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#11
Michael,
1 You mention sizes.
- In general, your own files are going to be in these folders unless you have deliberately chosen other locations. You can get to each one by pasting the folder paths into File explorer's address bar [funny % symbols and all].C:\Users\%UserName%\Documents- If you use MSOffice Outlook then your data file might be local [pop3, .pst] or merely a front-end for its online server [imap, .ost]. You might also have a mixture of both. If it is local then it is, by default, in
[Instead of this, I RoboCopy backup C:\Users\%UserName%\Documents\Business, C:\Users\%UserName%\Documents\Personal, C:\Users\%UserName%\Documents\IS, ... because I have some applications that create their own subfolders within C:\Users\%UserName%\Documents which they use to save rubbish that I haven't the slightest interest in.]
C:\Users\%UserName%\Music
C:\Users\%UserName%\Videos
C:\Users\%UserName%\Desktop,
C:\Users\%UserName%\Downloads
[C:\Users\%UserName%\Favorites - now out of use]
C:\Users\%UserName%\PicturesC:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook- Other applications might well put important user files in awkward places but Outlook is the one I know about.
and is, by default, called Outlook.pst
- Many applications have important configuration files in awkward places and I treat RoboCopy backing up many of them as though they were my own files. But learning what & where is on an application by application basis. I was inspired to go looking by my success with Outlook's configuration files, which are well documented.
I suggest you right-click on the folders you want to back up to calculate how big they are in total.
2 In general, you would want your backup disk to be big enough to hold many years of backups of your own files.
- So you would want something substantially bigger than the total size of your own files.
- Naturally, "substantially bigger" is not a defined term.
- I looked at my own files a decade ago & compared them with their size on an old computer. I then decided that the annual growth rate calculated from that would continue for a decade more and I decided I needed backup disks that could hold that mush. Then I multiplied my answer by ten. It has worked for me but I might as well have rolled some dice.
In general, you would want your backup disk to be big enough to hold several full system images i.e. be several times the size of your C:\ drive. By keeping several images instead of always overwriting them, you are protected from the [rare] failure of your system imaging utility to restore an image successfully. I started using system imaging a decade ago and I have only had two restoration failures from amongst the 145 system images I have not yet weeded out.
3 In general, you would back up in two ways.
- A "system image" of the entire C:\ drive, and
- Separate backups of your own files.
But the best choice / mix of choices depends on how you have arranged your disks.
- My OS & installed applications are on my C:\ drive. I back that up by making a system image.
- My own files [including my Outlook.pst] are on a separate disk. I back them up by RoboCopying.
- This arrangement is very useful. It means I can make & restore system images of the C:\ drive without disturbing my own files. It also means my system images are only 20-40GB each so my 4TB backup drives can hold many of them [and it was only a couple of years ago that I upgraded from my previous 1TB backup drives - this was driven primarily by my laziness in weeding out old system images for my four computers].
Like you, I back up to two backup disks [disk 1 one week, disk 2 the next week].
- Well, actually, I also have a partial backup to an SD card every hour. It's a 512GB MicroSD card and is ample despite my large audio collection.
- And I backup from my main computers to my other computers whenever I feel like it [probably a couple of times a week].
4 My system image is made using Acronis True Image. I've used Macrium Reflect a few times just for practice and I appreciate that it is very popular.
All the backups of my own files are made using RoboCopy.
5 If you use two backup disks and if you check that you can still read them both every week then you need not be overly bothered by considerations of which technology is the most durable. However, if you are going to spend money on them in the future do consider this:-
- an external USB-connected HDD/SSD is more durable than a USB memory stick.
- an external USB-connected SSD is more durable then an external USB-connected HDD but large ones are also hideously expensive compared to HDDs. All my external USB-connected backup disks are HDDs.
- a USB memory stick tends to fail in writing first. It might remain readable for a decade or more. So, provided you check them frequently enough for your backup schedule, you should not actually suffer by using USB memory sticks for your backups.
6 I think the only significant difference between what you do and what I do is that you are going to go in afterwards and delete many of your source files to free up space.
That will affect whether or not you use the /MIR switch in RoboCopy.
- Using it would delete backups for which you had deleted the source files.
- But you can use RoboCopy without the /MIR switch.
You could post your intended RoboCopy commands / batch file[s] if you wanted me to look over them.
I think I've covered everything,
All the best,
Denis
Last edited by Try3; 09 Apr 2023 at 12:50.
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