14 replies to this topic

[WreckWench]

Speaking of BACKUPS!!!

This should be the #1 New Year's Resolution for anyone who uses a computer. NOW for the hard part?

How do you do it?

And yes Wenchie... even my backups have backups, as well as offsite duplicate storage in the event of a fire. I can't even imagine losing months worth of recording work simply because of hardware failure... what a nightmare that would be!

I back up my financial software every time I use it. Everything else on my PC are just docs & spreadsheets, easily replaced, but backed up to a thumb drive every couple of months.

BTW... I bought a external hard drive for backing up my computer yesterday...

Thank goodness we have sooooooooo many awesome IT cyberelves on our site as one in particular did the lionshare of transferring my files from my DEAD computer.

Backups???

Are you all doing them?

[Racer184]

I bought an external hard drive for two reasons.

After setting it up once, it literally takes nothing more than pressing a button on the front to run a backup.

The other reason is that it has a satisfactory "synchronize" function. I plug the external hard drive into the laptop or either of the office computers and click "synchronize now" and it will make sure the latest version of the files (in the directories I choose to have "synch") are copied over in place of the older ones.

(What did he say?)

Well, as I work on the book and lots of other things on the laptop and the office computer, I just make sure that every day I 'synch' with the external hard disk. That way any editing I did with the laptop will be copied to the desk top. Then I edit on the desktop and 'synch' to the laptop and when I go to the archives with my laptop, I have the latest revision with me.


The NUMBER ONE BEST BACKUP METHOD IS THE ONE YOU DO. The worst backup method is the one that you do not do often enough.

Sit down with paper and pencil and write down what is important to you on your computer. Then give each a rating in importance. Think about how much it would cost if you lost that data.

No laughing here, but for many people, the only backup they really have to do is to print their address book on paper once in a while. But for those of us that use the computer for accounting and customer relations, the cost of a loss of a hard disk could put me out of business.

And... if you ARE backing up information critical to your business, you MUST have off-site backups ! This means copying to some media and storing the copies at a friends house, your safe deposit box, or through an internet backup service. It does no good to have a good backup plan onto that external hard disk in your office if the office burns down, the computers get stolen, flood, tornado, etc.

[peterbj7]

On the assumption this thread doesn't concern dive computers, I also back up. Generally not daily for my personal stuff, but at least daily for business data. Having had hard disks fail with relentless frequency I maintain at least two separate backups at all times. Truly vital information is backed up remotely as well as locally. In these days of cheap 32gb flash drives I keep a backup of important data in my pocket.

I have several times had catastrophic hard disk failures. Years ago (15) I had transferred my dive log from paper to computer, and along with all other data I had the copy on the system disk, another copy on another internal hard disk, and a copy on an external hard disk. I still don't know how it happened, but I lost all three copies at the same time. My dive log and lots of other data were irrecoverable, and I've never tried to maintain a dive log since.

A few years ago here in Belize I was using a laptop for routine business emails etc. The office accounting system was maintained on a desktop machine. I logged off my laptop then realised I needed to look up a phone number. It wouldn't restart, because without any warning the hard disk had just failed. I lost all my recent emails and a lot of pictures that hadn't yet reached my external backups. I investigated having them recovered because (as is usual) it was the head mechanism that had failed, not the disk platter, but the cost was so prohibitive I immediately decided against it.

Recently my laptop started giving trouble, which seemed to be a virus or some other malware. Having failed myself to track it down I went to the professionals, who discovered after three days that although the internal hard disk itself was fine, the firmware housed inside the hard disk assembly was malfunctioning. On that occasion I was able to recover all data from that drive and transfer it to a new one. But at around the same time two of my external hard drives used for backup, one a USB-powered enclosure for a laptop hard drive, the other a mains-powered desktop hard drive, both failed at exactly the same time. Luckily I was by then operating my grandfather-father-son system of backups and I lost nothing.

It's worth remembering that laptop hard drives, 2.5", are far less durable than desktop ones, 3.5". But desktop ones always require an external power supply which is susceptible to power surges, a major issue here in Belize. Laptop external drives are usually USB-powered so don't have that weakness.

It's also worth remembering that by the time it's 18 months old any laptop hard drive, whether internal or external, is entering upon borrowed time. My brother uses many laptops in his consultancy firm, and he has a rule that every hard drive is scrapped when it reaches 18 months old, even if it appears to be working perfectly. Even so, every year he has a few that don't even reach that age. Desktop hard drives generally last around twice that time.

It's also worth mentioning that he works with very high value data, and he knows that any data left on a hard drive can be recovered - he's done it himself too many times to believe in any "data shredding" or obliteration routines. He physically smashes every hard drive when he's finished with it, and when every couple of years he sells off the laptops to replace them with new, he always removes and smashes those internal drives.

Every year or two I renew all my external hard drives and sell off the old ones if they're saleable. I'm in the middle of one of those renewal cycles at the moment. Luckily they are now so cheap it's not much of an issue, but especially with today's enormous hard drives losing one is a major event. By the time I've finished getting these drives replaced I'll have three 2tb external drives all holding identical data, plus a couple of smaller (1tb) USB-powered ones for portability.

[Racer184]

Glad you brought up the point about selling computers with your information in them.

For CD's and DVD's before you toss them in the trash, put them in the microwave oven. A single CD in the microwave oven only needs 3 seconds. Much faster and much easer than cutting them up.

For the US military the ONLY accepted method for 'clearing' hard disks is shredding. Yes, you can buy a machine that shreds complete hard disk drive assemblies.

WHenever you travel, be sure to use password protection on your computer. If it's important stuff on your computer, then each file should be password protected or encrypted.

My external hard disk requires a password to access and a small portion of the files I back up are encrypted.

The most important part is to survey what is on your computer and what is important. One thing people forget tooooo often is to backup their "bookmarks" (which someone changed the name to "favorites").

[georoc01]

Glad you brought up the point about selling computers with your information in them.

For CD's and DVD's before you toss them in the trash, put them in the microwave oven. A single CD in the microwave oven only needs 3 seconds. Much faster and much easer than cutting them up.

For the US military the ONLY accepted method for 'clearing' hard disks is shredding. Yes, you can buy a machine that shreds complete hard disk drive assemblies.

WHenever you travel, be sure to use password protection on your computer. If it's important stuff on your computer, then each file should be password protected or encrypted.

My external hard disk requires a password to access and a small portion of the files I back up are encrypted.

The most important part is to survey what is on your computer and what is important. One thing people forget tooooo often is to backup their "bookmarks" (which someone changed the name to "favorites").

On the backup issue, for my laptop bought an HP external drive that had a software package called Simplesave that backs it up every time I connect it. Leave it connected when I am at home and have to rememember to reconnect after I travel.

On the hard drive issue, a friend of mine just went through a disaster drill after his computer was hacked. In talking to the police, they said that there was no hard drive they receive that they can't recover the data from. And if they can do it, so can the hackers. So the only solution is to destroy it.

[drbill]

Currently my desktop computer has two internal hard drives and 10 external hard drives on it for a total of 12 TB of space. 4 TB of that are dedicated simply to backup storage (five of my other hard drives are backed up on two 2 TB drives). Most of that data is static, that is composed of completed projects which do not change over time but need to be readily accessible. All these are also backed up on DVDs (but it would be far too tedious to restore a failed drive's data from DVDs alone). The other drives have active projects on them and are backed up on at least two of the remaining drives while being worked on.

Video files take up a LOT of space! My documents, spreadsheets, still images, etc. all fit in a much smaller space and are also backed up on a separate drive and DVDs.

The only way I'd lose almost everything is if my house burned down. If that happened, I'd take the insurance money and move to the tropics anyway!

Edited by drbill, 06 January 2011 - 09:46 AM.

[peterbj7]

Leave it connected when I am at home and have to rememember to reconnect after I travel

If you have a severe system crash, perhaps due to an external power surge (common here) or maybe the internal power supply failing (happened to me once years ago) any disk electronically connected at that time may be fried. When I'm not actively using an external hard disk it's isolated from the computer. One reason I've never been tempted to a RAID system, because all disks have to be permanently connected.

I don't currently store video data, but if I did I can see that my present storage solution would rapidly become inadequate. I would always stick to the convention that every item of data is stored on at least two separate external drives, together with any "current use" storage on an internal or connected external drive. I don't trust hard drives. I had one recently that I hadn't used for almost three years, but which had been working properly then. I connected it but it can't be recognised - it's become toast while in a drawer and unused.

Edited by peterbj7, 06 January 2011 - 11:00 AM.

[WreckWench]

Are there other programs like "SimpleSave" out there?

I just bought a new portable hard drive that is supposed to be a back up device as well which would be good for me traveling to do backups. (I primarily got it for picture storage but doing backups would be a great bennie!)

It is WD My Passport portable hard drive.

It says it has automatice backup. (Works quietly in the background to protect your data using minimal PC resources. Whenever you add or change a file its instantly backed up. And its encrypted and protected.

Will read more on it but it sounds promising!

[drbill]

I don't trust hard drives. I had one recently that I hadn't used for almost three years, but which had been working properly then. I connected it but it can't be recognised - it's become toast while in a drawer and unused.

As Reagan said, trust but verify.

I had an external drive do the same thing. Went unused for a year or so, then when I connected it the system failed to recognize it. Found that a bit strange. Fortunately it was a backup data drive so I lost nothing.

Left my computer last night with a 1 TB drive being copied to my 2 TB backup drive... it's still chugging away after nine hours.

Have always had a UPS connected to my systems since my first desktop back in 1983 went down due to brownouts (our electrical power often exhibited serious undervoltage here on the island).

Edited by drbill, 07 January 2011 - 09:12 AM.

[Landlocked Dive Nut]

I don't trust hard drives. I had one recently that I hadn't used for almost three years, but which had been working properly then. I connected it but it can't be recognised - it's become toast while in a drawer and unused.

As Reagan said, trust but verify.

I had an external drive do the same thing. Went unused for a year or so, then when I connected it the system failed to recognize it. Found that a bit strange. Fortunately it was a backup data drive so I lost nothing.

And then you have the other end of the spectrum. I have an old PC from 1995 with Win95 OS here at work, sitting in a corner by itself. Kept it because it had our old Point of Sale system on it with all the purchase history of our customers prior to Nov 2000, when we got the new POS system. That old PC is a stand-alone, and has been kept turned on 24/7/365 for the past 10 years and has never failed. I'm afraid to turn the thing off at this point in fear it would never turn back on!

[WreckWench]

Thank you guys and gals...

If just one person learns how to do better data backups or starts doing them...then this will indeed be an incredible thread and a GREAT START TO THE NEW YEAR!!!

[Scubatooth]

My data mgmt protocol has been the same for a long time, and it works for me and i have not lost any data since i started this, as i never want to pay a data recovery fee again. First off is any files on the computer (laptop, desktop, etc) are temporary and are backed up off the computer to either a server or external HDD, that and I reimage the systems on a quarterly basis. I keep the files to a min on the computer as that system can go down at anytime; Plus the more free space on the C: drive the faster the system will be. Files are backup to the server on a daily basis either when i shut the computer down or at midnight

I have a data server and External Harddrives that i use for storing data. The data server is a Raid 5 with 10 1TB (1,000 GB HDD) that is nearly full. there is a second server being built that will have 20 TB capacity once up and . Also because HDD do fail half of the harddrives are replaced on a a 12-18 month basis, and currently . I will still use them for other machines but for primary data storage I will not. External harddrives are software mirrored, which isnt fool proof but does the job.

When i travel and cant be connected to my data server I go by the rule of Two is One; One is None. This means that I carry 2 external hard drives, and back up the data (files, pictures, etc) to both before removing them from my laptop. I currently carry a pair of 250GB and 1TB portable External drives, so short of doing a major photo shoot/project i have enough storage space for a 1 week trip.

Then beyond that all of my servers, computers, and important electronics are on surge suppressors and UPS so that if something should happen there isnt a ton of fried silicone and metal in the house. The computers are not only plugged in to the UPS but are also connected so when the UPS takes over it will start a auto-shutdown sequence so that the computer can safely shut down without loosing/corrupting any data.

Edited by Scubatooth, 17 January 2011 - 02:57 PM.

[shadragon]

What has been the experience of folks using the online backup/storage services like Carbonite?

Carbonite / Mozy / Amazon / etc. have one distinct flaw. You can only back up as fast as your Internet connection lets you. If you have a mid-range T1 line @ 1.544 MB/s then you will see no more than that rate for backups. So 1GB of data would take an hour and a half to backup or restore. Or no more than 16GB in a 24 hour period. Speed calculator here. That also assumes no time lag for distance, other traffic or Tx / Rx / verification errors so you can increase that time by 30-40% realistically and much more if you want to use the connection for other things.

If you do get the info there, then you have to worry about their security (to keep hackers out of your data) and / or what they do with that data once on their system (It is encrypted with their software and if you read their EULA you can see their staff have access to your files, see below). As you see below they inspect the data for illegality. So those MP3 downloads your cousin gave you and movies you downloaded for example might cause you some grief. You can encrypt your data yourself, of course, but that adds even more overhead and delay in getting to your info and it may not be accepted if already encrypted. Then what do you do if your HD crashes and you find they have gone out of business.

An external USB 2.0 HD can transfer 480 MB/s max and you can tuck that drive anywhere. You keep control of your data and in case of issues you just plug in a HD and restore quickly.


I underlined the below for emphasis.

"Your pass phrase is encrypted twice before it is stored on the server to prevent anyone but you from recovering the stored pass phrase. The system is designed so that recovering a pass phrase requires action from two people: the person that created the key and a senior level server technician. Neither person can recover the pass phrase without the cooperation of the other person. The system is also designed so that only the creator of the pass phrase can view the pass phrase once it is recovered. Data blocks are compressed, encrypted with AES-256-bit and your private pass phrase, digitally signed for integrity verification upon restore, and tagged with multiple strong checksums to provide data integrity assurance. The encrypted data is then encrypted again as it enters the Internet, until it reaches one of the secure data centers."

"Carbonite will not view the contents of your backed-up files. Carbonite may view your file system information (file and/or folder names, file extensions, sizes etc. but not your file contents) to provide incremental backups and file comparisons, quality control, and technical support. Carbonite will not disclose your personal information, including the contents of your backed-up data with Carbonite, to third parties unless disclosure is necessary to comply with law." Have you read the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and how do they know if it is illegal or not without looking inside the data itself???

"Carbonite may disclose your Personal Information to third parties if we believe that such action is necessary to (1) comply with a law, regulation, or governmental or judicial warrant, rule, or order; (2) protect and defend the rights or property of Carbonite; (3) enforce the Carbonite Terms and Conditions of Use and/or this Privacy Policy. Carbonite may also provide access to your Backup Data to government authorities if Carbonite suspects or believes that the data contain child pornography or other prohibited data, or that the data or the Carbonite Products or Services are being used for illegal purposes. Carbonite will provide access to your Backup Data to your surviving spouse and/or your executor upon presentation of a death certificate and identification which Carbonite reasonably believes to be valid and sufficient, or in response to a court order, warrant, subpoena or other judicial or administrative legal process."

http://www.carbonite.com/privacy/

PS. Not picking on Carbonite. The others have similar EULA's. They have too, it is to conform to the law in the US.

Personally, if I were to use an outside storage center that I did not control I would have 4096 bit Twofish encryption on everything I put there. However, an external HD is much more convenient.

[peterbj7]

how do they know if it is illegal or not without looking inside the data itself???

Precisely, the key issue. I don't use any of these services, even though my malware protection supplier provides such a facility, and it isn't located in the USA. Most countries have similar laws. Reminds me of entering France a while back from Britain, where Brits don't need a passport but non-EU citizens do. How do you think they tell who are the non-EU citizens? - by looking at everyone's passport of course.