Backups for the Paranoid. Be afraid, very afraid

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Edward Lucas
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1 Backups for the Paranoid Be afraid, very afraid

2 Reasons to back up You don't want to lose your data. You want to share some of your data. You want to be able to reload your computer quickly when you break it or it breaks itself.

3 Where to back up Always off the machine (which might blow up or be stolen) CD/DVD External hard drive Network drive The cloud WARNING: Memory sticks aren t reliable enough and are too easily lost.

4 CD/DVD They re cheap ~10-20p in bulk. They re fine for most data but too small for complete system backups. Best value are DVD-Rs holding 4.7GB each. Rewritables are less reliable, more expensive and why would you want to rewrite backups anyway? They aren t indestructible so make at least 2 copies.

5 External Hard Drive Great for data and complete system backups. A USB GB drive costs around 50 A USB 3.0 1TB drive costs around 60. (These are compatible with USB 2.0 if your computer is more than a year or so old) Conclusion: Buy a big one. Manufacturer isn t important. There are very few HD makers and chip makers and they all work. Some come with fancy schmancy software. Don t let this affect your judgement.

6 Network drive Moving up a gear, Network Attached Storage is extremely convenient if you have several computers. It s actually a small computer in its own right. Excellent for data and complete system backups Not cheap though. 300 will buy you a good quality one to which you ll need to add hard drive(s)...or you can roll your own from an old computer. Best run in Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) mode which means that your stuff will survive a single disc failure. Bonus: All computers on your network can access the files.

7 The Cloud Cloud storage simply means that a provider has allocated some storage to you somewhere on the internet. General purpose storage providers include Microsoft Sky Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox and more. Most give you up to ~10G.B free and you can rent more. Then there are the specialists such as Google Picasa or Photobucket for photos. Great for data storage, but bandwidth constraints and size issues generally preclude complete system backups.

8 When to back up Ideally, set up your system to make data backups automatically because you re too busy to remember. This precludes CDs/DVDs but is OK for the other media (provided you leave your external hard drive plugged in) I back up data daily and, for some vital applications such as accounts, more frequently than that. I back up my complete system monthly. (the day following all the MS updates which are late on the second Tuesday of the month) Some applications inherently use cloud based data storage, which is nice

9 Hard Drive Organisation I m a great fan of partitioning a hard drive to keep the system and its programs, and data separate. This makes it much easier to set up appropriate automated backups. This is too big a topic for tonight but here s my main desktop

10 Complete System I don't trust system restore because the data is on the same computer. You're dead if the hard drive fails. A typical window 7 system's programs will take around 15-25GB. This is too big for optical media and too slow/expensive for the cloud. That leaves either an external HD or network storage. I do it once a month - the day after all the MS updates or when I've made significant changes. I use Acronis because it does a nice job, verifies the backup (an unverified backup can't be relied upon) and is network aware. There are other similar programs.

11 Data There s lots of sorts of data of varying lifespan and increasing importance. Short term stuff that can be discarded after a short while. The equivalent of Post-It notes. s. Almost irreplaceable stuff such as photos, home movies first novels, family tree. Accounts Password databases

12 Short term data I use a free program called Evernote. You add notes, pictures or s into notebooks. This works well for short term projects because a notebook can be deleted when the project is done. It can automatically synchronise to some cloud storage (provided by Evernote) from where it can be retrieved by your ipad or smart phone. It brings filing by heaps to a whole new level.

13 Evernote Demo

14 s I route all incoming mail and BCCs of outgoing mail via Gmail. This gives me a searchable archive of 26,000+ messages since January That occupies just 1GB of my 10GB cloud based allowance. It s well backed up by Google who have never, as far as I m aware, permanently lost anything. (They had to recover some stuff from magnetic tape last year which took a few days in some cases) This means that I don t need to save processed s locally at all. Other web based providers such as MS Live Mail or Yahoo mail can be used similarly.

15 Important Data The more backups the merrier. Put it on the cloud and on local external storage. I have a folder for vital data which automatically syncs to Dropbox on the cloud. I also automatically copy it to my NAS using Karen s Replicator.

16 Other Data Normal data files: I automatically create incremental backups to my NAS using Acronis. This give me the opportunity to recover earlier versions of a file should I need to. Photos: Some are up in the cloud. All are incrementally automatically backed up to my NAS daily using Karen s Replicator. My software collection: Incrementally automatically backed up to my NAS daily using Karen s Replicator. My Kindle collection: All are incrementally automatically backed up to my NAS daily using Karen s Replicator. Home movies: NAS (and DVDs for convenience)

17 Backup Programs I Use Acronis True Image: A proper backup program. (not free) Karen s Replicator: A quick and dirty file copier (free) Casper: A hard drive copier (not free)

18 Acronis True Image Network aware and schedulable. Can run from a boot CD to recover a complete system to a (new) hard drive. Can automatically verify that a backup is correct. An unverified backup isn t a backup. Can run full, incremental (changes since last time) or differential (changes since last full) backups. I use full for system backups and incremental for data backups.

19 Acronis True Image - Demo

20 Karen s replicator Schedulable and network aware, (free) Copies a folder s changes to a destination. It will overwrite old versions of files. It can be set to not delete files at the destination (great for the hard of thinking like me) One of the folders I backup using Karen s Replicator is my desktop.

21 Karen s replicator - Jobs

22 Karen s replicator Edit Job

23 Casper This takes a different approach. It makes an exact copy of an entire internal hard drive to a second internal hard drive. If the main hard drive fails, it s simply a matter of swapping the internal SATA connectors across to be up and running again. Dean used to use this as his primary backup method

24 Summary Your computer will die or be stolen at some time. If you value your information, back it up off the machine. The more copies the better. The method and media used depend upon the importance and size of the data plus the depth of your pocket. Cloud storage can make your data more accessible. You ll get no sympathy if you lose stuff without taking care of it.

25 Programs Mentioned Evernote (free) Acronis True Image ( 40 list) image/ Karen s Replicator (free) Casper ($50 list)

26 Cloud Storage Dropbox MS SkyDrive Google Drive Also see

27 FIN

In the Cloud. Scoville Memorial Library February, 2013 ccayne@biblio.org

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