For the most part, I have everything backed up through a cloud backup service (currently use idrive). I would also like to back it up to an external drive or something just to have redundancy. Is the best method to just get a large backup drive, like a WD Passport of Seagate Backup Plus drive or something that is USB 3? I just have a couple of old drives that are too small and USB 2 so would rather get one better one if that is the way to go. And then is it best to just have them sync up, or do actual full backups? I do have a USB 3 port on my router (I think) so if it could plug in there, that might be nice too to keep the clutter away from my desk, but it is not mandatory. Or maybe that could even allow other computers in the house to backup to it, but I am more concerned about the desktop because that is where all the photos and stuff are stored. The other laptops at least are synced up to One Drive. Anyways, just love to hear some opinions on a better way to do this.
Solution
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Just by a missing file, or when you tried to recover and it stumbles on the broken one.
Currently, though, Macrium has a function that does both an Incremental, and rolls it up into a Full each time.
For instance...a nightly incremental happens, and you also get a current Full image. So you can recover from either a previous Incremental, or the most recent rollup.
I believe this is only in the paid version.
Thank you so much. I will check that out.
The other thing I noticed is on my cloud back up service (idrive), you basically just select the drive or folders you want backed up and it backs them up the way the structure is now and if you change a file, it just saves a different version of it so you can go back to previous versions. It won't delete anything unless you actually manually delete them from the backup. They have another option where you can do the same type of backup but backup to a local drive instead of the cloud. Maybe I will give that a try and backup an additional copy to the external drive using that program and see if it does the same thing.
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Well, iDrive and Macrium do things differently.
You can designate individual folders in Macrium. Each Image would be a new xx.mrimage. And you can mount any of those as a drive letter, and see exactly what is in it, or recover a single file if desired.
You can designate individual folders in Macrium. Each Image would be a new xx.mrimage. And you can mount any of those as a drive letter, and see exactly what is in it, or recover a single file if desired.
I downloaded and tried the free version and think I understand it. I did a full backup and it created an image file and then I went to restore, browse backups, and it showed the entire backup as a drive. I was able to navigate it and browse individual files like you said. It looks like you need the paid version for the synthetic full backup. So if you ran an incremental each night, would it just have a new image file each night with the changes? And if you did the full synthetic backup, did you say it would just merge everything into one image file each night? If so, when you go to browse that image, are you able to see the pervious versions of each file?
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The Synthetic is a new Full image each time, without having to take the time to actually do the Full image.
It merges the Incremental just done into a rolling Full image.
Last night, for my C drive.
The Incremental 2as 3.8GB. and then rolled into the Synthetic full. 17 minutes across the LAN to my NAS.
All the previous Incrementals still exist, and can be mounted individually.
And yes, the Synthetic, as well as Incremental, is only in the paid version.
The Free version is Full + Differential.
It merges the Incremental just done into a rolling Full image.
Last night, for my C drive.
The Incremental 2as 3.8GB. and then rolled into the Synthetic full. 17 minutes across the LAN to my NAS.
All the previous Incrementals still exist, and can be mounted individually.
And yes, the Synthetic, as well as Incremental, is only in the paid version.
The Free version is Full + Differential.
Let's see if I understand this right:
So let's say I have a full backup completed. Then the next day, I only made a change to FILE.XXX. That night, it would run an incremental that would only include FILE.XXX and roll it into the original image. Are you saying in addition to the rolling image, it would also have a separate image of the incremental that only contains FILE.XXX? And if I wanted to go back to view previous versions of FILE.XXX, I would have to know the exact date it was changed so I could view that backup?
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Yes and yes (mostly).
The Synthetic Full is the most current version of all.
This is the Synthetic Full and nightly Incrementals going back 2 weeks. (I keep for a rolling 30 days)
So in your scenario, the large file on 2/4 is the full synthetic backup that is most up to date and the only complete full backup you have in this list, correct? Let's say you made your initial full backup on 1/21 and you made a change to a file on 1/23. How would you find the original version of that file you changed? The 1/23 incremental would have the new version I would imagine, but where would the old version be located?Yes and yes (mostly).
The Synthetic Full is the most current version of all.
This is the Synthetic Full and nightly Incrementals going back 2 weeks. (I keep for a rolling 30 days)
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Each Incremental is its own mountable thing. If I made a new file on Jan 18, and changes on 20, 23... and wanted to recover the original version from Jan 18, I'd have to know that date. Or open each one and look.
It can't/won't keep ALL previous versions in the single Full. That would quickly balloon in size, making it useless.
It can't/won't keep ALL previous versions in the single Full. That would quickly balloon in size, making it useless.
Ok, I don't think I have ever had to go back to a version anyways but was just wondering. If I ever needed to, I could just get it off of the idrive because that shows the file and it's previous 30 versions so that would be the easy way to do it.
One more question then I will stop bothering you
: So in your list above, you could delete all of those incremental backup files for each day without losing anything because they are all merged into the one large image, right? Thank you so much for all of your help
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In my case, any of the drives.
Each physical drive is on its own schedule, with its own subfolder.
Midnight, 1230, 0100, 0130, etc. 30 minute blocks, just to ward off them stepping on each other.
If, for some reason, one were to take longer than that 30 minutes and impinge on the next startup...that next one would start right after the current one is done.
Systems as well.
Wife's, HTPC, various laptops, Day1 image of grandkids system before I gave it to them...
Each with their subfolder and schedule.
ex. The HTPC get a Full drive image Mon/Wed/Fri, rolling for a month. Thats it.
Wifes system gets a full drive image nightly, rolling for 2 weeks.
All in the same folder tree on the NAS.
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