Question Strong and affordable backup solution

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AZeed18

Feb 23, 2023
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I want to protect my data from loss or corruption, sources such as:
  • Bad sectors
  • Hardware damage
  • Malware, like ransomware
Other backup objectives:
  • Ability to revert accidental deletions and renames
  • Ability to revert a file/folder to a previous version
I need a backup solution that is affordable and can really protect my data...

I thought of using NAS, but data loss due to power outage can still happen (no UPS) and it is expensive to maintain and replace every 3-5 years; as the cheapest I found was 13,000 EGP (Drivestor 2, 2-Bay), which is more expensive than my PC (excluding peripherals)
 
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What are you doing for backup now? Nothing at all?

Most data backup programs would allow you to keep prior versions of a file if you configure them in that way. I don't, but some do. Windows has a "file history" feature that may be relevant, but I don't know how clunky it is.

You say "protect my data". Do you mean to the exclusion of operating system files and installed programs?

Roughly......how much "data" do you need to back up?
 
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Lafong said:
What are you doing for backup now?
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I've been only synchronizing!
Lafong said:
You say "protect my data". Do you mean to the exclusion of operating system files and installed programs?
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Yes, personal data and some specific folders in different places (specific folders like some apps' data folders)
Lafong said:
Roughly......how much "data" do you need to back up?
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I'm not exactly sure, maybe 100 GiBs... they are currently 50 GiBs, but I'm indeed willing to backup more
 
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"Synchronizing" through what method? Drag and drop in File Explorer? Through a program of some type?

I take "synchronizing" to mean forcing destination files to match source files, with earlier versions of destination files deleted. When dog.jpg on the source drive is backed up, it is copied to the destination. If dog.jpg is later deleted from the source, it would also be deleted from the destination the next time the backup is run.

Is that about what you mean?

As I said earlier, prior versions of files can be kept with most backup programs if you make that configuration choice. If dog.jpg is modified on the source drive and resaved as dog.jpg, it would be copied to the destination drive as dog (1).jpg or something similar. The original dog.jpg would NOT be deleted from the backup.


Do you need more than that?

Standard backup programs allow you to select only certain folders or only certain files as you see fit.
 
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Lafong said:
"Synchronizing" through what method? Drag and drop in File Explorer? Through a program of some type?

I take "synchronizing" to mean forcing destination files to match source files, with earlier versions of destination files deleted. When dog.jpg on the source drive is backed up, it is copied to the destination. If dog.jpg is later deleted from the source, it would also be deleted from the destination the next time the backup is run.

Is that about what you mean?
Click to expand...
Yes, I meant synchronizing with the cloud (i.e., MEGA and Google Drive)
Lafong said:
As I said earlier, prior versions of files can be kept with most backup programs if you make that configuration choice. If dog.jpg is modified on the source drive and resaved as dog.jpg, it would be copied to the destination drive as dog (1).jpg or something similar. The original dog.jpg would NOT be deleted from the backup.


Do you need more than that?
Click to expand...
For versioning, no, but is it copied on every save?
Lafong said:
Standard backup programs allow you to select only certain folders or only certain files as you see fit.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what I want

I want to protect this data from malware attacks as well, such as ransomware
 
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I don't use the cloud at all. I don't want my backups dependent on an Internet connection. Leaving aside speed and security issues. Use the cloud if you wish.

I use local backups ONLY. They run manually at my single click command. I'd guess they could be automated via Windows task scheduler, but I don't want to rely on automation.

I have several backup "profiles". One backs up everything on my data drive. Another backs up only my most critical files on my data drive. Another backs up everything in the appdata folder on my C partition. I run the first profile 2 or 3 times a day. The second and third less often....weekly or monthly. All of these to internal SSDs and internal HDDs.

I also make occasional backups of highly important data files to USB flash drives by ordinary drag and drop.

And yet another occasional backup of all non-video data files to an occasionally connected USB enclosure containing an M.2 SSD.

So at any given moment I have 3 or 4 copies of my highly critical data, some very up to date, some somewhat stale.

I have never used "versioning" and cannot recall ever wishing I had. I've got about 900 GB of files (over 100,000), but will never again look at 80 percent of them. 98 percent are frivilous if the truth were known. Packratitis Extremus.

A 100 percent reliable solution for all possible corruption/malware/doofus deletion/hardware failures is effectively impossible. I'll concede that and strive for something above 99 percent.

I suppose keeping at least some of your backups off the Internet would be one way of reducing malware/ransomware issues.

I use SyncBackFree, but there are several others that do the same thing....the primary difference being the interfaces. Some are more confusing than need be.
 
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The one thing about an online solution is that it fulfills one of the requirements for a good back-up strategy, that is one copy is offsite. There's no point in having 20 copies of backups on different hard drives if they're in the same house and it burns down. And while you could also fulfill the requirement by say leaving it with a trusted neighbor or finding a safe place to put it, it's likely to become outdated because of the inconvenience it is to have to grab it regularly enough to make updates.

Also I would argue offsite should ideally be a geographically different area. If you live in say a disaster prone area (like where I'm at where wildfires are a problem), giving a hard drive to your next-door neighbor isn't really what I'd consider safe, because if disaster strikes your home, chances are it'll get your neighbor's too
 
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Your offsite backup can your cloud back up. Don’t get too complicated. Use back up software like Macrium and a set of external drives. Them copy one to cloud. DONE
 
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Cloud can be good for some things.
A small selection of critical files.

I would not attempt to do my whole PC there. 6x drives, 2-3TB. And then the several TB of music and movies that live on the NAS.

PC backs up to the NAS (Macrium Reflect). Nightly or weekly, as each system warrants.
NAS backs up to other volume in the NAS, totally inaccessible from the PCs operating systems.
Critical files exist 'out there' somewhere. Or, in my case, also a couple of drives in a desk drawer at work.

Always at least 3 copies of anything, sometimes 4.
 
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AZeed18 said:
Can you please describe in more detail your backup plan?
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Not them, but if you're interested in someone else's plan:
  • One copy in a NAS as an always available copy
  • One copy on an external hard drive that acts as a back up of the NAS
  • One copy of my critical data (i.e., data I cannot find in some other way) in the cloud. The NAS also manages since there's integration with my cloud backup provider
 
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Somewhat modified since I wrote this, but the basics....

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 forums.tomshardware.com
 
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