Remember, it's a recovery plan, not a backup plan

[drooartz]

Just a little reminder to all of you out there in Internet land: you should have a *recovery* plan for your data, not just a *backup* plan. You need to make sure you test your file recovery at some regular interval to make sure everything is working properly.

I say this because earlier today I started a routine nuke-and-pave on my work laptop. Just time for a fresh OS install -- as a programmer I mess with all sorts of things and sometimes it's nice to have a clean system again. I first ran my two backup systems (Apple's Time Machine and the online Mozy site). Then I reinstalled my system from scratch.

Only to find out that it appears that my external disk backup via Time Machine is corrupted somehow, and may not be usable.

Luckily, everything critical on this machine is backed up via Mozy. I decided that this belt-and-suspenders plan was worth paying my own money for even though it's a work machine, just to have a second line of defense. I've lost months of work in the past due to no backups, so I'm a bit paranoid now. Good thing. The Mozy restore process is running right now.

So remember, listen to Uncle Drew and practice those restores before you *really* need to. You'll be happy you did.

 

[NutmegCT]

Drew - is that Mozy site any advantage over just backing up files to a USB stick?

Tom

 

[aeronca65t]

On a smaller scale, this happens to my students all the time.....partly due to the convience of small flash drives (AKA "USB sticks" or "thumb drives").
Which are super-easy to lose. :frown:

Many will store all their classwork for an entire semester on a flash drive and then lose it towards the end of the semester.
I always tell them back up, back up, back up! And I tell them to put attach those things to their car keys (instead of just loose in their pockets).

A lot of their assignments are pretty time-intensive (ie-3D AutoCAD Inventor or ProE drawings plus multi-formula Excel projects).
One of my guys stored all his engineering drawing plus English term papers and chemistry reports on his cell phone....and lost it. He's been in our CAD lab as much as possible, recreating all the work he's lost. Hours and hours of work had to be done over, because he didn't back any of it up. A real shame.

Good advice, Drew!
(I save all my "good stuff" to our network server, as well as an external drive I have at home).

 

[NutmegCT]

Nial - that "lost USB" brings back memories of my own students. Instead of backing up their stuff, they just saved to their USB - and then lost it.

Backing up (not just saving) files to a server (or stick, or whatever) makes sense to me. But what do you guys do to back up "your entire system"? In other words, for the average guy who just has a laptop and a desktop, what methods do you recommend for backing up the entire hard drive, so you don't have to re-install the entire operating system (and its bazillion updates) after a HD crash?

Thanks.
Tom

 

[DrEntropy]

Acronis, Tom.

 

[Brooklands]

I back up all my files from my external files drive and my Mac on a second external drive on the Mac. I also back up my lap top, my wife's desk top, and the Mac's file drive on an external that is attached to my Laptop. This is not a daily backup, but once or twice a week for each computer.

Certain photos also get burned to a DVD from time-to-time and are in my Flickr account too.

 

[NutmegCT]

Doc - I use Acronis on my WinXP box. What do you use to backup your Linux system laptop/desktop(s)?

Dave - what do you use to back up the actual hard drives (the boot record, operating system, apps, etc.)? So you don't have to reinstall everything if the drive fails? Backing up files is simple; it's the system itself that's a major pain to restore.

Thanks.
Tom

 

[Brooklands]

Tom,
I do not back those things up as I have the original disks for the systems and the main apps. If the app was downloaded, I have the download in the document backup. Normally I have found when I have a major problem, I end up taking the computer to a technician, and may need a new hard drive where we clean install, and I only install programs that I am still using. I keep all passwords and logins safely off the computer so I can get back into groups like this, and my browsing bookmarks are synced between my two computers Xmarks so that I can resync them when I start up the restored computer...

 

[DrEntropy]

Doc - I use Acronis on my WinXP box. What do you use to backup your Linux system laptop/desktop(s)?

We keep all work in a specific directory off the root directory, three machines have drives with that same info. Redundancy. About once a month I'll "dd" this machine (primary data server) to an external 500G HD using a BlacX.

~HERE's~ a good explanation of the process.

 

[drooartz]

Drew - is that Mozy site any advantage over just backing up files to a USB stick?

Some nice advantages to an offsite system like Mozy (and there are many of them now):

1. It's offsite. Nice to have local backups, but what if your house/office burns down? Also, you can't lose it.

2. It's automatic. Set it up and it works up in the background. It's for Mac and PC (no Linux AFAIK).

3. Unlimited storage space. Work laptop only backs up about 3 gig, home Mac has about 200gig backed up.

I use Mozy on my home Mac, Jenny's PC, and my work Mac laptop. Work servers (Windows and Linux) are backed up by a commercial product, and I do some file transfer scripting at night to a server in another building on our campus. I like redundant and separate systems for things this critical.

This is my first full restore from Mozy (keep in mind I'm not backing up system files, just data). It's not all that fast for restore, but it's there. You can request DVDs at a modest cost if necessary. I figure if my main Mac and its local backup both died, I'd happily pay the costs to have my data back.

 

[drooartz]

Dave - what do you use to back up the actual hard drives (the boot record, operating system, apps, etc.)? So you don't have to reinstall everything if the drive fails? Backing up files is simple; it's the system itself that's a major pain to restore.

On a Mac, Apple's Time Machine does a complete backup. I've had mixed results with this for restore purposes. There are cloning tools for most OSs that will do a complete image.

At the school district where I work we never back up system or application files -- we've got all the disks handy if we need to recreate a box. Just isn't cost or time effective to backup all the extra files (we're into mutli-terabytes of backed up data now). I don't do it at home either, as I can reinstall a system quickly.

 

[NutmegCT]

Thanks gentlemen.

I've always used a disk image/clone system (Acronis, Ghost, etc.) for full system backups. I learned the hard way about ten years ago ...

Hard drive physically fails. All my data files are backed up daily, so no problem!

But it took literally days to re-install the o/s, then the apps, then all the updates and security "fixes". Plus of course I had to re-register Windows, which took several hours as the online process wouldn't work and I had to call a MicroSoft number for a manually assigned security code. Not fun. And only after all that could I restore the backed up data files.

I found that lots of folks overlook details of getting a small (laptop, desktop) system back up and running if the hd fails. And with few exceptions, I've never met anyone who actually had to just restore data files due to hardware or software failure.

Onward through the fog!
T.

 

[Basil]

<snip> Nice to have local backups, but what if your house/office burns down?

I've been thinking about THIS

PS: If you go to their own website, the 2TB version with 3 yr recovery plan is $450.00 so this Costco sale is a pretty good deal.

 

[Basil]

Update. I just talked myself into it and ordered the iosafe 2TB from Costco (I'm a member).

 

[PC]

...ordered the iosafe 2TB from Costco ...

Might want to consider getting two and ping-ponging your back-ups.

As a minimum, use the one often so you're confident it's functional.

I've had two outboard drives fail while just sitting on the shelf between back-ups (after only a couple uses each). Glad I didn't find they were dead the hard way.

I switched to a thumb drive for back-up last time but have now I've outgrown it. Haven't decided if I'm going to get multiple mechanical drives (or a RAID stack) next or cough up the bucks for another big(ger) flash.


pc.

 

[DrEntropy]

It's all a crap shoot, ya gotta TEST the backup files... with fingers cross'd!!

 

[Basil]

...ordered the iosafe 2TB from Costco ...

Might want to consider getting two and ping-ponging your back-ups.

pc.

Actually I already have a 1TB Apple Time Capsule for regular backups. This will be a backup to the backup.

 

[drooartz]

It's all a crap shoot, ya gotta TEST the backup files... with fingers cross'd!!

That's the real truth right there.

 

[DrEntropy]

We aim t' please. :wink: