Backup scheme. ambitious i know...

[atferrari]

Planning to buy two new desktops (office - home) located in two contiguous rooms, obviously with Win 8. Alternative would be only one new plus an existing one running XP.

Considering an additional laptop which is connected from time to time, I would like to implement something not crazily expensive to keep a continuous (automatic) backup of whatever I have in each one. Redundant backup I guess.

What is the simplest scheme I should consider? I presume that something is to be kept running most of the time (whatever is the part in charge of the back up, isn't it?).

Once, I asked at a shop and the clerk started to mention servers and wifi and incredible prizes. I almost run away that time.

I am not into gaming nor videos. Just Office with pictures and .pdf as the final outcome plus all related with Electronics.
If I could add the printer / scanner working in common I would be even happier.

Ideas or tips about what to look for, appreciated.

 

[killivolt]

I'm not to sold yet on W8, my IT guy's tell me W7 64bit is the way to go for now. As far as hardware goes, I run a Mac Mini and dual boot my operating system. I think windows runs better on a Mac, I use a usb to RS232 adaptor instead of having DB9. I have 3tb drive for backup and Videos.

I like to have both systems, I surf the net on the Mac side while programming and such, the PC side stay's a virgin from the net. Macs are not targeted like Windows Boxes.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

I'm addressing the issue,but not putting a lot of time into it. What seems to be required is:
1. An image backup for Windows. This basically means programs and no data on a partition and keep the size relatively small like 300 MB.

2. An incremental backup for files.

Windows is a mess if it gets corrupted and the only real fix is reloading it. To prevent that you can image the hard drive that contains Windows. You can image a drive to a file.

An incremental backup basically only backs up changed files and you may be able to go back in time to retrieve versions of them.

I haven't selected the programs yet, but from talking to friends who do this, it's possible.

So, that's the strategy.

One of the next issues to solve is connectivity:
USB 3.0 is ideal and so is Gigabit Ethernet. USB 2.0 will do. USB 3.0 has effectively replaced eSATA for external drives.

I would consider a server rated hard drive, which will likely be a 3.5 form factor. These drives are designed to be on 24/7.

Going up the ladder, a RAID server is a way to go and it's going to be my plan. The RAID server only has Gigabit Ethernet. USB 3.0 Drives at each location is another.

The problem I have is laptop connectivity. It does NOT have Gigabit Ethernet. It has USB 2.0 ports. It has a cardbus slot. I do have a cardbus that will make USB 3.0 Ports. I can get a CARDBUS card that will make a Gigabit Ethernet Port. It looks like I can get a wireless ac card for the laptop. Presently, the laptop supports n (300 mb/s), but my wireless is 802.11g (54 Mb/s) but it's running at 18 Mb/s. Wireless ac will support up to 1800 Mb/s on a good day. So, gigabit speeds on a wireless connection, maybe. Cardbus is disappearing on laptops too.

I currently don't have any infrastructure wired convenient ports for the laptop. I'm close, but not there yet. In the most convenient place, the low voltage plate can be mounted and the holes are drilled in the joists. Just no wires. In another place in the same room, I ran 4 Ethernet connections behind a TV. Terminated at the wall only and wires not run to patch panel.

The CAT6 patch panel now is totally empty. I have plenty of devices on the network, some wired and some wireless. The improvements I made recently included, the installation of a patch panel, cleaned up the wire routing, and I put the network on a UPS and ran POE (Power over Ethernet) to the modem. I do have a repeater which is not backed up and does not have surge suppression at the location. I also made it easer to troubleshoot the modem, although not as easy as I would like yet.

 

[Inquisitive]

How about a Western Digital "My Book" 2TB (or equivalent) with and USB 3.0 cable hooked to the device when needed and then use Clonezilla to capture the entire hard drive, including Win 7 partitions & files and whatever other operating systems you have be that Linux partitions and files or Win XP etc. The original my book software only captures the files on the source drive but Clonezilla clones the entire hard drive, partitions and files under the respective partitions.

I have laptop that dual boots Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 (Linux) that has been archived that way.

 

[JimB]

I back-up my data in my desktop PC using the predecessor of this:
http://www.lacie.com/uk/products/product.htm?id=10598

To do the backing-up I use a piece of software called GoodSync, look here:
http://www.goodsync.com/how-it-works

I also use the GoodSync to copy work and e-mails between the desktop and a laptop which I use when I travel "out of town" for a few days.

JimB

 

[eTech]

Planning to buy two new desktops (office - home) located in two contiguous rooms, obviously with Win 8. Alternative would be only one new plus an existing one running XP.

Considering an additional laptop which is connected from time to time, I would like to implement something not crazily expensive to keep a continuous (automatic) backup of whatever I have in each one. Redundant backup I guess.

What is the simplest scheme I should consider? I presume that something is to be kept running most of the time (whatever is the part in charge of the back up, isn't it?).

Once, I asked at a shop and the clerk started to mention servers and wifi and incredible prizes. I almost run away that time.

I am not into gaming nor videos. Just Office with pictures and .pdf as the final outcome plus all related with Electronics.
If I could add the printer / scanner working in common I would be even happier.

Ideas or tips about what to look for, appreciated.

An simple solution would be to consider a home NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. This is a device that is preconfigured to provide a hard drive that is shared on the network out of the box. These are called home "personal cloud" devices. These devices have different features, like an expansion port to add more disk space or add a backup device. Cost is somewhere between $160-$600 depending on the features( wired,wifi,etc.)

Here's a link to some NAS devices:
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401086,00.asp

These devices make it easy to provide shared storage, but the trade off is increased cost.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Yep, I ordered an NAS server from www.qnap.com. Drives were separate.