[Phil №❶]

I have a 600 GB HDD of which about 140 GB is used.

Our whole household lives in a state of many, risky, non backed up machines. This is mainly due to bad housekeeping on my part and I want to do something about this, starting with my system which contains financial records etc. I have a 1TB External USB drive at my disposal for backup purposes, but I'm in a quandary about how to achieve proper protection.

I have recovery disks using Toshiba's Recovery disk creator (5 DVD's), and a recovery partition on the comp so if a HDD wreck occurred, I assume I can restore the recovery partition on a new HD.

Most of the software on the machine is also recoverable from USB drives and the Cloud.

My data is structured as Win7 and the software installations default directories dictate, so mainly My Documents folder, which then subs to Pics, Music etc.

Can anyone suggest a best practice strategy that doesn't involve regularly backing up unnecessary partitions / directories, and doesn't take all night to do it.

Backup software at my disposal are,

-Driveimage XML - Good because you can backup while the system is in use using VSS etc. (but slow).
-Windows Backup 
-An old version of Acronis, I think. Not sure how you restore from this though.

Any help would be much appreciated. 

[AlanHo]

My system is as follows.

I have four hard drives :-.
C: 500GB for Windows and all software
D: 1000 GB for all data (Docs, pictures, music etc)
E: An internal 2000 GB hard drive for back ups

F: An external 2000 GB hard drive for back ups.

I use Acronis to back-up the whole of my C: drive weekly to the E and F drives after running CCleaner to get rid of all temporary files and other dross. I keep the last 3 copies - deleting the oldest before taking the next back up. I always take a full back up each time - and not incremental. It takes longer but is more secure because if an incremental back up in a series goes tits up - you lose the lot. I run the back up last thing at night on two successive evenings - one for backing up to E and the other for F - setting it to shut down the computer on completion whilst I am in bed.

For Data I use a software program called "Second Copy". This is set to automatically perform a back up of the D drive onto the E and F drives every time the computer is closed down. It is also set to keep in an archive folder the last 3 versions of each file. This program only copies files that have been added, deleted or edited since the last back up and is a very fast operation. This is a very robust and flexible program which saves the back up and archive files in a form readable by Windows. Hence restoring data is a simple drag and drop or copy and paste operation using Windows explorer.

The fundamental strength of my system is that the program files are kept on a different hard drive than all the data. Hence if the C: drive gets corrupted or a software update goes wrong - it is easy to restore the disc without fear of losing any data.  I never have to re install Windows from scratch when it gets grumpy - I simply use Acronis to restore the last good backup of the C; drive and 30 minutes later all is back to normal.

[Phil №❶]

In the event you have to fully restore using Acronis, what method is used to boot your machine initially, in order to run the restore 

[AlanHo]

After installing Acronis you can use the program to create a CD or DVD boot disc or USB flash drive - or you can build an ISO image of a bootable disc.

I created a DVD boot disc which loads the key components of Acronis and enables you to boot into the restore window if Windows will not boot up.  The only time I ever had a problem with this is when it did not recognise a wireless mouse and I had to plug a wired mouse into the computer to navigate the Acronis options and select the back-up to restore from. I don't know whether this is true for all set-ups or just mine.

If you have an original Acronis program disc - this can be used to boot from. However - I bought Acronis as a download - hence the need to create a boot disc.

I use a program called Mirror Folder.

It allows me to have a HDD attached via USB that is an exact copy of my data using RAID 2.

In addition, both my wife and I have USB HDDs that are copies of our own personal data files.  We can take this with us, use the files away from home.  When we connect at home, the altered files are mirrored to our home computer.  This includes files we have deleted on our portable drives.

It is a very powerful option that allows all sorts of scenarios to be set up.

[i30premy]

Hi Phil,

My solution: initially I created a folder to keep my data (MYOB Files, work files, outlook.pst etc).
Made this folder the default "My Docs" folder (& various sub-folders) rather than the obscure buried Windows one.
Also have a "Pics" folder.
On my system & have a NAS with 2 x 1tb HDDS set up raid 1 (2 HDDs are mirrored)

Am using "Karen's Repligator" and have scheduled (7am & 6pm) a regular job to copy new or changed files in the "MyDocs" & "Pics" folders to the NAS. As it is only going to deal with new or changed files, it doesn't take long.
If PC wasn't turned on at scheduled time, Karen's pops up a reminder asking me what I want done with job.

Probably a secure set up should I have a HDD fail, not ideal if house burns down 

[Dazzler]

I just upload everything to photobucket and then post it on the i30 Owners club 

[Hati]

It all depends how far you want to go Phil.


I'm not keen on a full boot drive backup, because as you add new programs later (compared to your original disk image), you should be creating new images anyway, plus you back up all the clutter left behind removed applications. It doesn't take that long to do a fresh Win 7 install on recent hardware. But that's just me.


No matter what you do however, your very first backup will be taking a fair bit of time.


For data backup you can use any number of free programs that do incremental backups. Meaning after the initial backup, it will only add to your newest backup the changes since the last one. It will be quick. Your bottle neck is going to be the USB drive you use to save to.


In an ideal situation, you would go and spring for a NAS (Network Access Storage) unit (empty casing from well under a $100 plus a hard drive or two pending on what RAID you want to use). Connect that to your home LAN, hard wired preferably) and install a copy of the backup software on each computer. Set it up and point it to dump on the NAS drive. This way there is not physical migration of the USB drive to each computer.


An other upside to the NAS solution is that most do DLNA, so you can share your photos, videos and music across all your networked computers, TVs, tablets, mobile phones etc.


Sticking to the "ideal" situation, you would populate your NAS box with at least 2 1 TB drives and set it up to work in RAID 1. This is the most fail proof setup, as each drive mirrors the other, so should one fail, the other still has all your stuff. At that point you just replace the failed HDD. The downside is that you need to have identical drives, preferably same make and model, not just the same size. So the drive you buy today, may not be available down the track. On the other hand HDDs are so cheap these days that you could always just replace both.


You could of course go RAID 0, that gives you twice the speed, but if one disk dies, the backup is gone. Enter RAID 0+1. This one does both speed and redundancy, but unless you have a Gigabit network and multiple users dumping at the same time, you will not top the HDD throughput speeds available on plattered drives.


If you got more money to burn, get two SSDs, but I don't think the extra cost is justified, unless you get real heavy  use of the NAS. Multiple streaming, a bunch of backups etc. all at once. You will also be exposed to the slightly higher failure rate of SSD drives compared to traditional hard drives.


This pretty much covers it I think.

[Phil №❶]

A big collective thanks to ALL who have responded, your replies are all very comprehensive and I appreciate the effort you have put in, what great members we have here. 

[rustynutz]

  

[Doggie 1]

You're welcome. 

[Aussie Keith]

What hati said basically.

My 2c, go the NAS solution. Don't mess about with cheap, do it properly.

http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS212j&lang=enu

With 2 disks does RAID1 which is a pair of mirrored drives offering redundancy in the event of a single disk fail. There is a lot of additional functionality as well and a range of models. I use Synology products extensively and find them to be reliable, easy to use and  good value for money.

Don't use SSD's as according to research and user reports they are not as reliable in this situation as rotating disks unless you buy industrial units ($$$). Instead use "green" hard drives, they are quieter and generate less heat using less power than hi performance hdd's and you don't need the extra performance or cost in this application anyway.

Transferring data off your attached drive will take a while assuming its USB 2. That's life I'm afraid. If you have a wireless network, transferring data will be leisurely anyway but it doesn't sound like you'll be transferring a lot of data - but be aware it will take a while to move 1Tb off a usb drive.

On the PC's here Acronis is used to create set and forget timed backups to the NAS. Acronis home is cheap and a good solution for creating and managing timed backups.

Well worth doing - but as I said don't mess about, do it right.

[Aussie Keith]

NAS (white box with the blue light top right) at home here in the network rack. Space at the top is reserved for a much bigger rack mount unit in the near future.

[Phil №❶]

UPDATE

Sorry, I failed to mention that my computer is a laptop.

I have structured a full system backup to occur at regular intervals. This copies a 1gb system partition and the full C Drive and takes about 1 hour. This will occur last day each month.

I have a separate copy of the pre-installed Recovery Partition and 5 DVD backup of that too, which I made on receipt of the computer.

I have structured about 6 jobs to run daily @ 17:00 Hrs which will maintain my very important data, presently fnancial files MS Money and Money Manager Ex, All Office Docs, All Music, All Pictures, etc. using Karen's replicator. Very good to use, fast, supports compression. After the initial creation, the whole process is over in about 1 minute as the files are updated incrementally, to the same file.

Considering last week I didn't have any security, I feel a lot more comfortable with the present setup. Thanks to those who provided the full networking solution too, but funds and my level of expertise to set it up are limited.

@ keith_h,

Considering the system that you have there, have you ever thought of creating an underground vault for your equipment to survive a fire. Earth is a great insulator, you don't need to go down very far.

Thanks again chaps.