Suggestion for my backup plan?

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...once there was a 2-3 day BATchfile hiccup. One that hiccup was fixed, backups were actually taking place, and such were indeed restorable [folder or file].

You brought up another danger of automated backup systems. If not closely monitored, a hiccup could disable the system and one could go for a long period without any backups being made, often discovering the hiccup only after needing to recover data only to find it isn't there. In most cases, the people who most want to use an automated scheme are going to be the ones least likely to monitor the system to make sure it is working (unless they hire an IT specialist to do the monitoring and system maintenance for them, which most will be too cheap to do).

 

[RolandJS]

LadyF's sig: Backup, backup, backup! -- are apples of gold upon a silver platter. Her post is pretty much the last word. Time now to either UserDo or DataDie. Also, my description of server backup was all in-house, with a backup copy of backups sent offsite.

 

[RolandJS]

LadyF, we posted at the same time. Hope the powers that be follow your great advice.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

LadyF's sig: Backup, backup, backup! -- are apples of gold upon a silver platter. Her post is pretty much the last word. Time now to either UserDo or DataDie. Also, my description of server backup was all in-house, with a backup copy of backups sent offsite.

LOL! I stole the first half of my last sig like from the sig line of a MAC repairman over on another forum, only I cleaned it up a bit. His opinion of people who do not properly backup their data is rather low.

Some people feel my advice is more like horse apples.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

LadyF, we posted at the same time. Hope the powers that be follow your great advice.

I'm not holding my breath!

 

[cyberSAR]

It all comes down to how important your data is to you. It would be a PITA if I lost a weeks worth of data on my work machine but I would survive. If I lost a month I'd probably be out of business. On my home machines I don't care. I'd just lay over the image from a fresh install and call it a day. Nothing on it is that important to us. We don't save irreplaceable images of our deceased parents holding their grand kids.

I think any backup solution should be periodically tested for restores and should email or otherwise alert you on completion or failure.

Also, after living through a hurricane that damaged both my office and the secure location of our backups I realize the need to backup to a different geographical location. Fortunatley I didn't have the need but I couldn't even access the backups for over a month.

Live and learn. Do what works for you in your environment.

 

[pcwin]

Oh, I may now understand what is meant by automation! Years ago, I worked for a small company, that put in place and invoked, a nightly backup from all data folders from all desktops [and connected laptops] onto a master backup/restore server partition. Is this what you are meaning? That server backup program worked great, only once there was a 2-3 day BATchfile hiccup. One that hiccup was fixed, backups were actually taking place, and such were indeed restorable [folder or file].

That is what I mean, I am doing something similar currently. I have scheduled 6AM incremental backup Acronis every day on my internal disk. I set the schedule once and I do not have to click anything at all in future.

As I heard storing backup in an external disk is a better solution, I thought of plugging in the external disk every night before I sleep, when I am sleeping the scheduled backup can automatically start by itself at 6AM while I am still sleeping. After I wake up, at around 8AM, I can just unplug the external hard disk. No need to waste time clicking any software.

Occasionally, I will manually run the "validate backup archive" in Acronis program to verify the backups are in good condition.

I intend to change to Macrium so I am analysing if Macrium can do the same thing. As I heard incremental backup is not that reliable, I am thinking of doing differential backup, and analysing other solutions Lady Fitzgerald has written. FreeFileSync seems not so friendly with automation and I am not sure how to setup schedule, so I thought of using just Macrium for all backup since Macrium is easier to setup scheduled backup.

 

[whs]

You do know that you need the Macrium Pro version for differential backups. Else you can use the AOMEI Backupper that has this function in the free version. That is a very easy to use program.

 

[pcwin]

...once there was a 2-3 day BATchfile hiccup. One that hiccup was fixed, backups were actually taking place, and such were indeed restorable [folder or file].

You brought up another danger of automated backup systems. If not closely monitored, a hiccup could disable the system and one could go for a long period without any backups being made, often discovering the hiccup only after needing to recover data only to find it isn't there. In most cases, the people who most want to use an automated scheme are going to be the ones least likely to monitor the system to make sure it is working (unless they hire an IT specialist to do the monitoring and system maintenance for them, which most will be too cheap to do).

For my Acronis scheduled backup, if it is unable to complete a backup for that scheduled day, it will popup a message that backup has failed, I guess other software might have some warnings too.

I was thinking if differential backup will be safe (I guess 99% safe) since it only needs the first full backup and the differential backup day that you want to recover data to be in good condition. If the differential backup day is corrupted, the differential backup on day before the corrupted differential backup and the differential backup on the day after the corrupted differential backup would still be likely be in good condition because every differential backup is not "linked" to each other. Differential is only build on the changes since the first full backup. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Golden]

FreeFileSync seems not so friendly with automation and I am not sure how to setup schedule

Try this:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/278866-synctoy-backup-user-data.html

 

[cyberSAR]

Differential backs up every file changed since the last full. Uses more space than incremental but much faster and easier for restoration.

I use Acronis for my drive images. I don't create them all that often. I keep a fresh install with all my settings and programs and I'll periodically make one before large windows updates or if I am testing new software.

For my mirror and my differentials I have been using Cobian for many years. Cobian Backup

 

[RolandJS]

I'm not clear, what is the difference between incremental and differential backups?
The last differential I saw was under a GM Chevy Malibu...

 

[cyberSAR]

Incremental vs. differential backup: A comparison

Differential backup

Differential backups copy those files that have been changed since the last full backup took place. So if a full backup was done on Day 1, Day 2's differential will copy all of the files that have changed since Day 1's backup copied everything. Day 3's differential backup will also copy all of the files that have changed since Day 1's full copy was made.


Incremental backup

Incremental backups copy all of the files that have changed since the last backup was made. They do this whether the last backup was a full one or an incremental copy. So if a full backup was done on Day 1, Day 2's incremental will back up all of the files that have changed since Day 1. Likewise, Day 3's incremental backup will only copy those files that have changed since Day 2's incremental took place.

 

[RolandJS]

Info saved to my harddrive for future use, thanks CyberSAR!

 

[pcwin]

Incremental vs. differential backup: A comparison

Differential backup

Differential backups copy those files that have been changed since the last full backup took place. So if a full backup was done on Day 1, Day 2's differential will copy all of the files that have changed since Day 1's backup copied everything. Day 3's differential backup will also copy all of the files that have changed since Day 1's full copy was made.


Incremental backup

Incremental backups copy all of the files that have changed since the last backup was made. They do this whether the last backup was a full one or an incremental copy. So if a full backup was done on Day 1, Day 2's incremental will back up all of the files that have changed since Day 1. Likewise, Day 3's incremental backup will only copy those files that have changed since Day 2's incremental took place.

For incremental backup, if Day 2's incremental is corrupted/missing, and if I want to restore data in Day 3's incremental backup I will not be able to restore correct?

For Differential backup, if Day 2's Differential is corrupted/missing, and if I want to restore data in Day 3's Differential backup I will be able to restore correct?

Thanks

 

[cyberSAR]

Not necessarily. In incremental if day 2 is corrupted you lose those files (unless they were also backed up on day 3) but day 3 would be fine.

Look at it this way. If you do a full backup and 5 days of incrementals to restore you would restore the full backup then day 1, then day 2 then day 3 then day 4 and finally day 5.

In differentials you would restore the full backup then day 5. No need for days 1-4 as they are contained in day 5s backup.

hope that helps.

 

[pcwin]

Not necessarily. In incremental if day 2 is corrupted you lose those files (unless they were also backed up on day 3) but day 3 would be fine.

Look at it this way. If you do a full backup and 5 days of incrementals to restore you would restore the full backup then day 1, then day 2 then day 3 then day 4 and finally day 5.

QA) Do you mean if day 2 incremental file is corrupted, day 3, day 4, day 5 incremental backup can still be restored successfully?

QB) Incremental backup example: If on day 2 morning, I created a new file day2note.txt in my PC, at night when incremental backup happens, day 2 incremental did have the day2note.txt file inside. After some months, when I tried to restore the day2note.txt file in day 2 incremental and unfortunately day 2 incremental was somehow corrupted and unable to restore. Will restoring day 3 or day 4 or day 5 incremental backup be able to restore that day2note.txt successfully ?
Will day 3 or day 4 or day 5 incremental backup contain day2note.txt ?

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Not necessarily. In incremental if day 2 is corrupted you lose those files (unless they were also backed up on day 3) but day 3 would be fine.

Look at it this way. If you do a full backup and 5 days of incrementals to restore you would restore the full backup then day 1, then day 2 then day 3 then day 4 and finally day 5.

In differentials you would restore the full backup then day 5. No need for days 1-4 as they are contained in day 5s backup.

hope that helps.

You are confusing incrementals with differentials. An incremental includes only data since the previous image, be it a full image or an incremental image. With incrementals, all copies have to be present and uncorrupted for full recovery. If day 2 is corrupt, you will only be able to restore with the initial full image and the first incremental. You will not be able to use day 2 and any day after that.

Differentials, on the other hand, include all data from the last full image. When restoring, only the initial full image and the last differential is used. If day 2 is corrupted, it doesn't matter since only the last one will be used. Differentials are safer than incrementals but take up more space since each one is larger than the previous on. However, full images are much safer than either incrementals or differentials.

 

[pcwin]

You are confusing incrementals with differentials. An incremental includes only data since the previous image, be it a full image or an incremental image. With incrementals, all copies have to be present and uncorrupted for full recovery. If day 2 is corrupt, you will only be able to restore with the initial full image and the first incremental. You will not be able to use day 2 and any day after that.

"If day 2 is corrupt, you will only be able to restore with the initial full image and the first incremental. You will not be able to use day 2 and any day after that." > I do think incremental backup works like this too,
but cyberSAR (thread #56) said: "Not necessarily. In incremental if day 2 is corrupted you lose those files (unless they were also backed up on day 3) but day 3 would be fine."

cyberSAR is wrong? (he said day 3 would be fine)

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

You are confusing incrementals with differentials. An incremental includes only data since the previous image, be it a full image or an incremental image. With incrementals, all copies have to be present and uncorrupted for full recovery. If day 2 is corrupt, you will only be able to restore with the initial full image and the first incremental. You will not be able to use day 2 and any day after that.

"If day 2 is corrupt, you will only be able to restore with the initial full image and the first incremental. You will not be able to use day 2 and any day after that." > I do think incremental backup works like this too,
but cyberSAR (thread #56) said: "Not necessarily. In incremental if day 2 is corrupted you lose those files (unless they were also backed up on day 3) but day 3 would be fine."

cyberSAR is wrong? (he said day 3 would be fine)

Yes, but since you haven't listened to anything I've told you so far, read it for yourself from Macrium Reflect's website.