Advice/help with my backup strategy

[jetablack4]

I have been doing a lot of research on building a sufficient back system for my needs, and I have a couple questions and I am looking for some advice from others on how I should proceed.

I first started with the purchase of an external hard drive. Actually, I purchased an external enclosure (thermaktake max 5 active cooling) and placed 1 TB western digital hard drive in it (WD Caviar Green). The reason I put my own external hard drive together was because I read horrible reviews from the standard external hard drives you can pick up from the store, as they crash a lot or just flat our fail after a year or so of use. I also did not want the software that came with the drive and with the external enclosure I can use a eSATA wire which is faster than a USB 2.0

As a casual home user my most important documents are my music, photos, videos (and metadata that goes along with it) and financial documents that I store on my computer - some of which are active excel files that I use daily. Therefore I do not think that a daily system image is required, however, it would be nice to backup all of my files daily (at least new files or one that have been changed). I would think that system image once a week or once a month would suffice.

I have just started using the standard windows backup that comes with windows 7 and it seems to do the job, however, it is lacking some flexibility. I do not mind paying for a good backup program, yet, after reading literally hundreds of articles and forums on backup programs I hear many different opinions and it makes choosing a program difficult. For example, I was ready to purchase Acronis TI 2011, until I started reading about all the complaints of how it ruined some peoples systems and they could not even get windows 7 backup to work after the initial install (some complain it would not even install at all). Also, the fact that the new user interface is very buggy and that it puts a lot of strain on your computer. Two other programs that I have also looked into are Paragon and Macrium.

As I mentioned above, I like windows 7 backup, however the lack of flexibility is making me look into other options. I do not like the fact that I cannot have separate schedules for a system image and file backups. Also, I do not like the fact that I cannot see how many images my computer is currently holding as Windows will only use 30% of the external drive for system images and will delete them after that. I read some people will copy the system image from windows and place it into another folder on the drive so it will not interfere with the 30% and ensures that you can keep an system image you want. But I do not know if this will somehow mess up the image in the event I need to use it.

Can anyone throw some suggestions my way as to what would be a good backup strategy for me - whether its one program or a combination of programs. The main features I am looking for are:

• scheduling ability (two different schedules, one for images, one for file backup)
• ability to control my backups (keep the backups/images I want, delete the ones I no longer need)
• computer usage (I do not want a program that will eat up all of my computing power)
• ease of use

Some other features that would be nice are:

• Ability to open image on another computer as if it were another drive (i think Paragon has this feature)
• Ability to install image on different hardware or smaller hard drive
• Compressed image file sizes

I have also read that Paragon and Macrium repair disc is designed for Linux which I know nothing about, so I don't know if those programs would even be an option for me. Any comments, suggestions or opinions will be appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

[Miranova23]

Check out GoodSync. Seriously, I love it & it's never done me wrong.

The imaging you might be on your own with, as I don't think GoodSync offers that, but I could be wrong.

Whatever you go with, if it doesn't offer an automation ability, you could always make it yourself in Task Scheduler: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...create-new-task.html?filter[2]=Backup Restore

The other tutorials there might be helpful to you as well: Backup & Restore

 

[jetablack4]

Thanks Miranova23 for the input - I checked out goodsync and it did not look like it had everything I am looking for. However, when looking at goodsync I happened to come across two other programs - 1 free, 1 paid.

NovaBackUp - which is about $50, it looks pretty good, flexible and easy to use from what i can tell. It has the scheduling options I am looking for, ability to name backups and images (from what I can tell), and it even gives you the option to backup to an online storage site and they have a few vendors you can use.

Comodo Backup 2.0 - looks like a better option than windows backup and it is also free.

Can anyone shed some light on these programs, does anyone use them.

 

[Wishmaster]

Acronis, if you do not mind purchasing as it is not free, will do all your wanting and more.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/

You can set schedules to back the entire system weekly, or every day however you see fit.

As well as seperate backup tasks for a individual folder or folders. You can even have it back back them up once a hour if you choose.

It also does Incremental, and Differnential.

You can also recover everything from a back up, or just a single file from it if thats all you need.


As far as all the complaints ... Im not sure what to say..
Ive been using Acronis for a long time on 3 different PCs and have never had any major problems from it. Certainly nothing like decribed :-/
I know others have different preferences, for back ups ..
But personally Acronis is the 1st app I install on my machine. Wouldnt want to run a PC with out it.

 

[kado897]

Give Macrium Reflect a try. Macrium Reflect Backup and Hard Disk Imaging for Windows 7, Vista, XP and Server 2003/2008 The free version can only do full images but the full version is very flexible. It can do full, incremental and differential images. Full, incremental and differential file backups. It is very flexible you can set up as many different backup schedules as you want to do different image or file selections as you need. A single user licence is around $40.

 

[Golden]

Hi,

There are a couple of options to have a look at to see if they meet your requirements:

1. Macrium Reflect for system images.
2. GFI Backup for data file backups

Both are free.

Regards,
Golden

 

[whs]

I would vote with kado and Golden and go with Macrium http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I Here is the scenario I suggest.

1. Put all your user data into a seperate http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/72427-data-partition.html
2. Image the system partition weekly (I would not do any less)
3. Image the data partition daily

You can create 2 seperate XMLs for system and data. If you right click on an XML, go to "Schedule" an you can set individual schedules.

 

[Wishmaster]

I would certainly agree with whs, regardless which backup method you choose, having your DATA seperate from the OS partition is always a good thing.

It also make imaging & restoring the OS drive much faster, as well as restoring DATA.



One thing thats for sure, everyone should have some form of Backup in place ASAP, IMHO.
The biggest problem is finding one you are comfortable and happy with, as there are quite a few good choices out there.

 

[jetablack4]

I am little confused about how the Partion works. From what I understand it is simply breaking up your hard drive into different "parts" or drives. One being used for the OS and one for Data as you mentioned above. I attached a picture of how my computer came stock from Dell, can you guys tell me if this is set up correctly in regards to disk partions.

I am going to look into the two programs that Golden recommended along with whs strategy. However, I think i would rather go with the paid versions to have control over full, incremental and differential backups. Im sure every once in while I will want to do a full backup and use differential for the rest.

 

[whs]

You currently have an OS partition and a recovery partition (which contails a copy of the OS and from which you can reinstall the OS).

There is no Data Partition but you could easily create one as per the turorial I linked above. Just make sure it is an extended/logical partition and NOT another primary partition.

Generally there is no need to go for a pro version of the imaging programs - only if you want incremental/differential capability in Macrium. For that you need the pro version. You can, however, get differentials in free Paragon (which is a bit more complicated to use than Macrium - but doable).

 

[pparks1]

Instead of trying to to find 1 application which does all of this stuff wonderfully, I approach this from 2 different directions.

1). Data Backups
These are the ones that are critical. If I don't have this data, I'm screwed. These are my documents, my spreadsheets, my videos, my pictures, my browser bookmarks, my email, etc.

For these, I use robocopy (command line tool) and I make a synchronized backup between my hard drive and 2 different external hard drives. 1 drive is always kept offsite in case the house burns down, or somebody breaks in and clears out my computer room.

The syntax is simple and it's run from a batch file
robocopy C:\data\pictures F:\backups\data\pictures /E /MIR
robocopy C:\data\documents F:\backups\data\documents /E /MIR
robocopy C:\data\videos F:\backups\data\videos

The /E says to copy subdirectories which are empty. The /MIR says to mirror the source and destination. Meaning, if I delete a file from C:data\pictures, when I run my .bat file and syncronize again, it's going to be gone from my backup destination as well.

Robocopy only copies files which have changed since the last run, so the first run takes some time, subsequent runs are often complete in less than 1 minute.

The reason I prefer backups using this method include
1). speed
2). The files are not in a backup container file. Thus, I don't need any software to access the files, and I don't have to worry that if the container is corrupt, all files in the container are corrupt.
3). Ease of use. i simply run the backup job on a schedule, or just run the .bat file whenever I think about it.


2). Image backups
I use Acronis True Image Home 2010 and it works great for me. It's never left me hanging. I backup my OS drive regularly (about 1 time per month). Since I paid a whopping $23.99 for this software from NewEgg, it's the one that I use at home as it's more configurable than Macrium...and for me personally, i find the interface a bit easier to use from Acronis (I'm sure others will feel differently, and that is ok).

I have used Macrium pretty extensively at work, and it's worked just fine for me as well.

I usually install my OS, activate it, run Windows update and take an image. I called this one plain vanilla

Then I usually load my standard software setup, make some config changes, and take an image. I call this one apps and mods, clean.

Then I usually run a backup at the end of each month, and keep the last month or two...and this is where I would go back to if I had to recover and get back to where I was. Otherwise, I would use plain vanilla or apps and mods clean and start a bit more from scratch. This is SIMPLE for me to do, because my actual DATA..is stored separately on my 2 external drives from my robocopy jobs...and putting the data back is a piece of cake.

 

[jetablack4]

Thanks whs, that was a great tutorial but I have a few questions if you don't mind.

1 - on my system what is the 39 MB Healthy (OEM Partition) that has the diagonal lines going through it?

2 - How much space would yo recommend I leave for the OS partition and how much should I create for my Data partition (I probably currently have about 80GB data, but I plan on creating a whole movie library on my computer so it will definitely get bigger)

3 - When creating images of the OS and the Data partitions, how would I go about restoring them? Would I first restore the OS image and then have to create a new partition and restore the data image?

4 - Do you also recommend creating data backups in addition to images?


Thank yo so much for your help, I am really learning a lot and the information I am getting is extremely valuable!!

 

[jetablack4]

pparks1

That is a very intriguing method for backups (for data), and it sounds very interesting. I consider myself knowledgeable about computer but not so much when it comes to writing code or creating commands. How much skill would you say it takes to create this type of backup?

Are there any place to find detailed information on writing commands based on what I am looking to do?

 

[whs]

jetablack,

1. That is most likely a tools partition for the BIOS tools. Just leave it alone.

2. Without user data, an OS partition of 50 to 60GBs should be ample. On none of my 4 Win7 systems did I ever go beyond 40GB of used space - and that is on 2 systems where I also have Ubuntu in a Virtual Box. The others are more a bit over 20GB.

3. You can restore those partitions in any sequence and individually. That assumes that the partition structure does still exist.
Should you need to restore to a brand new disk, create the partition structure first. Make sure the partitions are equal or bigger than the originating partitions. For that you can use the bootable CD of this handy program (last entry on the page)- I suggest you download and burn it to CD asap so that you have it in your toolbox.

4. You really only need images of the system and data partitions. You can open those images individually and retrieve any file from it without having to restore the whole bit. That is especially useful for the user data in case you lost a file (which happens to me all the time, LOL) - less useful for the OS partition unless you have a specific corrupted file that you know how to replace.

 

[pparks1]

pparks1

That is a very intriguing method for backups (for data), and it sounds very interesting. I consider myself knowledgeable about computer but not so much when it comes to writing code or creating commands. How much skill would you say it takes to create this type of backup?

Skill? No type of skill is required for doing this.

Step 1: Create a folder on the C drive and called it C:\backup_scripts
Step 2: Right click and create a new txt file in C:\backup_scripts and called it backup.bat
Step 3: right click on backup.bat and choose Edit
Step 4: put a line for each location you want to backup
C:\windows\system32\robocopy.exe C:\backup_scripts E:\testbackup /E /MIR
Step 5: save the file backup.bat

Step 6: run backup.bat (either double click on it) or run from a command line
start, cmd [enter]
C:\backup_scripts\backup.bat (hit enter)


Your files will have copied from C:\backup_scripts to E:\testbackup (change your source and destination to meet the needs on your computer).


Edit: I will throw together a quick video of setting this up and running it from start to finish. Once complete, I will post back here.

 

[jetablack4]

Great thanks ppark1 - I was trying to perform this task with the two post you had but I was getting a little confused.

If you can, please show how I can have this bat file run automatically. Your help is appreciated!!

 

[jetablack4]

So after looking into a bunch of different options I think I found a backup solution that I will go with. I think I am going to purchase Macrium Reflect (paid version) as it will give me the ability to do full, incremental and differential backups for imaging and data files. It has the ability to mount an image as a virtual drive either on my own computer through Macrium or on another computer. I like this feature as it ensures me that the image is good. It has the ability to create multiple backup schedules and keep logs of it as well (also allows you to schedule deletion of older backups). Overall, this program seems to be the most straight forward and easy to use while still providing all the features that I am looking for as well as not putting to much of a strain on my computer.

Two questions for anyone who is familiar with Macrium:

1- I currently have my external hard drive connected to my computer via a eSATA cable, will this be a problem?

2- From what I can tell you have the ability to schedule the deletion of older backups, however, do you the ability to keep certain images or backups despite the deletion schedule?


In addition to using Macrium I am going to take whs advice and create a partition for my data to go a long with my OS. I also want to try and implement pparks1 robocopy commands to make copies of my files that are not in a "backup container" in case it becomes corrupt. I think this will be a good start to my backup plan.

 

[pparks1]

Ok, I have put the video file together on how to create and run a backup.bat file that contains the robocopy syntax. Sorry that the size is small in the video, I should have captured something smaller than my full screen at 1920x1080...it looks great on the monitor. Anyway, I think this provides the needed information.


With regards to scheduling the job, here is the video for that;

 

[jetablack4]

This tutorial is really great, I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. This is a great way to simply make a copy of my data files.

One question though - the mirror function only works one way correct? Meaning the destination folder syncs with the source folder, and the source folder will not sync with the destination folder. It did not look so in your tutorial but I just wanted to make sure.

Thanks again!

 

[pparks1]

Yes, it always mirrors the source to the destination....NOT the other way around.

It was no problem putting it together. This is how I have backed up my data files for years.