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#21
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Last edited by SIW2; 21 Oct 2018 at 06:18.
Is backup software a gimmick ????
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New #22
There are serious cost implications for the use of online storage for "serious" backups, at present at least.
for example I have a current need to backup a data set of around 2TB compressed, which I do to an 8TB Local USB3 connected HDD, once a week (my WIP [Work in Progress] Folders are backed up by the use of Onedrive/NAS mirroring.
The cost of uploading is not an item of concern to me as I have unlimited Internet access, but being that the maximum I can get here is 65/18 Mb/s the upload would need to be taking my bandwidth for an extended period always.
The cost of 8TB+ of online storage is something that is not, here in the UK, anything but "Mansized"
As a comparison an 8TB USB3 can be obtained for less than £100, [For the lifetime of the device], and backs up my data in around four hours overnight
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New #24
I am also testing out I Drive, at this point I consider it untrustworthy as compared to Carbonite for cloud backup. Personally I only trust Cloud back up to a point it could all disappear without your control with someone else's servers being attacked or physically destroyed. Still, I am using I Drive now and letting my Carbonite subscriptions expire. I find it useful for single file recovery.I quit using 3rd party software because it would fail to restore my work when I really needed it to. Sometimes losing precious files altogether for good. I figure why keep going thru all the hassle and time wasted working with those programs, when I can just delete my work myself. Now when I have something I put a lot of effort into that means a lot to me, I just delete it and forget about, why bother anymore. Why bother when all I do now is let IDrive upload it from my computer and store it safely for me, it makes my digital life so much easier. The few times I have needed to restore something, it worked without a problem.
I count on MR as many others in this forum as I have never had a failure to restore correctly. I have had many failures to restore with other back up schemes over the years. Acronis being the most disappointing. Windows built-in back up has proven not to be reliable ever in any version of windows.
MR has proven to be extremely reliable, over the last 6 years for me, Issues have come up and the company sorted them out extremely quickly they care about there customer base and their program.
And to the poster that stated around 10% of users only are using any backup. I don't believe this as Business makes up a huge part of the overall users and most businesses have been backing up for a long time. As to the private user that don't back up, I deal with them all the time begging me to recover the years of pictures music and data. For the most part for ordinary User cannot afford data recovery from failed hard drives or accidentally deleted data.
I personally am keeping a failed IDE Hard drive with about 3 years of pictures of our family life and grandkids growing up. If I win the lottery I'll be able to recover all them pictures. This incident also woke me up to the fact that yes I do need backups, in fact, I needed a backup Scheme that is reliable. That Ide drive was back up to CDs with Windows Back up which I was unable to restore due to the first CD of the set being corrupted.
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New #25
I also used third-party backup/restore solutions for years and also had them fail on me just when I needed them.
First, I used Ghost -- and it failed when I needed it. So I switched to Acronis True Image.
I used that for years without issues, but then, it failed on me when I last needed it. So I switched to Macrium Reflect.
That was years ago and I've never had it fail on me -- so I am still using it.
As to using the "cloud", I have several issues with this: (1) cost, (2) bandwidth, (3) availability.
As to (1), my backups range from 20GB to 120GB, and while I might be able to afford the former, there is no way I could afford the latter. In contrast, a 1TB hard drive can be had for $40 retail, and that can hold 8 of the large backups. That's a lot less than I would pay a "cloud" service to hold those backups.
As to (2), while it takes a long time to create a 120GB backup, it would take an eternity to download that much from the "cloud" onto a local drive so I could use that to restore a PC. Even 20GB is going to take a long time -- and I have to hope the download does not stop or crash anywhere along the way. With a local drive, this is not an issue.
As to (3), it's fine to use the "cloud" to store stuff like music or pictures, but what do you do when your PC crashes? What do you boot INTO when your OS does not work? And even then, HOW to you access the "cloud" to obtain your backups? With MR and local storage, I have a bootable USB stick and external drives containing backup images, so booting a PC and accessing the backups are not issues.
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New #26
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New #27
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New #28
Hi there
For NAS users which use Linux / or other typical proprietary NAS OS's e.g QNAP - you don't need any 3rd party backup software for DATA -- there's a simple built in standard command : RSYNC which backs up data with about a zillion options -- e.g changed data, new data, data in directory a but not in b or the other way around etc etc and it can recurse directories etc etc -- infinitely more powerful and reliable than robocopy. Just automate this as a job nightly and forget it. (Linux / NAS scheduler is in CRONTAB). If you want to do this manually then there is a GUI version too called GRSYNC.
Then every so often simply manually copy to offline storage -- everybody has their own favourite schemes but Windows explorer isn't a good way of backing up data -- everything needs to be done manually so easy to make mistakes or miss things, there's no reliable method of getting changed or even new files, and you could come up against the windows file and directory name length restrictions - depending on how you like to label your files --particularly music tracks.
Backing up to cloud isn't always so good either --especially with large volumes of data -- what happens if you can't get network access when you want a file - to say nothing of managing what's backed up and having both the Internet speed and data plan to handle large volumes of data.
That said though it's always worth emphsizing again and again ANY method of backup - never mind how convoluted and difficult it is to do -- is always better than none.
GRSYNC interface -- zillions of options in advanced etc etc incredibly useful program. If you have a NAS using Linux / QNAP etc worth learning.
Cheers
jimbo
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New #29
Macrium seems well liked here, although it's not mentioned in the above link, not that I work let that sway my decision.
I read on their (Macrium's) website the diff between incremental and differential backup, can someone explain this in another way?
Here is their wording
A differential image stores the changes that have been made to the imaged file system since the last full image.
The main difference with incremental images is that they only store file system changes since the last image, either full, differential or incremental.
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New #30
The copy and paste may work for a few files.
If you were to copy and paste the users folder for a 750 GB HD it could take 15 to 24 hours or more if there are interrupts.
Interrupts are prompts that occur for duplicate files, file names that are too long, etc.
In contrast backup images can be restored in less than 1 hour and you could be backup and running again.
Sometimes backup images fail.
For example if the backup image is taken when there is operating system corruption or a failed Windows upgrade.
Restoring the image is restoring what was taken at the time the image was made.
There are many methods to protect important files.
You will find many preferences.
Some backup with both images and files.
Some backup to the cloud.
Some make dynamic (with incremental backups) and static (never updated) backup images.
Macrium is widely used on Ten Forums.
Other imaging software include: Acronis, Aoemi, EaseUS, Paragon, etc
This is a link for the tutorial for Macrium backup and restore:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/61026-backup-restore-macrium-reflect.html
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