Backup Solutions
Hey there,
I'm wondering if anyone knows a bit about backup solutions as I need a bit of help/advice on setting something up.
Let me preface this by saying I have no clue whatsoever when it comes to a good backup system for PC/Windows. Up until a month or so ago, I was a Mac user and even then my idea of a 'Backup Solution' was simply moving my work folders onto an external HDD.
So about a month ago I built a decent PC and I think it's about time I sorted out a backup system for it. My main reasons for wanting a good backup setup are firstly, and most obviously, I want to backup my work, and secondly, if at all possible, I'd like to save 'snapshots' of the system so I don't have to go through and install all my OS/Software if something goes wrong.
I'll explain what I ideally want to be able to do, and then if anyone could suggest whether it's possible, how it would be setup, and some suggested software (if any) to make it happen, that would be awesome.
So let's say I've got my OS/Software on a 64GB SSD, then all my work/music/video etc is stored on a 500GB HDD.
I'd like to then backup the SSD and the 500GB to a third drive (750GB HDD let's say).
Is there a way or some software to backup 'snapshots' of each drive onto the 750GB which can later be restored if shit hits the fan.
For example, could I just hit a button once a week say, and then if one drive fails or I get OS problems, I can just call up the restore from the 750GB drive and go back to a working point?
Hopefully I've explained that well enough!
Thanks
I'm wondering if anyone knows a bit about backup solutions as I need a bit of help/advice on setting something up.
Let me preface this by saying I have no clue whatsoever when it comes to a good backup system for PC/Windows. Up until a month or so ago, I was a Mac user and even then my idea of a 'Backup Solution' was simply moving my work folders onto an external HDD.
So about a month ago I built a decent PC and I think it's about time I sorted out a backup system for it. My main reasons for wanting a good backup setup are firstly, and most obviously, I want to backup my work, and secondly, if at all possible, I'd like to save 'snapshots' of the system so I don't have to go through and install all my OS/Software if something goes wrong.
I'll explain what I ideally want to be able to do, and then if anyone could suggest whether it's possible, how it would be setup, and some suggested software (if any) to make it happen, that would be awesome.
So let's say I've got my OS/Software on a 64GB SSD, then all my work/music/video etc is stored on a 500GB HDD.
I'd like to then backup the SSD and the 500GB to a third drive (750GB HDD let's say).
Is there a way or some software to backup 'snapshots' of each drive onto the 750GB which can later be restored if shit hits the fan.
For example, could I just hit a button once a week say, and then if one drive fails or I get OS problems, I can just call up the restore from the 750GB drive and go back to a working point?
Hopefully I've explained that well enough!
Thanks
Replies
I make an image of my main system drive, I only do this once a month (or whenever I make any significant changes). This goes on a 1TB external drive. I have a second internal drive where I store all my data. This gets backed up NIGHTLY using an automated program called SyncBack, also to the 1TB backup drive. I've been using this program for years, it has enterprise reliability.
So, I have a duplicate image of my OS drive that I can restore in about 15 minutes if I ROYALLY screw up my OS drive. Or I can do a "bare-metal" restore to a new drive if the drive fails, and all my programs and settings will be intact. Plus I have a duplicate copy of all my data as well.
or
Genie Timeline which is a little bit like the TimeMachine in OSX.
Ok so it seems pretty straightforward then which is good.
Would I need to create partitions on the backup drive for each drives backup?
Nope not necessary to create partitions. Most drive imaging programs (like Macrium Reflect) back up a snapshot of your drive to a single huge file, which can just be stored in any old folder you want. Macrium Reflect even lets you mount this image as a virtual drive for browsing! Really neat.
For the regular data backup, I just use the exact folder to folder structure. So I can just drag and drop to restore. But you can use any nested folder structure you want. My external backup drive holds an image of my main OS drive, as well as a backup of my data drive - it basically functions as a huge junk drawer. I basically set it up once and forget about it - it's just a nice peace of mind that it's there if something does go wrong.
Thanks a lot for the help.
It's like an instant back up of all things instead of relaying on a schedule or you to remember.
Problem is, I didn't understand a word of the Wiki link.
All I know about RAID is that my Motherboard (ASUS P6T) supports it, and it says it in my BIOS somewhere
I'll happily look into it but it looks pretty complex, although I'm likely just being dumb. Could you explain it in laymans terms?
EDIT:
OK I kinda understand the mirroring thing where data is written to two drives at once, but wouldn't it be a really complicated setup to have a small OS/Software SSD and then a larger HDD for files/folders?
RAID0: For speed, all of your drives get combined into one master drive. If you have 2 500gb drives in RAID0, your computer sees a 1tb HD. It also breaks up the data between the drives so you're data isn't stuck waiting in line on a single HD to get out of your HD. Each HD you add to your RAID0 is like adding a lane to the freeway, things start to move a little faster. SSD drives pretty much put RAID0 out to pasture, at least for now.
RAID1: This is for mirroring, this is mostly what you're after, creating a copy of your HD as you use it. RAID1 uses two drives, so if you have two 500gb drives your computer will only see 500gb because the 2nd drive is a backup copy. The more drives you add the more backups it creates but you will only ever see a 500gb drive.
All the other configurations are a mix of those two options.
This covers it pretty well.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/393
Since you know what type of Motherboard you have the manual will cover it in specific details. ASUS manuals cover setting up each type of RAID, they put all of their manuals online in case you don't have one. They kind of assume you know what type of RAID you want so a little reading is required before hand. But once you decide its pretty easy.
I would go with RAID1 to start, it requires 2 drives, the backup drive needs to be at least as big as the main drive so it can store everything the main drive has. I personally get two identical (spec wise) drives from separate manufactures just to help mitigate hardware failure. Nothing worse then setting up a RAID1 to find out all the drives you ordered from the same place had the same hardware defect and died.
I'll have a good read into it but it definitely seems like the most suitable option, especially since it doesn't require any manual input to backup, and it means I don't have to spend the time backing each day/week.
Thanks again.
I use Acronis True Image to create system images of my C drive. It isn't free, but I've tried some free stuff and been unable to recover, so for something this important the $50 is very worth it.
I use Microsoft Synctoy (Free) to back up data.
So this is my system.
I have Acronis scheduled to create a system image of my C drive every night. That way if my system crashes, I can restore the system back to exactly how it was the day before. Until your system crashes, you don't realize how many little changes you make every day that you'll miss if you don't get them back. It is also scheduled to create a separate image every 2 weeks. This is in case the daily backup is corrupt, or if there is some issue with my system that I didn't notice right away and I want to restore farther back. I also have a system image that I create as a checkpoint every once in a while when the system is running perfectly so I always have a perfect system I can revert to if there are any issues. Acronis compresses the images, so they are only about 40GB each for 80GB of data.
In addition to that, every night I have synctoy echo any changes to a bunch of folders I've specified. This includes all my project folders, all the settings for important programs (Photoshop brushes, Maya/Max Scripts, email profiles, bookmarks etc). It backs up all these files as individual files to the backup drive. This way if my system crashes I can take the external drive and plug it into another computer and have access to all my files right away even if my system isn't up. It also guarantees that the data is safe even if a system image can't be restored. Also, if I have to revert to an older image, I can still copy all these folders to the proper directories on the reverted system so even if the system is out of date, all the important data is current.
I personally don't like RAID. I've used it, and it isn't very user friendly. I've had problems with the OS not being able to install easily, bootable disks not being able to read the drive correctly, and its difficult to repair it. Plus you have to wipe any disks that use it, and any disks need to be the same AFAIK. So I don't know if its suited to your system well. What you can do is get an external raid enclosure to use as the backup disk, so the the backup disk is backed up within its own enclosure. These enclosures tend not to be the most reliable though. I have 4 of them, and 2 of them failed after a year. The drives were fine, I just had to stop using the enclosure.
My backup scheme runs on a schedule on its own, so there is no user intervention required, except to check it every once in a while to make sure it is running correctly.
Once I connected 2 of my hard drive together with a Raid 0 to improove speed, but one HDD died then I lost the content of the 2nd hdd too...
Never tried the Raid1...
If you have a server, you can also set a Perforce or Subversion SVN to save your datas.
It will also help to keep history of your work, etc...
For small amount of datas, you can buy a 50Go Dropbox account and to commit your work everyday.
If your computer crash you can access to your data online or from another computer.
When it asks for a file from the Raid0 it gets all of the parts at the same time instead of waiting for the whole file to move across in one big slow chunk like a normal HD. BUT as you found out raid0 is risky (actually no more risky than having just one HD and no back up plan), if one drive fails the whole thing goes down.
That's why Raid0+1 is preferable because it offers the speed of Raid0 but also mirrors and backs up like Raid1. The downside is that it requires a minimum of 4 drives and half of the disk space goes to backing up the other half. But with how cheap HD's are these days its not all that expensive.
My Backup go like this 500 gb Main Hdd
I Have another 500 gb for backup
another 250gb again for main important backup
I use SyncBack free version to backup. You can schedule it too..
if speed is not issue then above thing work like charm
@edit I have heard about snapshots like software but haven't tried it out...
I know I mentionned it a few times, but I am in love with DeepFreeze
http://faronics.com/en/default.aspx
It lets you freeze your computer, so that no matter you do during a session, everything you do is wiped out on the next reboot. Think of it just like the computers at internet cafes, always having only the necessary programs installed and no matter what virus a stupid user downloads, all it takes to the manager is a simple reboot to fix the problem.
So, after you install photoshop, your 3D app or whatever you work with there really is no reason to make any changes to your OS hence freezing it at that state works perfectly. And obviously, you'd save your work to another drive -internal or external- outside of the frozen OS drive. And you can always make an image of the OS too if you really feel like it, but honestly I dont think thats necessary. Installing programs doesnt take much time ; backing up your user preferences/shortcuts/UIs regularly is much, much more important I think.
If you really need to add a new program under a workstation running DF, you can 'thaw' the OS for a given number of restarts to install new stuff. Youd be surprised how few new programs you really need. Unless you want to install tons of games or weird apps on your machine, but an artwork dedicated machine shouldn't have any of that anyways!
Good luck!
Personally I just keep two separate OSes in a dual boot configuration on two different physical hard drives. If one goes down then all I need to do is boot to the other OS.
For data backup I just make copies of my work files on a few different hard drives as well. An offsite solution like Dropbox as an added redundancy might be a good idea for data and config/settings files.
I don't have any personal experience with RAID setups but I've read that if the raid controller dies out (which apparently does happen, even more so with integrated motherboard chipsets) then unless you can replace it with the exact same one then the data on the drives is irrecoverable. That said I think RAID done right is probably a really nice thing to have, the only problem being the expense of setting it up in the first place.
DeepFreeze and/or scheduled use of Acronis True Image both sound great too.
I don't really see Raid0 as a smart option, with drives being so cheap its easy to set up a Raid0+1 and much faster drives like SSD being out there just blow it away. So for speed raid is kind of old hat, but for backup, raid1 style stuff its prefect.
Thanks for the tip about DeepFreeze that looks pretty awesome.
You CAN install the OS and all your apps 100% before you started mucking with shit, then make an image and back that image up. Then restore when needed. But I find that doing that is just a pain in the ass as usually an upgrade to something happens. Making a backup of an OS install after you've been using it for 10 months is not very clean, could have all kinds of nasties in there. If you want speed for your OS install, image the OS install disk to a flash drive and it installs in almost 1/2 the time.
Mission critical files are backed up while the project is in progress nightly. After the project is done, then I move it to archive. Email is backed up, but eventually I need to find a cutoff point and keep the new stuff. Thunderbird does not like having emails all the way from 2000.
Good luck and welcome to Windows.