If you can point me towards some more mundane forum sites that might offer help on this, please help me out.

Thanks. Rick
the mexicorider

I probably format my machine a couple times a year.

This is what I did the first time.

Made an image of all my data on all partitions/drives. Put it into two images with Trueimage.

Then I formatted and installed XP, did all patches and then made an image of the clean XP install.

Now whenever I want to format I just put the clean install image back on my drive or new drive. Then restore the data from the other images I created, which I append to every few months.

So I have a clean install of XP image and my data images, which get updated regularly.

Nice and easy.

This does get covered fairly often with all the RAID0 threads that pop up. More to the point, you need an imaging program, not a backup. I'm sure you know this, but an image is a backup, but most of the time, backups are not images. For example, I believe Window's backups would need you to reinstall the OS and then install the backup. That's not efficient. An imaging program can make a complete copy of the disk or partition and is as "fresh" at the time you imaged it and will be everytime you reimage it. So install your OS, apps, etc, get everything tweaked within a few hours and image it. Four months from now, after a few video driver and software unistalls/reinstall, updates you may feel you system isn't "clean" anymore. Well reimage the drive and install just the newest drivers and programs and you're almost right there the day you did your first install. This is usually 30-45 minutes tops, depending on the size of the image. Pretty painless.

PowerQuest Drive Image 2002(bought out) was/is a program I love as it could image 20GB in 6 minutes on my system and reimage in 9. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Vista. Acronis True Image takes about 40 minutes to image the drive DI 2002 only took 6. Major disappointment, but it's Vista compatable and what I use for that. Many people here use Acronis and are very satisfied with it. I still bounce back between XP and Vista every couple weeks and so I get good use out of both programs.

As far as what to store the images on, well, I copy the image to the storage drive on my system and I have an extra hard drive in the closet that has it as well. An external drive seems to be about the best idea IMO, but I don't care for the USB/firewire speeds so I'll just plug into the SATA or IDE port when necessary. I keep my email and other files such as Microsoft Money updated weekly to a USB drive.

For your os/software install, whay not do a fresh install + programs get the machine running spot on, and then take an image of the drive and put it somewhere safe. Then when you need to do a reinstall just image the blank drive.

What are we working with - how many hard drives do you have, and what is the total quantity of data you are storing?

You should have atleast 2 partitions, if not 2 hard drives. One should be for programs and windows (system), the other should be for everything else (data). Your My Documents folder, installs, drivers, photos, music, videos, and docs should reside on the data volume. Hopefully that is the way you do things already - this sort of data should all be a non-issue during reinstall.

Now for drivers and installs, saving those on the data drive depends on your taste. I dont save those, I just download the latest version from the web when I need it. I used to save them when my internet was slower.

Rather than all kinds of backup and management and time, I would just run RAID if your data is important enough. If its not that important, I would just copy over to a secondary hard drive every so often just in case.

I.M.O.G. said:

Rather than all kinds of backup and management and time, I would just run RAID if your data is important enough.

Click to expand...

RAID1, or any other for that matter, isn't backup.

tuskenraider said:

RAID1, or any other for that matter, isn't backup.

Click to expand...

Thats why I said "Rather than all kinds of backup". Data security is at the heart of this individuals concern - which RAID can be part of the solution. A reliable actual "backup" systems biggest source of failure is human error. Someone forgets to change the backup tape, misplaces media, keeps all backups in the same area right next to the primary media, etc. RAID is your first line of protection against primary media failures, and you can at least hope even if a HDD goes down you wont need to revert to backup.

If I had some important media I didnt want to risk losing, I'd run a RAID array (not 0) and back it up monthly to another volume on the home network. Anything really important, I'd keep a copy reliably hosted offsite (disaster recovery - fire, flood).

I.M.O.G. said:

Thats why I said "Rather than all kinds of backup". Data security is at the heart of this individuals concern - which RAID can be part of the solution. A reliable actual "backup" systems biggest source of failure is human error. Someone forgets to change the backup tape, misplaces media, keeps all backups in the same area right next to the primary media, etc. RAID is your first line of protection against primary media failures, and you can at least hope even if a HDD goes down you wont need to revert to backup.

If I had some important media I didnt want to risk losing, I'd run a RAID array (not 0) and back it up monthly to another volume on the home network. Anything really important, I'd keep a copy reliably hosted offsite (disaster recovery - fire, flood).

Click to expand...

Well put, but if you want to parse words, you said "Rather than all kinds of backup and management and time, I would just run RAID if your data is important enough." Rather indicates you recommending doing one thing(RAID) and not the other(Real backup). No matter how you put it, RAID is for uptime, not backup. As far as human error is concerned, having RAID1 just gives a false sense of security that isn't there and can promote laziness of doing routine backups.

Agreed more or less. Your parsing words however, and I was simply clarifying your parse. heh The end of my statement is misleading now that I reread it - it makes it sound as though RAID is a good overall answer to protecting data that is really important.

The core of my contention is that for most home data, RAID may even be overdoing it, let alone putting much time into backup. I guess it depends how bad it would really hurt if you lost data - resumes, school work, audio, video, etc. I would hate to lose my resume (if there werent copies all over the web), but you could lay fire to everything else. I like my other stuff, but theres little of value that couldnt be easily replaced with 7MB down and a usenet subscription.

Some people that have movies of their kids and family pictures they plan to retain for all time, RAID1 and a backup to DVD every so often is probably good enough for most people. Automated backup to a network device on a regular basis would probably be even easier/better. Reliable online photo hosting could play a part also.

Raid1 protects against primary media failures, short of catastrophic failure. You would only have a false sense of security if you expect anything more than that. I'll forego approaching the psychological effects of running RAID1. jk