Back-up and storage?

fatmarley

fatmarley

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I've decided that it's about time I had a half decent back-up solution, rather than just transferring stuff from one drive to another manually. I don't really know much about this subject but assume I want a Raid enclosure with a couple of hard drives, set-up to Raid 1 (mirroring)?

I like the look of the Icy Dock USB 3.0 Raid enclosure. For hard drives the cheapest I could find were some Toshiba 3tb drives from ebay and I will need a USB 3.0 PCI card.

Does this look like a good plan or should I get or do something else?
 
It's a start. But remember RAID is not backup. What the IcyDock/Toshiba hardware will give you is a place to store your backups which itself has an element of redundancy (RAID 1) should one of the drives fail. You will still need to implement some form of regime to make regular, automated copies of your data from your primary computer.

You need to plan what you want your backups to be to help you choose the software to make these backups to the IcyDock. I.e. do you want to just take a copy of everything in the middle of the night? If so, remember that if you've accidentally deleted something from your main PC, that deletion will be faithfully replicated by the daily copy process. Or do you want to have versions of your data (backup sets) so you can go and recover that deleted file from a backup taken a few days previously?

There are a hundred and one ways of approaching this. Read a few articles online to help firm up in your mind what you are aiming to achieve. But your hardware plans are a good start. Also don't forget that whilst you will end up with multiple copies of your data, which is a good thing, if you do not get one of those copies "off site" then you are still exposed to problems should something happen to your house/hardware.

Me? I take a belt and braces approach:
  1. My data is stored on a NAS with RAID support to protect against a disk failure. (RAID data protection)
  2. I regularly back up the NAS to another storage solution to protect against a NAS failure. (Backup data protection)
  3. I also sync my NAS to the cloud to protect against my house going up in smoke. (Offsite protection)
  4. Alongside the data (files, photos, etc.) I store on the NAS are backup images of my PCs and laptops to protect against hardware failure and having to rebuild a PC. (Backup PC image protection)
The last is sometimes overlooked in a home backup solution but can be very helpful. I came home the other night to find my desktop on it's knees in an unending Windows repair/reboot loop. It took me 20 minutes to rebuild from backup as opposed to having to re-install Windows and then all my applications (Office, PS, etc.).

Hope some of this is of help.

Duncan
 
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Just to add a quick note on tools:
  1. I use Acronis True Image 2014 to make the hardware (laptop/PC) image backups
  2. I use ViceVersa Pro/VV Engine to make copies of the NAS to the second line USB storage
  3. I use Crashplan to sync the NAS to the cloud
  4. I use SkyDrive to sync a subset of NAS data to the cloud to make available on all my Windows devices
  5. I use an HP Microserver/Windows Server 2012/Storage Spaces as my NAS
There are many others out there!

Duncan
 
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Thanks for the detailed reply Duncan. but, oh my god, it sounds so complicated.

So to start with, should I buy a HP microserver (got any recomendations?) a couple of hard drives and download Windows Server 2012?

Do I plug the server into the router or can it run wireless? I know absolutely nothing about setting up a server.
 
God no! I do these things 'cos it's my business (IT) so I'm familiar and comfortable with all aspects. I detailed what I do not to say that it's best approach for you/anyone, but to suggest elements you may want to cherry pick.

Your proposed hardware will do just fine for a second copy. But how and when you make those copies, and how many versions you want to retain, are decisions only you can make. Once you know that then we can help choose the right software to do this for you.

And I suggested cloud simply because, even if you have multiple copies in your house, if something happens to them (thieves etc.) where then? For me it means put another copy in the cloud. For you it may be to take the IcyDock round to a mates for safekeeping between backups.
 
Ah right, I think i'll stick to my original plan then, but maybe keep a copy of everything at my sisters house. I have around 700gb of family photos and video, so I think i'll keep the Icy Dock here and use an external USB hard drive for my sisters house. It terrible to think that most people I know keep all their photos and video on ONE laptop - including my sister!
 
Wow
What did you people do when you had negatives to look after?:exit:

Personally, I find simple storage on a separate hdd adequate enough. If the PC fails I can easily install the hdd onto another system.
I have been a PC user since '88 when I bought my first one in Hongkong. I can honestly say that I change my hdd's for bigger faster units about every two years or when there is any significant improvement in transfer technology. I have only ever had one hdd fail in all that time and that was a raid setup I was experimenting with.
What I don't do is format the old drives. I keep them as back ups should I need them.
 
northernbiff said:
Wow
What did you people do when you had negatives to look after?:exit:

Personally, I find simple storage on a separate hdd adequate enough. If the PC fails I can easily install the hdd onto another system.
I have been a PC user since '88 when I bought my first one in Hongkong. I can honestly say that I change my hdd's for bigger faster units about every two years or when there is any significant improvement in transfer technology. I have only ever had one hdd fail in all that time and that was a raid setup I was experimenting with.
What I don't do is format the old drives. I keep them as back ups should I need them.
Click to expand...
What would you do if the hard drive became unreadable?

If you've not had a drive fail since 88 you're playing with really bad odds. Even enterprise drives fail, it's not got anything to do with having the newest (a drive can fail after 1 hours or carry on for 100,000s) fastest drives.
 
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fatmarley said:
Ah right, I think i'll stick to my original plan then, but maybe keep a copy of everything at my sisters house. I have around 700gb of family photos and video, so I think i'll keep the Icy Dock here and use an external USB hard drive for my sisters house. It terrible to think that most people I know keep all their photos and video on ONE laptop - including my sister!
Click to expand...
I think that sounds like a solid approach. The originals on your laptop, regular syncing to the IcyDock, and less frequent snapshots to a USB disk to take to your sister. If your laptop HDD dies you have a near line copy on the IcyDock; should the worst happen you have an offline copy with your sister.

In terms of software that will do the necessary copying/syncing jobs, I use ViceVersa Pro. Not the loveliest of interfaces, but very flexible.
 
neil_g said:
What would you do if the hard drive became unreadable?

If you've not had a drive fail since 88 you're playing with really bad odds. Even enterprise drives fail, it's not got anything to do with having the newest (a drive can fail after 1 hours or carry on for 100,000s) fastest drives.
Click to expand...

If it was my profession, then I might consider a simple back up to another separate hdd. If a drive becomes unreadable, it hasn't happened since the raid failure I mentioned, then I would only have lost my efforts since i last swapped the hdd (about three months). My older stuff will be on the old hdd.

Don't get me wrong, I can well understand people who make a living from photography taking back up seriously. For a hobbyist like myself, the world wont stop turning and I wont wet my pants if I do lose some work.
 
I have two backups of my original files - 1) NAS drive connected to my home network and 2) a separate USB drive. Both of these are synced using 'Goodsync' whenever I make any changes to my master drive. The NAS drive works fine but can be rather slow as I'm backing up data wirelessly. The only off-site contingency I have is using Google's Picasa and saving to their cloud. It's straightforward to use and allows me to save photos at various levels of resolution.
 
northernbiff said:
If it was my profession, then I might consider a simple back up to another separate hdd. If a drive becomes unreadable, it hasn't happened since the raid failure I mentioned, then I would only have lost my efforts since i last swapped the hdd (about three months). My older stuff will be on the old hdd.

Don't get me wrong, I can well understand people who make a living from photography taking back up seriously. For a hobbyist like myself, the world wont stop turning and I wont wet my pants if I do lose some work.
Click to expand...


Agreed I do find the whole thing tedious - but imagine if your house burnt down and you lost ALL the old hard disks.

Or, if you lost precious irreplaceable photos of loved ones, taken in the time since you last swapped the hard disk, due to a drive failure?
 
bl0at3r said:
Agreed I do find the whole thing tedious - but imagine if your house burnt down and you lost ALL the old hard disks.

Or, if you lost precious irreplaceable photos of loved ones, taken in the time since you last swapped the hard disk, due to a drive failure?
Click to expand...
Well in that case I think and I believe a cloud backup is best. It is reliable plus it is offsite as well. The only thing that matters is the cost. If you are a professional, it can cost you a lot, but serves the purpose for general users like us.
 
Well, i'm now signed up to Backblaze cloud service. They charge $5 a month and backup is unlimited. Cheers Guys :)

It's going to take months to upload all my data though :(
 
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