Backing Up

RobTang

bmewsd wrote: »

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.

System image backups are useful and worth making but I probably wouldn't do a 3-2-1 backup of the image.
Purely to eliminate the restore and re-setup time and I can always just re-image the machine if something bad happens to the setup.

Time Machine (software) is not fantastic, its decent enough and very simple to use. Almost all the windows backup software I was looking at were more feature rich.

bmewsd

RobTang wrote: »

System image backups are useful and worth making but I probably wouldn't do a 3-2-1 backup of the image.
Purely to eliminate the restore and re-setup time and I can always just re-image the machine if something bad happens to the setup.

Time Machine (software) is not fantastic, its decent enough and very simple to use. Almost all the windows backup software I was looking at were more feature rich.

Agree with you Rob, I too prefer system imaging. But I have a mix of regimes to ensure data integrity and recovery. For most users, it's a case of knowing their stuff is secure.

I think raising awareness that data is the only unique is key. Once it's gone, it's gone is the best way to treat it. All data has a value, you just gotta figure out what it is and even the largest of enterprises struggles with that one.

hope this helps

charlieheard

bmewsd wrote: »

I think raising awareness that data is the only unique is key. Once it's gone, it's gone is the best way to treat it. All data has a value, you just gotta figure out what it is and even the largest of enterprises struggles with that one.

Funnily enough, this has just been driven home when our PVR crashed while we were away, wiping the hard disk completely. Now I'll admit that 500Gb of TV shows isn't too important, but there was stuff on there that we'll miss watching (such as Dr Who ) and I never really thought about it as data till I'd lost it...

bmewsd

charlieheard wrote: »

Funnily enough, this has just been driven home when our PVR crashed while we were away, wiping the hard disk completely. Now I'll admit that 500Gb of TV shows isn't too important, but there was stuff on there that we'll miss watching (such as Dr Who ) and I never really thought about it as data till I'd lost it...

Now that's a bummer. Nothing to stop you pulling the drive out of the PVR and copying the data into excipere. It's what I do. Especially as I'm using a fairly old Humax PVR. At least I have my info, TV & Films protected (and available). Cheap too.

hope this helps

marcosdjcm

bmewsd wrote: »

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.

I find Time Machine to be the best way, the first backup takes a while but I really love how it grabs everything and you can trust that it has done so. Also the quick top-up back-ups from then on are so quick it couldn't be easier.

Yep, any drive can fail, but TM supports multiple backup drives, so if you wanted to, you can keep one off-site and bring it in for a backup once a month just to be sure.

But yeah, I've not seen a better local backup system yet, especially factoring in that even a grandmother could be talked through setting it up over the phone.

bmewsd

marcosdjcm wrote: »

I find Time Machine to be the best way, the first backup takes a while but I really love how it grabs everything and you can trust that it has done so. Also the quick top-up back-ups from then on are so quick it couldn't be easier.

Yep, any drive can fail, but TM supports multiple backup drives, so if you wanted to, you can keep one off-site and bring it in for a backup once a month just to be sure.

But yeah, I've not seen a better local backup system yet, especially factoring in that even a grandmother could be talked through setting it up over the phone.

If TM works for you that's great. Personally? I backup my mac and PC systems both locally AND to the cloud. CloudStor is secure AND very simple to use, very much fire and forget. And best of all, I can access it from anywhere on any internet enabled device and i'm NOT restricted by the upload bandwidth of my home broadband.

I Don't get that with TM.

the main thing is that you've protected your stuff. Remember, your HW is insured / insurable. Your software? and more importantly your data? it isn't. if you don't value it then fine you've got nothing to worry about if you lose it. But if it's priceless to you then surely spending SOMETHING on it is a prudent measure?

marcosdjcm

bmewsd wrote: »

If TM works for you that's great. Personally? I backup my mac and PC systems both locally AND to the cloud. CloudStor is secure AND very simple to use, very much fire and forget. And best of all, I can access it from anywhere on any internet enabled device and i'm NOT restricted by the upload bandwidth of my home broadband.

I Don't get that with TM.

the main thing is that you've protected your stuff. Remember, your HW is insured / insurable. Your software? and more importantly your data? it isn't. if you don't value it then fine you've got nothing to worry about if you lose it. But if it's priceless to you then surely spending SOMETHING on it is a prudent measure?

I don't understand the part where you keep telling me something I already know, or is that last paragraph just stressing the point to everyone else? I agree with you. Hence doing a local backup and an off-site backup.

Now it is true that a cloud backup is better than a normal/physical off-site backup, mostly because it can be done more often with less effort.

But other than that TM does as thorough a job as any other backup system out there, in the simplest way. So if you pair that with some cloud backup, you're covered.

And finally, the other big advantage of TMis how easy it is to recover the data to a new machine after a disaster. This bit isn't talked about enough. Cloud backup and PC solutions definitely doesn't have this licked like TM does. I have complete confidence in the quality of recovery from TM. It blows people's minds when I show them.

bmewsd

marcosdjcm wrote: »

I don't understand the part where you keep telling me something I already know, or is that last paragraph just stressing the point to everyone else? I agree with you. Hence doing a local backup and an off-site backup.

Now it is true that a cloud backup is better than a normal/physical off-site backup, mostly because it can be done more often with less effort.

But other than that TM does as thorough a job as any other backup system out there, in the simplest way. So if you pair that with some cloud backup, you're covered.

And finally, the other big advantage of TMis how easy it is to recover the data to a new machine after a disaster. This bit isn't talked about enough. Cloud backup and PC solutions definitely doesn't have this licked like TM does. I have complete confidence in the quality of recovery from TM. It blows people's minds when I show them.

Hi, certainly not trying to teach you to suck eggs. You've definitely got an idea that protecting data is important. You'd be surprised how many folk don't. Until it's gone.

Not sure about the data recovery aspect not being sorted with Cloud solutions. Some definitely make a big deal of it. IMHO, if you're protecting the stuff you want to get back then it's just a matter of pulling it back on. Obviously getting it back on from a physically connected disk will be a lot faster but the benefit of the cloud really comes from when you want to access stuff from anywhere else (not necessarily from when you want to recover).

The other thing of course (and you've got this sorted too, so is for the benefit of other readers) is to understand recovery point objectives. The what to bring back in what order AND to test that backups are indeed recoverable.

I've had any number of disks sent to me saying the data is unreadable and that's their backups gone.

It's good to keep the topic open. Data integrity and protection is an important one.

:j

marcosdjcm

bmewsd wrote: »

Not sure about the data recovery aspect not being sorted with Cloud solutions. Some definitely make a big deal of it. IMHO, if you're protecting the stuff you want to get back then it's just a matter of pulling it back on. Obviously getting it back on from a physically connected disk will be a lot faster but the benefit of the cloud really comes from when you want to access stuff from anywhere else (not necessarily from when you want to recover).

Yep I agree with the rest of what you said but just want to expand on this bit. Time Machine & OSX is the only software combo I've seen so far that does a good user-friendly and comprehensive job of letting users easily recover all or part of their data right back to it's place.

One of my problems with Windows is that yes you can try to sort-of back up, but it's not clear what happens when you try to recover those items. The golden thing about TM is that it can put everything right back without any faults, including programs etc, it's completely seamless.

So I was hoping in Windows 8 that Microsoft would address this and build backup at an OS level but it looks like it's still clunky.

Its one thing to backup your documents and picture library but its great being able to recover whole applications and their configuration.


Actually, as an example of how well it works on the Mac, I could take somebody's Mac without them knowing, do a Time Machine backup, then proceed to format their computer, then recover from the Time Machine drive (about 5 clicks of the mouse) and put the computer back on their desk and they would never know it happened, that's how smooth backup should work.


(I got a bit preachy there)

bmewsd

This post was originally in response to the post (now in position #323 - the user for some reason deleted his post and then replaced it (now at position #324)). Apologies - if there for any duplication but I wanted its intent to be clear.

I know you think you're getting 'free' stuff. The reality is that there is no such thing. Somebody somewhere is paying for the infrastructure behind it.

Dropbox are making their paying customers pick up the tab for all the so called free accounts that they provide. So whilst you think you're getting something for nothing, some poor schmuck is picking up the bill for it.

A-Drive? yet another US company. and just check out their pricing? https://www.adrive.com/login/signup?package=3

I have a backup 8TB of data and I share 200GB and still have access to an additional 300GB capacity if I need it. I pay £95 per year. Looking at A-Drive's price just for the sync portion i'd have to pay approx. £401 for the same amount of space. NOTE: that DOES NOT include the 8TB of backup I have access to. and if I wanted 5TB of storage. A-Drive would charge me £3922. What would I pay? £350 so tell me how many free accounts you need for 5TB? and how much time will you need to manage them?

As for managing 10, 20, 30 different accounts just so you can get a bit of online space for 'free'? Really? you think that's worth doing? why not spend a little bit of money, get a shedload of space and just have ONE account to run. Keep it in the UK (if that's where you're based). Keep a UK company going, and doing the right thing for your own data which is after all the only unique thing on your computer.

If you're in the UK and you're using ANY US company for this stuff then you must be aware that these companies MUST comply with USA Patriot ACT (which wipes the floor with Safe Harbor). And if/when CISPA becomes a reality, these companies will willingly share information (some of which may be yours) with US Government agencies.

Whilst this isn't a problem you need to remember, that if you use these services to store ANY personally identifiable information, or other data which has compliance obligations attached that you CANNOT guarantee that said data will not leave the EU or the UK and therefore YOU may be in breach of EU and UK data protection laws.

it's quite a rats nest.

Your own personal stuff? it's all down to personal choice. But the so called 'FREE' argument, is just a loss leader.

We've become another "something for nothing" nation. Not realising that the something has to be paid for somewhere. If we start to consider value then we'll start to get service.