Lee wrote:
Any suggestions on what backup software to use?
There's a bunch of approaches, and some depends on what you want to do.
I'm using unison to backup/sync multiple PCs. I just took a look at
the latest version & the gui version looks to be a pain to setup, so
it's probably not a good recommendation. I remember futzing with it
for a while to get it "right".
The other method is xcopy - also not a great solution since it's got a
path [or name?] limit of something like 256 characters, so it _will_
miss stuff. I'm looking at robocopy as a replacement...
If you want a sync-type backup, you also have to decide whether you're
copying files directly, or updating an archive (typically zip
formatted). The latter gives you compression. You also have to account
for how synchronization handles overwrites and deletions. If you don't
manage things correctly, then you do have a risk of accidental overwrite
or deletion, then running a backup, where those changes are replicated
to your backups, and the result being that the old files aren't recoverable.
One other consideration with backup tools -- there's lots of ones with
free versions, but the free versions are often limited to "personal use
only". I've found that a number of tools enforce this by making it
impossible to back up to a network-attached drive.
Personally, I use Duplicati on my primary working machine (that one
isn't sync, but does archives, and supports incremental backups). On my
Linux box, I use rsync, and on another Windows box I use cwRsync, which
uses the Cygwin version of rsync. For that, I'm able to use nearly
identical command-line syntax for both the Linux and Windows backups.
Also, with sync-type backups, I like to make periodic snapshots, copying
the entire sync archive into a .zip.
If you want sync, some of the options in Windows include:
- cwRsync, as noted above. It's predominantly command-line, but I think
there's a version (paid, I think) that supports GUI.
- Resilio Sync (formerly BitTorrent Sync) -- uses the technology of
BitTorrent, although you can use entirely without interacting with
BitTorrent. There's free and paid versions
- SyncBack has free and paid versions.
I would go one step further -- think through your potential recovery
scenarios.
And think through your potential disaster scenarios. That
cryptolocker malware that encrypts all your data files is scary, so I
backup to removable media. What happens if the removable media is
lost/stolen? Truecrypt to the rescue :)
Exactly. Truecrypt is one option, although some tools support
encryption directly. If a tool supports encryption, then you can back
up to almost any media (including cloud based). If you use encrypted
media (e.g., a drive encrypted with TrueCrypt), then you can use nearly
any backup tool that doesn't try to write directly to the media (I've
found that Microsoft Backup won't write to a TrueCrypt volume).
There's enough variants that one particular backup methodology or
tool may not fit all the possibilities for recovery. There's a
difference between doing a bare-metal recovery following a device
or controller failure and a recovery from an "oops" overwrite or
deletion of one or two critical files.
Maybe I've been lucky, but in personal use I've had only one disk
failure. Keeping install CDs + downloaded install programs + data
files was enough to restore everything to the new hard drive. Altho
it took~2-3 days from getting the new disk to a fully usable PC.
That's the route that I go, although if you have some sort of failure of
that nature, you do have to go through all the work of reinstalling your
system, reinstalling your applications, recovering your data, and more
time spent in tweaking preferences. My experience with that is similar,
2-3 days to get back to a fully usable system.
That's where some are enthusiastic about full-image backups. Start with
a fresh drive, boot from your recovery media, and the restore the entire
image: system, software, data, preferences (including the Windows
registry), and you're at the state you were when you made the backup. I
haven't tried it, but I think image backups even allow you to recover
fully-encrypted drives (e.g., TrueCrypt or BitLocker).
Acronis TrueImage is commercial software. I know that some swear by
Macrium Reflect, and that there's free and paid versions.
1) Do it automatically. If you have to think about it, you'll forget
or make excuses, and when disaster comes you'll lose something
important because you didn't back it up.
+1
make it easy & make it work unattended. I mount the truecrypt volume,
start a .bat file and go have dinner, watch a movie, go to bed, etc.
Yep. In my case, I have drive that's fully encrypted with TrueCrypt
(not just a volume) that I attach to one of the machines in my LAN. This
makes me dependent on tools that will support writing to a LAN, but it
allows me to have several machines that write to the same backup drive,
running on a schedule.
2) Separate the backup media from the source computer. If the backup
is killed by the same disaster as the computer, you have no backup.
+1
altho do you _really_ need a full, offsite, backup? If my PC is
melted in a fire, I care about pictures and some data. I don't care
at all about \program files, \windows, etc. so the offsite backup data
set is _much_ smaller.
True, although the difference is easier to manage with Linux or MacOS
than it is with Windows. And in Windows, there's the issue of the
#@^$&*!! registry.
And don't rely on a single media set that's continuously attached,
I like removable disk drives. It's hard to f*** up a drive in my desk
drawer or @ my sister's house.
Yep. That's the one thing I still have to fix. You need backup media
that's within arm's reach, and you need backup media that's entirely
separate. To that end, I don't see a problem with doing cloud backups,
as long as you account for encryption that happens before your data
touches the Ethernet connection (i.e., no provider access to your
encryption keys), and that you don't rely on cloud exclusively.
Keeping this on a slightly Seamonkey focus: several months ago, I
was having problems with my inbox and indexing (which I discussed
in this newsgroup), and more than once, I lost most of the messages
in my POP inbox. I was grateful to have daily backups to draw from,
and I needed them more than once. For that, a file-centric backup
(where I could recover just my inbox, and not even the entire
profile) was what I needed. A full-image backup (including boot
sectors and Windows registry) would have been far less useful for
that kind of recovery.
Daily backups can be _extremely_ nice. Like I said, I've had one
hard drive fail on me. I've had more than one instance of ohNoes!!
what did <this> file look like <that many> days ago. >
Yep. There's reason for daily backups, as well as snapshots that you
keep longer.
Smith
_______________________________________________
support-seamonkey mailing list
support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
