Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Computer Backups

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mikebits

Well-Known Member
In the past I have had to heartbreaking computer crashes with no backup. I learned my lesson and recently purchased a Seagate Backup Plus drive. I ran the initial backup last night, but I do not think this backup system does what I really want. Does anyone know about this Seagate device? It appears that this backup only backs up my photos, and files. What I really want is a backup that has my entire HD and in the event of a failure, I can return my PC to its current operation. Can I do what I want with this backup drive.
 
I wrote a Java utility that does what you want. Still in progress (it's not elegant, but it's functional). I've been looking for guinea pigs for over a year now. Let me know via PM if you would be interested in trying it out.

Matt
 
What you really want is an incremental backup (changed files) combined with a total hard drive image. Imaging doesn't help because you can back-up a bad image.

I've, sort of, learned my lesson. I now have stuff on a 5TB RAID with 3x3TB array, but event that's not good enough. I probably at a minimum should have a spare 3TB drive. Ideally, that should back-up to another similar RAID array.
 
In the past I have had to heartbreaking computer crashes with no backup. I learned my lesson and recently purchased a Seagate Backup Plus drive. I ran the initial backup last night, but I do not think this backup system does what I really want. Does anyone know about this Seagate device? It appears that this backup only backs up my photos, and files. What I really want is a backup that has my entire HD and in the event of a failure, I can return my PC to its current operation. Can I do what I want with this backup drive.
If your PC crash because software failure, you can uninstall it. You also could uninstall failure software from safe mode. All your other software and data is still safe. You can repair your Windows using Windows installer disk if it's necessary.
Windows has build in backup restore and you can use it with your Seagate backup drive. You also could use it with other software. But I don't know if Windows build in backup restore could protect from virus or malware attack. The only backup restore software that I had experience that able to protect from virus or malware attack is Deepfreeze. I think today many backup restore software have these capability.
If your PC crash because hard disk failure, this is very complicate. Depends on how big your hard disk failure is. In some situation, backup restore will help you, but in other situation backup restore is not helping.

My suggestion is using 1st method(remove failure software manually), and use 2 HDD. 1st HDD only for OS and Programs, 2nd HDD only for data.
All your important data burn to CD/DVD. Always burn up to 2 or 3 CD/DVD for safety.
 
I back up everything to a USB stick. I just cherry pick folders which contain files that have been modified rather than doing a full back up. The regularity of which I back up all depends on what I have been doing. Since I run linux, even if the system wont boot, I can just boot into a live session and recover any files that way, but I hope that it never comes to that.
 
Read from an expert, maybe in this forum: most of HDD failures occurr the night before your planned day for the next backup.

Been there, thrice.
 
Dropbox is an excellent solution for files. Save things into a Dropbox folder (whatever folders you want inside the Dropbox folder), and your files are backed up. Not only that, but they are quickly available on you other devices. Save something from one computer, and you'll quickly have access from your other computer, your phone and via web browser, from any computer you use.

Important files never get lost, even if your computer is destroyed and they are always available from anywhere you might be.
 
I use Dropbox for some projects. Especially OpenSCAD files as I tend to work on these on my various computers but can only (3D) print from one. Very handy.

Mike.
 
on my pc i have my primary disk and my data disk (then 2 disks for my security cameras that take alot of abuse and fail faster because they are constantly being written too.),... the primary disk holds the os, and all the programs ..... the data disk holds the install files for all the programs as well that is where i save all my data files like photos and such. when i want to do backup i just winzip the data disk to backup disk

every couple of years i flash my pc and reinstall windows/drivers and all the apps.... with all the programs in one folder i can just click through the files and everything is reloaded within about 2 hours ... then i do one reboot to get everything refreshed ... its alot easier the pulling out all the old driver disks and putting them in the drive every few seconds ... after everything is done i create a windows restore point ... and now i am ready to test new programs... if i install bad software or something with a "buy me now" bug i can easily remove without flashing the whole os again

also there are alot of shell scripts you can use with winzip ... my boss wanted specific folders backed up only so i was able to write a script to do so every day automatically for him
 
I use Acronis Backup, and save a full disk image of my C: drive, then run differentials every week . The incrementals/differentials (difference from first image copy) only takes about 5-10 minutes to run every week. I've had to use an image restore a couple of times in the past 5-7 years. I use a standalone bootable USB stick for recovery of those images.
I save backups on the D: drive (separate physical drive), and extra copies on two other drives, one of which is external and only put online to copy the backups (offline otherwise to prevent attacks)
All disks fail, eventually, including SSD drives. Always have 2 or 3 copies of your system drive. Files on my D: drive are mostly downloads, which I can always re-download if I wish, and are not critical.
There are other image backup tools out there, mostly commercial stuff, but there are a few free ones as well. (usually come with external backup devices)
 
and they are always available
I believe that after a while Dropbox will start asking for money for access to your files.
 
I believe that after a while Dropbox will start asking for money for access to your files.

If I know it right, to increase the available space, you have to pay.
 
Dropbox provides 2GB for free. It's $10/month to upgrade to 1TB.

But that gives you automatic backups of whatever you desire with no more effort than saving a file. Plus data available on all your devices.

The backup happens without any intervention on your part, and is available on any computer via web browser. If a worst-case scenario occurs and your computer and backup drives/devices are no longer available, your data is still safe and easily recovered.

And if you do something stupid, you can log into the web site and get previous versions of files for some period of time.

I'm a satisfied customer.
 
Dropbox was the original and only supplies 2G free. Google Drive and One Drive both give 15G free.

Mike.
 
I pay for Dropbox 1TB of space, and use Synkron to automatically sync certain important working folders (every 30mins) to Dropbox. I backup well over 30GB of data at the moment.

Works like a charm, no issues paying.

I am not interested in backing up Windows system folders or anything like that, just my work.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top