Automatic Back up

archangel

archangel

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Mike
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After my disastrous loss of my last remaining back up drive, I now want to put something in place to save the hassle of this again.

Is there any type of drive/drives that i can buy that will auto update and backup all my data our is there some where the internet thingy that i send my files and images for safe keeping....and that will keep the resolution?:confused:

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Talk Photography Forums mobile app
 
My recommendation: get yourself a cheap HP Microserver. Mine cost me about £90 after HP cashback for an N54L. Install Windows Home Server 2011 on it. You may never have heard of it, but it's one of our best products you've never heard of, and you can get a licenced copy for about £40.
Once you've got it installed, it makes it trivial to setup file shares etc and crucially - setup automatic back up of all the PCs in your house. They'll wake up at night, back themselves up, and go back to sleep. If you want to restore an individual file, you can via a simple wizard. If your laptop HDD goes bang you just boot off the CD, point it at your microserver and it'll do a bare-metal restore. Under the skin it's Windows Server 2008 R2 but wrapped up in a user-friendly skin with wizards so you can genuinely just use it without being a techie. You can also back the whole server up to a USB hard disk or similar for offsite backup.
 
^ is exactly what I do too. When I upgraded the hdd in my wifes laptop I booted it from a USB stick prepared on the server and restored to the new drive over ethernet to test out the backup. Worked perfectly even if it did take 3 hours or so.

Can't say I've seen HP microservers on sale anywhere recently. If anyone knows different at prices around what they were before do say as I have a use for another one...
 
It'll also install on fairly low spec hardware, so if you have an old desktop fill it full of disks and you can use that. It even comes with a custom domain name for free. Mine is also my media server and I remote on to it for torrents etc, too...

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Talk Photography Forums mobile app
 
I have a Western Digital Passport external drive. I use the supplied WD Smartware software which automatically backs up files as they are changed. It can keep past versions of files as well, the default is 5 but that can be changed. I had problems with a software update 2 years ago but that has all been sorted now and it is running OK.
I also use Synctoy to backup to my laptop, although you can decide what folders to backup synctoy has to be run to do the actual backup, whereas WD Smartware backs up automatically as files are changed.
 
landwomble said:
My recommendation: get yourself a cheap HP Microserver. Mine cost me about £90 after HP cashback for an N54L. Install Windows Home Server 2011 on it. You may never have heard of it, but it's one of our best products you've never heard of, and you can get a licenced copy for about £40.
Once you've got it installed, it makes it trivial to setup file shares etc and crucially - setup automatic back up of all the PCs in your house. They'll wake up at night, back themselves up, and go back to sleep. If you want to restore an individual file, you can via a simple wizard. If your laptop HDD goes bang you just boot off the CD, point it at your microserver and it'll do a bare-metal restore. Under the skin it's Windows Server 2008 R2 but wrapped up in a user-friendly skin with wizards so you can genuinely just use it without being a techie. You can also back the whole server up to a USB hard disk or similar for offsite backup.
Click to expand...


All double dutch to me :thinking:
 
neil_g said:
There's some debate as to whether hp will ever do any more cash back on microservers as there hasn't been one for some time.
Click to expand...

I bought one with £100 cashback a few months ago from box.co.uk or .com can't remember. Got the cheque this week.
 
If you are only interested in photo back up and also have an ipad where you like to view your pictures try looking at the mosiac app with the auto back up option.
 
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