Backing Up

marcosdjcm

Just to fan the flames here. Comparing how long this backup "guide" is for Windows machines versus the 2 clicks it takes on the Mac machines reminds/reassures me why I can't sleep at night recommending Windows machines to any friends or family.

bmewsd

marcosdjcm wrote: »

Just to fan the flames here. Comparing how long this backup "guide" is for Windows machines versus the 2 clicks it takes on the Mac machines reminds/reassures me why I can't sleep at night recommending Windows machines to any friends or family.

imho it's not really that simple for macs either. If you're referring to 'time machine' that will go some way to covering you and there are plenty of good backup programs that will do similar in a windows environment. But, that's only half the story.

If your time machine is sat on your mac or next to it as an example and the whole place goes up then what? The thing to think about is what needs protecting and in what order you need to get it back.

For most of us it's morelikely the personal stuff (irreplaceable) such as pictures, memories, music and a local backup is good but isn't the whole story. Cloud can cover those bases too as well as offering fully automated backup (for mac, pc and Linux).

excipere just works for me and I don't have to think about whether I have put a particular document into the backup set. The added advantage is that I can get to my stuff from anywhere i'm connected be that on a tablet, pc, mac or phone. Oh and I've got my pc's and macs and some vm's on it too.

hope this helps

keon

is it possible to download my received texts to computer in anyway. I really need to try and keep them if i can. I can't seem to find a way to email them from my phone. ... any advice would be great thanks:)

tronator

keon wrote: »

is it possible to download my received texts to computer in anyway. I really need to try and keep them if i can. I can't seem to find a way to email them from my phone. ... any advice would be great thanks:)

Search the Play store for "SMS Backup" or "SMS Backup+". This will let you backup your texts (and more) to a folder in your GMail account.

mikeek

One of the more low cost options is http://www.jungledisk.com with a single license you can backup an unlimited number of computers, sync between them all, create different encrypted containers, some very powerful features. Also uses amazons s3 storage which means very low storage costs. Only down side, it seems to be getting less development these days.

marcosdjcm

bmewsd wrote: »

imho it's not really that simple for macs either. If you're referring to 'time machine' that will go some way to covering you and there are plenty of good backup programs that will do similar in a windows environment. But, that's only half the story.

If your time machine is sat on your mac or next to it as an example and the whole place goes up then what? The thing to think about is what needs protecting and in what order you need to get it back.

For most of us it's morelikely the personal stuff (irreplaceable) such as pictures, memories, music and a local backup is good but isn't the whole story. Cloud can cover those bases too as well as offering fully automated backup (for mac, pc and Linux).

excipere just works for me and I don't have to think about whether I have put a particular document into the backup set. The added advantage is that I can get to my stuff from anywhere i'm connected be that on a tablet, pc, mac or phone. Oh and I've got my pc's and macs and some vm's on it too.

hope this helps

Yep ideally running Time Machine + Cloud backup has you covered for both immediate backup and massive disaster.

I have yet to see any software for the PC that can match Time Machine. I think because it doesn't have OS-level support for it.

tronator

marcosdjcm wrote: »

I have yet to see any software for the PC that can match Time Machine. I think because it doesn't have OS-level support for it.

RSync together with LVM snapshots exist for many many years in the Linux world. Maybe not a one click solution for John Doe, but a few lines of bash scripting and you're done...

bmewsd

mikeek wrote: »

One of the more low cost options is http://www.jungledisk.com with a single license you can backup an unlimited number of computers, sync between them all, create different encrypted containers, some very powerful features. Also uses amazons s3 storage which means very low storage costs. Only down side, it seems to be getting less development these days.

ok so jungledisk is amazon. it's UK datacentre is in London BUT. It too has to comply with US legislation so the reality is it cannot guarantee where in the world your data may end up. If you don't have to worry about compliance? and you don't care that about unfettered access to your data, then that's fair enough. There are cheaper, UK based deals out there. Do your research folks.

bmewsd

marcosdjcm wrote: »

Yep ideally running Time Machine + Cloud backup has you covered for both immediate backup and massive disaster.

I have yet to see any software for the PC that can match Time Machine. I think because it doesn't have OS-level support for it.

Time machine is a great piece of middleware (great for hw AND sw and all for Apple). The question is should you really need to backup the OS etc when the reality is that hw and applicable OS is commodity. IMHO you should only be protecting the unique. The stuff you create, use and access.

I have seen plenty of failed timemachine drives (like all spindles they too can cease working). As long as you protect the information (and you're not breaking any of the compliance law (such as storing PII or CC no's on dropbox etc)) then that's a great start.

Naturally, how many of us actually test that what we protect, we can recover? Or do we trust it to chance and good luck? Personally? I actually do recover portions of my stuff from different backups/versions just to see that I can get it back.

hope this helps.

charlieheard

bmewsd wrote: »

ok so jungledisk is amazon. it's UK datacentre is in London BUT. It too has to comply with US legislation so the reality is it cannot guarantee where in the world your data may end up. If you don't have to worry about compliance? and you don't care that about unfettered access to your data, then that's fair enough. There are cheaper, UK based deals out there. Do your research folks.

Your data is a quasi-random stream of bits, encrypted using 256 or 512-bit security. Only you know the decryption code - it's a TNO (Trust No One) architecture. If you forget the code, you've lost your data.

Now, the US government could spend the next several years trying to break the encryption on your data, using the fastest supercomputers in the world, but I think they may have better things to do...