What's the best, most convenient and easy way to backup (all opinions welcome)

Byron172

I've decided to get serious about backing up my install and data after a few people I know, have recently experienced some massive data losses in the last few weeks. So - I wanna be able to have an image of my current setup (Windows 7) that'll install back onto another PC or current board. Would also like to be able to set up daily (or weekly backups) of either the whole image file or data only. Any suggestions? Software recommendations welcome (good, honest freeware preferable).

BlackHawk

Don't know about freeware but I'd recommend Acronis True Image. Have used it plenty of times with success.

ardichoke

What about the built-in Windows backup tool? It's the only solution that I know of which will do a full bootable image backup automatically and doesn't cost money.

What I'd do in your situation would be to periodically use Clonezilla to take a full disk image and then use a tool like Cobian Backup to automatically back up your data.

Ryder

Free version of Paragon works VERY well. We recommend it all the time on the forums for people to clone to their new SSD's.

ErrorNullTurnip

ardichoke said:

...Cobian Backup to automatically back up your data.

That's what I've been using. Although my restore plan is just to do a fresh install and just restore documents, music, appdata, etc. from that backup.

primesuspect

I use, pay $60 a year for, and HIGHLY recommend CrashPlan. Flawless.

Kwitko

CrashPlan yay. Plus, all the people who use it can back up to each others' PCs. Brian backs up to mine, and I back up to his. It's distributed backups!

Linc

I pay for Dropbox & iCloud & GitHub. If my computer crashed unexpectedly and I'd forgotten to do backups in a long time I'd lose, I dunno, some bookmarks?

Snarkasm

... you don't Chrome sync your bookmarks? Fucking casuals.

ardichoke

Snarkasm said:

... you don't Chrome sync your bookmarks? Fucking casuals.

s/Chrome/Xmarks/

Why tie yourself to one browser?

Snarkasm

Why use any browser but the best? :P

ardichoke

Snarkasm said:

Why use any browser but the best? :P

Because "best" is completely subjective? Also, I like having the ability to switch to a different browser in the event of a bad update coming out for the one I'm using at the moment.

PirateNinja

@Byron172 my opinion is it really depends on your needs. If you are like me and using a cloud service isn't a great option because you need to be able to recover your image of Windows offline and incredibly quickly then you want Acronis. I've never used the free version. Then you need a medium to back up to as well (nas/usb drive/whatever). Acronis/offline methods are faster to recover from than cloud systems, and cheaper in that you don't pay regularly for a service.

At the same time, I never put "source" files for any creative work I do (programming/graphics/whatever) on my system drive. It all goes to a drive that is nothing but dropbox so I basically use dropbox as a backup for all of those types of files. I also pay for DropBox, but then you can access those files anywhere and quickly revert to previous versions. It's sort of like the worlds easiest to use cloud repository.

I'd evaluate your needs a little bit, and then decide on what combination of services / software / hardware will get you through, but with something as important as your own data please don't hesitate to spend just a little money to keep it safe. Free won't necessarily cover all your bases.

Byron172

Thanks guys - all good info. I'd be more than happy to do a clean install and then restore data files back to where I need them - but the rest of the household wouldn't find that option satisfactory. So I'm thinking I might create an image using Windows built in system - copy that image to external HDD and cloud via dropbox then utilise a data backup app that can be scheduled for weekly backups.

I'll do some research on the suggestions above and then save data backup to cloud and external HDD also and I reckon I'm set. Do most of the programs have an option to auto save backup to Cloud and local drive? Any foreseeable flaws in that setup?

PirateNinja

If you are going to use Windows Backup images, then you are already using the Windows backup application and you don't need additional software. I believe you can configure windows image backups to be copied to multiple places (ie. your dropbox folder AND your external hard drive).

Just be careful about your dropbox account(s) filling up if you are throwing full disk images on them.

Byron172

yeah - I just realised my Dropbox account doesn't have a lot of space so it may be a matter of paying for something like Crashplan for the image file. I didn't realise that I could schedule image backups in Windows so I'll look into that and see if I can just re-image once a week and then save to local external drive and the cloud. @Ryder also mentioned Paragon has a free option which I'm trying to research at the moment. I'd be interested in how much data that accounts for.

PirateNinja

One thing to consider if you ever need to restore from a Windows backup image, you need to have a Windows installation cd so that you can select "restore from image" or whatever during in the installation process.
Just like if you ever need to restore from scratch with an Acronis image, you would need the acronis system restore cd (which you make after you install the software). I am sure that is how other backup software works as well.

Do you have a rough idea of how much cloud storage you need? Keep in mind a single computer's disk image will be 20gb-1000gb depending on how much you decide to include in that image. If you have 5 computers with say an average disk image size of 60gb, you need 300gb of cloud storage. Depending on the cloud company you want to use it will cost $100-250/year for that.

Well now we get in to the annoying expensiveness of redundancy for your data.

This is why a lot of people use the cloud as backup for individual files (word docs, pictures, music) but not their full disk images. Even if you put full disk images on the cloud, it would stink to have to spend hours on end downloading them, then burning transferring them to an external drive just to use to restore on another computer. With the exception of it being less fail safe, it makes more sense to just store full disk images locally on a large external hard drive. But then what happens if that large external hard drive fails? So then people (like me) backup instead to a mirrored raid NAS, meaning if one of the hard drives in our local backup fails we still have everything on the second drive. But who wants to spend $400+ building a nice NAS?

So yeah .. you have to pick and choose between your level of safety and how much money you want to spend. Backup strategies after all are nothing more than insurance policies that you directly control the claims of.

Byron172

PirateNinja said:

Backup strategies after all are nothing more than insurance policies that you directly control the claims of.

Excellent point.

Also - I hadn't taken into account the fact I would have to download my image back. Another good point.

I think that because I have a triple boot system it may be out of Windows Backup's capabilities anyway. So I think a ghost/mirror image is the way to go for when the HDD fails and then online and local backup for data etc for if the whole PC is destroyed.

BTW - Total used capacity of my HDD is 1.5TB out of 2TB so I think the disc image would be fairly large (not sure how much compression is applied but - as you say - still way too much for the cloud).

Straight_Man

Well, you could learn Linux and learn how to use it to back up itself with a script run from a cron script. If one of your triple boots is that, that is. You would then need a large second drive to back up to, as a scipted backup does NOT compress stuff. A Windows 7 System image can restore like a drive image, except you want to back up data separate. Acronis True Image Pro can backup both Windows and Linux, by the way, as to drive imaging.

Since I do not share a computer, I just backup Windows, and reinstall Linux. So I use Acronis True Image Home.

Byron172

Now that I realise how close my HDD is to full - it's probably worth investing in a new, larger drive - clone my current set up onto it and then the current drive becomes my system back up. Then I only need to back up my data once a week using one of the suggested methods above. What's the best way to store a HDD I wonder?

phuschnickens

I use a combination of a few methods for backup (after getting advice in these forums).

DeltaCopy which is freeware and uses a Windows version of the rsync protocol. I use it to backup our work server to my home server. Nightly incremental backups currently of 100GB.

For Quickbooks we do weekly backups to a flash drive kept on a keychain (literal keychain). We also do auto backups to a drive on the server for both Quickbooks and ACT.

Then, 2 drives on the server are nightly backed up with Acronis True Image and those backups are copied onto an external drive once a week that travels with me back and forth from work.

ardichoke

phuschnickens said:

DeltaCopy which is freeware and uses a Windows version of the rsync protocol. I use it to backup our work server to my home server. Nightly incremental backups currently of 100GB.

This seems like a massive security concern to me...

BlackHawk

Don't mind me. Wrong thread.

BTW, why can't I delete?

phuschnickens

ardichoke said:

phuschnickens said:

DeltaCopy which is freeware and uses a Windows version of the rsync protocol. I use it to backup our work server to my home server. Nightly incremental backups currently of 100GB.

This seems like a massive security concern to me...

I mean, it probably is. Frankly our entire network is a big security concern but what exactly do you mean?

ardichoke

Speaking from the point of view of the employer, copying your employer's backups to your personal server just seems like a big security risk, (e.g. they fire you, you have all their data and could use it against them). I suppose a lot of this has to do with the type of data contained in the backups though.

Speaking from the point of view as an IT person, I wouldn't want that data on my personal server in the first place. Not having the data gives you plausible deniability in the event of a leak (my employer can't say I leaked it from my personal server if the data was never on my personal server). Also, I wouldn't want to store that data for my employer in the first place. They should be paying for a proper off-site backup service of some sort, not freeloading on my hardware and bandwidth.

Really, just a bad idea for all parties involved.

phuschnickens

ardichoke said:

Speaking from the point of view of the employer, copying your employer's backups to your personal server just seems like a big security risk, (e.g. they fire you, you have all their data and could use it against them). I suppose a lot of this has to do with the type of data contained in the backups though.

Speaking from the point of view as an IT person, I wouldn't want that data on my personal server in the first place. Not having the data gives you plausible deniability in the event of a leak (my employer can't say I leaked it from my personal server if the data was never on my personal server). Also, I wouldn't want to store that data for my employer in the first place. They should be paying for a proper off-site backup service of some sort, not freeloading on my hardware and bandwidth.

Really, just a bad idea for all parties involved.

One detail you're missing... family biz... I'm an owner.

Cliff_Forster

I've grown pretty reliant on cloud based services for frivolous stuff. Photos, music, it's all online somewhere. Game saves, on the steam cloud when possible. I have very little sensitive data that warrants keeping it off the web, that's the trick finding those personal documents and finding a secure local way to back them up.

If you want to just flip a switch and pay a few bucks Carbonite is fantastic.

shwaip

I have a nas that I use windows backup to backup large and/or important stuff to.

I use dropbox to backup important things that fit in my space. I recently set up encryption on dropbox for things I wouldn't necessarily want to be shared with other people.