[SOLVED] backup storage solution

[Luisdent]

I'm having an incredibly difficult time finding a safe and simple backup solution i can afford. can anyone offer any ideas for my situation?

I'm running two systems that i use together. a windows 10 (latest version) pc and a macbook pro laptop (newest os and patches). i have external exfat formatted drives. i can rebuild the systems if i need to. i can't replace my music and video projects.

i have the following drives:
1tb nvme internal drive in the macbook pro (mostly just system)
1tb (2x 500gb ssd drives) drives in the windows 10 pc (media)
1tb samsung ssd external (media drive)
2tb WD portable mechanical external (media drive)
4tb WD external desktop drive (backup 1)
8tb WD external desktop drive (backup 2)

here is my past process and the issues i run into backing up my current load of roughly 3.5 tb.

I previously used time machine to backup about 3tb to the two large desktop drives, alternating between each back drive. this worked well enough except a few major drawbacks now.

first i can't share drives with windows, as they are required to be mac formatted for use with time machine. i need cross platdorm drives.

second, i edit lots of data (hundreds of gigs at a time sometimes) and time machine is horrifically slow and inefficient as it tried to prepare each backup and manage the space. backups can take me 8+ hours sometimes and I'm not comfortable leaving everything running that long so often.

once i got my pc i started using scripts. i use rsync to backup important files when on the mac and robocopy to backuo my pc. but things have become fragmented. i have a spare 4tb drive in my pc that is really just extra space i consider volatile. so i started backing up my internal pc drives to that with robocopy just so i have something for now on windows. works incredibly well. but obviously is a horrible idea for backup redundancy and fail safe measures.

my idea recently was to essentially use both system's scripts to backup everything to my big drives, but I'm running into issues. the 4tb drive doesn't have much free space left (as you don't get a full 4tb useable) for incremental copies, so if i use that, i can probably have very little incrementality. which ma not be a deal breaker, but it's just another safety net.

I've also been told by a friend that the mac and windows timestamping or file touching might cause problems with the scripts working properly. so I'm hesitant to formst everything and start over if it doesn't work.

lastly, my data grows fairly quickly, so even the 8tb may only last me another year or two.

I've looked into NAS type solutions, but they're very expensive, large, loud, hard to take offsite, and slower. and many don't get good reviews for cross platform compatibility.

cloud is out of the question. backblaze sounds awesome but the estimate is over a month for my backup to upload, and that's assuming I'm never using my internet.

i feel like there is some sort of multi drive or local solution i could use with scripts, but is there an easy, incremental, cross platform script for windows and mac that can alternate drives? otherwise, do i need to get 2 million external drives and backup each system independently with the externals independently backed up as well? that sounds unmanageable... (more like 6 backup drives)

any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[hang-the-9]

The cheapest and simplest thing is what you are doing, copying the files manually to a second drive.

Also how often are you changing and adding files that need to be copied to the backup again? You really just need to backup only new or changed files to the backup. If you don't want to do a NAS or cloud storage, what you are doing is what you can do.

To alternate drives, don't think I have seen that option, except to simply swap the drive in yourself. Even for server backups they expect you to rotate the tape backup media or whatever you are using.

 

[USAFRet]

Macrium Reflect Free. Full drive images, with daily Incremental or Differential images.

I have a 4 bay Qnap NAS. It is NOT large or loud. It is the actual quietest system, and not much larger than the 4 drives it contains.
Expense? Well....
The stability over the last few years has more than justified the initial expense.
It is the single hub that collects daily or weekly backups from all the systems in the house. AS well as holding the movie and music library.

And yes, I've had to recover from a total drive fail. One of my SSD's died suddenly. 960GB, with 605GB data on it.
Click click...the entire contents recovered, exactly as it was at 4AM that morning when it ran its nightly Incremental.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

That procedure could easily be reduced down to a couple of external USB drives.
8TB Seagate externals are currently going for $140 each.
https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-External-Hard-Drive/dp/B07CQJBSQL

 

[Luisdent]

The cheapest and simplest thing is what you are doing, copying the files manually to a second drive.

Also how often are you changing and adding files that need to be copied to the backup again? You really just need to backup only new or changed files to the backup. If you don't want to do a NAS or cloud storage, what you are doing is what you can do.

To alternate drives, don't think I have seen that option, except to simply swap the drive in yourself. Even for server backups they expect you to rotate the tape backup media or whatever you are using.

i do manually swap the drives now. my big issue is that i do change lots of data daily. if I work on a music project and then a photography project, i can easily manipulate 10gb of music and 20gb of photos, followed by updating some mass tag edits of my music library which could slightly alter 100gb. then i might restructure some folders sometimes which could move 50gb of data. etc. etc.

i commonly run backups that do 100gb+ which wouldn't be an issue if i have a working, cross platform, incremental script. but i haven't found anything so far that does that. i like robocopy and rsync, but i don't know if it's possible to have them work in tandem on the same set of data? or get rsync for windows or something and use the same scripts?

the nas could be an option if my data grows more quickly. but it wouldn't provide me an offsite solution and it'sexpensive. i can swap my backup drives now and take one to work or my dad's house across town.

so it sounds like scripting external drives is still the most ideal for my situation. does anyone have any experience doing it cross platform?