What is your backup situation at home?

[Barty1884]

I don't like continuously and automatically backed up feature, I like manual backup more because I can disconnect the drive after finish backing it up. I backup using Samsung Data Migration USB 3.0 and Samsung 250GB SSD.

Which is fine, and totally your call. I don't like the idea of "continuous" backups either, FWIW.

You had replied to comments re: continuous and automatic backups though.... suggesting that you simply disconnect the drive in question. Which, obviously, defeats the purpose of the "app" being discussed.

That's all I was saying.

 

[USAFRet]

A mixture of procedures:
Daily Incrementals as needed, weekly full backup, autodisconnect when finished.

If the PC, and the NAS box both get fully compromised....the weekly offline thing is there, ready for use.

An always on instant backup is little different than a RAID 1. Which is mostly useless for a real 'backup'.

 

[RolandJS]

Replies to the continuous backing up are all very relevant, it is through discussion and ambassadorial debate that we learn not only the great features of any backup routine, we also learn potential and/or possible pitfalls, drawbacks, of any backup routine.

 

[USAFRet]

Replies to the continuous backing up are all very relevant, it is through discussion and ambassadorial debate that we learn not only the great features of any backup routine, we also learn potential and/or possible pitfalls, drawbacks, of any backup routine.

Right.
There is no One True Way. Whatever works for you.

The good thing about this conversation is that people in here are thinking about this proactively, instead of the vast majority of people, who only think about it 5 minutes after they need it.

 

[Saga Lout]

I've only had to deal with seven Ransomware attacks but in every case, it's only taken over the data on the system disk and in three of those cases, another internal disk.

I would be interested to know if anyone has seen an instance where a NAS was affected?

 

[RobCrezz]

I've only had to deal with seven Ransomware attacks but in every case, it's only taken over the data on the system disk and in three of those cases, another internal disk.

I would be interested to know if anyone has seen an instance where a NAS was affected?

Yeah in the past I have had it attack and encrypt networked shared drives, in this case on a NetApp SAN, but its NAS CIFS share functionality.

I suspect its more due to the use of mapped network drives - I havent seen it attack an accessible network share, that isnt mapped as a network drive.

 

[Saga Lout]

I suspect its more due to the use of mapped network drives - I havent seen it attack an accessible network share, that isnt mapped as a network drive.

That would explain a thing or two. Most of my customers are domestic only with fairly simple systems.

 

[RobCrezz]

I suspect its more due to the use of mapped network drives - I havent seen it attack an accessible network share, that isnt mapped as a network drive.

That would explain a thing or two. Most of my customers are domestic only with fairly simple systems.

Yeah, might be worth advising to use UNC path shortcuts rather than mapped drives.

 

[Saga Lout]

I certainly shall be doing just that.

 

[badhddexpert]

Synology DS1515+. stable,easy to use. can access data anywhere when you have network. 7X24

 

[The Original Ralph]

my backup is a basic "fred flintstone" system - after too many times spending 4-8 hours trying to rid my system of malware, trojans etc or 12-14 hours re-installing everything on my computer's OS drive, i installed one of those two bay "hot swap" drive ( https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41eYom-rj8L.jpg ). Both bays are powered but only one bay has a sata cable connected.

Using an SSD i clone my whole system weekly in about 22 minutes, then pull the clone SSD out and put it into the power only bay to keep it energized. I run a business out of my home and can't afford downtime on my system. I do a clone for each computer.

One tip i learned the hard way - one time when i went to clone the clone copy back to the OS drive, the same malware kept appearing, so like an idiot i wiped the OS drive and just re-installed everything. Got talking to a customer (retired microsoft engineer) asking him how the malware could re-appear when the clone SSD had no sata connection while in storage.

His response shed a lot of light - a lot of the back up software programs, when re-installing a copy back to the OS drive, will check the target drive and if it sees a file already there (ie with same name, date etc) it'll skip over it and clone the copy over to the OS drive.. So now when i copy the clone back to the orig drive, i wipe it 3X first so i get a complete copy. Same when i clone the OS to the backup SSD - i wipe it as well.

Data partitions i store in the cloud. All of my video drives are copied to their own backup drive, so if one drive fails, i've still got a copy on hand. The 2nd set of drives are those 2TB seagate external 2.5" HDDs that i also use for our RV, so we've got a complete movie library on the road

hope that helps someone from making the same mistake i originally made

 

[BlueCat57]

Please forgive me if any of this repeats what is discussed above. The thread has become rather lengthy.

1. Overall the plan is good. While there is a note that "the really critical stuff also lives in a drive in my desk at work. Scans of drivers license, birth certs, etc." I would suggest that the "USB 8TB drive" be stored off-site in a secure location since "In the unlikely event of my main system AND the NAS box both melting into a pile of goo," would likely mean your house burned down and there is a chance that 8TB drive went with the other two even if it was stored in a fire- and water-proof storage container since those containers have limited resistance to damage. In any case, it is also possible that your house may be inaccessible due to a natural disaster (flood, fire, earthquake, etc.) but you might have access to the 8TB drive and could, therefore, recover to another computer. Of course, you should keep that 8TB drive someplace that would be accessible even in the event of an area-wide power failure since banks (a safety deposit box) wouldn't be accessible if you couldn't get in and verify your identity.

2. In the thread that led me here, jankerson suggested that the OS and data be kept on separate drives. I think that suggestion could be worked into this backup plan. I would start by KISSing the plan but you could add a 128 GB USB Thumb Drive with a recovery OS on it and then a second 128 USB Thumb Drive with whatever else is on your SSD. Of course, if you are running off a SSD larger than 256 GB, then you would back up the non-OS to a regular hard drive.

3. I would add a second 8TB external drive to the mix. Then you could leave one 8TB plugged into the system and automate powering it on with a WeMo wall outlet and IFTTT. You could trigger the backup for say 12:01 a.m. and it might be done by the time you leave for work, or trigger it so that it finishes the next day before you leave for work. Then you could take that one to work and bring the other one home. You'll never forget to turn the drive on ever again.

4. Would you recommend encrypting any of the data if it is kept offsite? How do you protect it when stored at home? This is a departure from a backup plan, but should be a consideration in any disaster recovery plan.

5. In the avoiding disaster category, how do you protect against electrical failures? Are surge protectors and UPS systems part of the plan?

FWIW

 

[USAFRet]

Please forgive me if any of this repeats what is discussed above. The thread has become rather lengthy.

1. In the remote event of a total destruction, the "really critical stuff" is all I really care about.
Anything else...the OS and applications..all that can be rebuilt.

"Really critical" = stuff needed to rebuild your life.
Not game saves, or a series of pictures I took last week of a bug.

2. OS and application on one drive, data on other drives. Absolutely.
My current system is thus:
Drive 1 = OS and applications
Drive 2 = photo work
Drive 3 = CAD/video work
Drive 4 = games, and other random doc/xls/mdb/downloads
Drive 5 = scratch space for #2 & 3

All individually backed up, except for #5.

3. Yes, I could swap back and forth between 2x 8-10TB drives. But so far I haven't risen to that level of need.
In case I have to bug out, the current 8TB drive goes in the backpack along with toothbrush, one of the baby laptops, and a phone.
Except for the time when it is actually syncing, it is 15 second accessible.

WeMo + IFTTT = way too much automation and cloudy connection.
10 seconds of me physically power cycling the USB box is far more effective, for me. And if I forget, I just do it when I come home.

4. Encryption? It is an option, but I've not seen it necessary.
Where I have my offsite storage, no one is going to steal it. Ever.
And if I personally have met my demise, whatever is on there needs to be easily accessible by other people.

5. In my house, absolutely. Both high quality Tripp-Lite surge protectors and UPSs.

 

[jankerson]

2. In the thread that led me here, jankerson suggested that the OS and data be kept on separate drives. I think that suggestion could be worked into this backup plan. I would start by KISSing the plan but you could add a 128 GB USB Thumb Drive with a recovery OS on it and then a second 128 USB Thumb Drive with whatever else is on your SSD. Of course, if you are running off a SSD larger than 256 GB, then you would back up the non-OS to a regular hard drive.

What I do personally might not work for some because I back up or have copies of the important stuff on computers in my network. That's 3 machines.

The really critical stuff is on hard media stored.

So all I have to do is reinstall Windows, Office and a few apps then pull from the other machines the other stuff and I am back up and running. It doesn't take that long and I have a fresh install of Windows when I am done.

Main reason why I keep the OS and apps on one drive and data on the other(s).

It works for me the way I do it, but it may or may not work for others.

 

[USAFRet]

Right.
The main thing is to have some sort of a backup. Whatever works for you.

However simple or elaborate you want/need it...do that. D something, anything.
Daily, I see people here "HELP! How can I recover..."
or
"I was going to do a backup tomorrow and..."

Tomorrow is too late. Backups are what you do before the BadThing happens.

 

[jankerson]

Right.
The main thing is to have some sort of a backup. Whatever works for you.

However simple or elaborate you want/need it...do that. D something, anything.
Daily, I see people here "HELP! How can I recover..."
or
"I was going to do a backup tomorrow and..."

Tomorrow is too late. Backups are what you do before the BadThing happens.

Yup.

And one of machines is off MOST of the time so nothing can happen to it. Only time I turn it on is when I am adding something to the storage drive or updates etc.

Worst case I can pull the storage drive and hook it up, the data I need is all there. Setup the same way OS and apps on one drive and storage on another.

And it's a older high end box so if my main machine gets nuked or something I can just move the whole machine and be back up in seconds.

Lesson I learned a long time ago when the worst case happened and I had zero machines after a lightning strike took out everything in the house. So I keep a 3rd machine ever since.

 

[Saga Lout]

If I may have said this in this thread already but I can't say it often enough.

Whatever medie you store your backup on, keep it in a fireproof box. You know - the one you keep the fire insurance paperwork.

Hard disks melt in fires and i know that because I burnt a dud. The steel case survived but that thin aluminium plate on top melt in under a minute and the disks within went with it.

 

[popatim]

These days I wouldn't be a bit surprised if HDD platters were just coated pieces of plastic. That Fireproof box might not help in a long burn. They still get hot inside when cooked long enough.

 

[The Original Ralph]

i'll throw my 2 cents here - for years i did backups, complete disk clones to a spare disk that once the cloning was completed, i'd move the disk to a tray with no SATA cable but it did have a power cable (i use SSDs)

Twice i was invaded by malware, and the easiest way for me to correct or eradicate the malware was to clone my backup copy back to the OS disk. Twice when i cloned back, i still had the same issue with the malware and thought it was just cropping back up because the malware/trojan/spybot/virus had embedded itself in the root files.

was talking this over with a friend, retired microsoft engineer - he alerted me that the clone copy was probably good, the issue was that if i didn't wipe the OS disk 3X or more, when the clone copy is being written back to the OS drive, most of the clone softwares will check, and if they see a file with the same name and date as the one on the clone copy, it will simply skip that file, and that was why i was seeing the same malware after the clone

so now, before cloning, i wipe the target disk 3X, and if/when i'm going to copy back to the OS disk, i do the same, wipe it 3X

fwiw

 

[RolandJS]

Ralph - I learned something new from you today! Thanks for sharing

 

[The Original Ralph]

on another note, his explanation helped me understand why sometimes my clones took 15-19 minutes, and others 28-30 minutes - the longer times were when i had wiped the target disk

 

[Gzy]

i have a 3TB drive for Music, i have 2 x 4TB drives for Movies, i have a 3 TB drive for Documents and Pictures (this drive has FAILED, data lost! some of it backed up)... PLEASE, I would like advice on how to backup my drives preferably clones to external drives or bay enclosure. I have looked into OneDrive, DropBox, etc, they don't really offer a 1-user plan for this much data or if there is a plan this large, it's not really in my budget to pay more than $20/month. I have little to no knowledge or RAID but have all the ambition to learn.

I currently backup all my phone photos to Google Photos and Amazon Prime photos, my documents I do and can back them up to OneDrive. Now what's most important to me are my camera pics. I love taking pics. We just had our first born child. I am now also shooting in RAW+JPEG so each picture is very large ~15-20MB. With my Documents/Pictures drive lost, I am now looking to replace it with a 1TB SSD so I will need a backup solution for that. Or if 1TB proves to be too small I may have to go back to an SATA drive, regardless, surely I want to back my pictures up!

Please advise, thanks!

 

[BlueCat57]

i have a 3TB drive for Music, i have 2 x 4TB drives for Movies, i have a 3 TB drive for Documents and Pictures (this drive has FAILED, data lost! some of it backed up)... PLEASE, I would like advice on how to backup my drives preferably clones to external drives or bay enclosure. I have looked into OneDrive, DropBox, etc, they don't really offer a 1-user plan for this much data or if there is a plan this large, it's not really in my budget to pay more than $20/month. I have little to no knowledge or RAID but have all the ambition to learn.

I currently backup all my phone photos to Google Photos and Amazon Prime photos, my documents I do and can back them up to OneDrive. Now what's most important to me are my camera pics. I love taking pics. We just had our first born child. I am now also shooting in RAW+JPEG so each picture is very large ~15-20MB. With my Documents/Pictures drive lost, I am now looking to replace it with a 1TB SSD so I will need a backup solution for that. Or if 1TB proves to be too small I may have to go back to an SATA drive, regardless, surely I want to back my pictures up!

Please advise, thanks!

WD EasyStore 8TB today at Best buy for $140.

Don't mess with RAID or clones. Just follow It's plan and rest easier.

 

[Gzy]

i have a 3TB drive for Music, i have 2 x 4TB drives for Movies, i have a 3 TB drive for Documents and Pictures (this drive has FAILED, data lost! some of it backed up)... PLEASE, I would like advice on how to backup my drives preferably clones to external drives or bay enclosure. I have looked into OneDrive, DropBox, etc, they don't really offer a 1-user plan for this much data or if there is a plan this large, it's not really in my budget to pay more than $20/month. I have little to no knowledge or RAID but have all the ambition to learn.

I currently backup all my phone photos to Google Photos and Amazon Prime photos, my documents I do and can back them up to OneDrive. Now what's most important to me are my camera pics. I love taking pics. We just had our first born child. I am now also shooting in RAW+JPEG so each picture is very large ~15-20MB. With my Documents/Pictures drive lost, I am now looking to replace it with a 1TB SSD so I will need a backup solution for that. Or if 1TB proves to be too small I may have to go back to an SATA drive, regardless, surely I want to back my pictures up!

Please advise, thanks!

WD EasyStore 8TB today at Best buy for $140.

Don't mess with RAID or clones. Just follow It's plan and rest easier.

Wow, $160 savings! l've been anti-WD for the past 10 years, but have had 3-4 Seagate drives fail on me, albeit been thru many power outages.. Perhaps it's time to give WD another chance. Thanks for the info, I'll be checking it out!

edit: what's the difference between the easystore & My Book, just the included cloud storage?

 

[USAFRet]

i have a 3TB drive for Music, i have 2 x 4TB drives for Movies, i have a 3 TB drive for Documents and Pictures (this drive has FAILED, data lost! some of it backed up)... PLEASE, I would like advice on how to backup my drives preferably clones to external drives or bay enclosure. I have looked into OneDrive, DropBox, etc, they don't really offer a 1-user plan for this much data or if there is a plan this large, it's not really in my budget to pay more than $20/month. I have little to no knowledge or RAID but have all the ambition to learn.

I currently backup all my phone photos to Google Photos and Amazon Prime photos, my documents I do and can back them up to OneDrive. Now what's most important to me are my camera pics. I love taking pics. We just had our first born child. I am now also shooting in RAW+JPEG so each picture is very large ~15-20MB. With my Documents/Pictures drive lost, I am now looking to replace it with a 1TB SSD so I will need a backup solution for that. Or if 1TB proves to be too small I may have to go back to an SATA drive, regardless, surely I want to back my pictures up!

Please advise, thanks!

Not clones, not RAID, not cloud.
Well, maybe cloud later.

The biggest thing is to have this automated.
The less that you need to think about it, the more likely it is to actually happen.

The second thing is testing.
A backup solution does no good if, in time of need, you have no idea of how to recover.

The third thing is isolation.
You need at least one offline backup. If you PC get a nasty virus or ransomware, and your backup is simply a USB connected drive...that is hosed as well.

With that out of the way, you're then just looking at software and implementation.

It is much easier to just image the whole drive, rather than to try to narrow it down to individual folders.
Each of my secondary drives gets its own schedule and imaging.