Offsite data backups

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sean
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 07 6:23 pm Post subject:
Pimp.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 07 6:23 pm Post subject:
Oh, hang on, you're already on this forum.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45431
Location: Essex

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 07 6:27 pm Post subject:
Que?

sean
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42207
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Apr 04, 07 6:29 pm Post subject:
Never mind.

Barefoot Andrew
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Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 07 8:16 am Post subject:

I too work at home - and have a main machine in the office which plays home to all the important stuff.

I have two hard disks in the machine, the latter being used soley to store backup images.

I keep all my work under one folder, organised into a substantial tree of sub-folders etc. For day-to-day backups I simply use WinZip to make a single ZIP of this folder, and then move this ZIP file on the second hard disk. I attache the date as part of the file name (e.g. 'filename-yyyymmdd.zip') so I can keep multiple copies, and occasionally I write these out to CD (not not always).

For monthly backups, I use Norton Ghost 2003 to create an image of the entire C: drive, and write this image to a designated folder on the second disk. I then use Nero to write the image out onto CDs. Slightly faffy procedure but it's workable on a once-a-month basis. I have found Norton Ghost to be unreliable in writing backups directly to CD.

I keep copes of the CDs at my nearby parents' house.

A.

PS Note of caution with ealier versions of WinZip - versions prior to v9 - there was a limit on the number of files that could be zipped of 65,535, and the size of the resulting ZIP file to 4Gbs.

MarkS

Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 2626

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 07 8:49 am Post subject:

the key thing with All backup strategies is....

check the results work.

take a clean machine and restore your backups onto it and make sure they work.

the number of times I have seen backups that dont include key data, or inclde software where the install disks/keys are lost, etc etcetcetcetc.

Once you've got the data back - what else do you need to continue to run your business ?

the failure rate of businesses that suffer a system loss is very high.

hedgewitch

Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Posts: 5834
Location: Daft wench GHQ

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 07 10:28 am Post subject:
When I've worked remotely in the past I've done backup of data (i.e. the work I am actually doing rather than system backup) onto an external drive as well as a remote server at the company. In one case I would post a disk of everything to someone on a weekly basis as well, so I had that physically available in a remote location.

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 07 11:04 am Post subject:

For 'live' backup, its hard to beat something like this
https://www.miglia.com/products/storage/mediabank_hsr/index.html

You can swap drives and re-synchronise at any time.
You can have plural offline (even offsite) drives.

For proper protection, you'd have two of the boxes, with one in secure storage!

External storage is to be preferred as being easiest/quickest to regain access to in the event of any system trouble.

First thing though is to separate off your data from your work environment.
System software, applications, typefaces, etc *can* all be replaced at a purely financial cost. Having an up to date restorable copy of your work environment is reassuring, and makes crisis management simpler, BUT its not essential.
However your *own* data files cannot be replaced by a shopping trip.
For them paranoia *is* entirely appropriate.

If you have your data tidily arranged, *any* backup scheme becomes much simpler. Whether manual copying, scripted copying, or use of a 'real' backup program (like Retrospect) its easier if the data is tidily segregated.
Its likely that the amount of varying data is fairly small - probably megabytes (at most) rather than gigabytes.
USB flash drives are cheap and amazingly rugged. Choose a fast device (the flash chips vary widely in {particularly} write speed), buy a few, mark them to identify each individual and keep them in different places. The data would be safer on one of those than on a dvd if you should choose to put one in the car glovebox (though IMHO under the boot carpet would be much better).
For financial data, I'm sure that there are onerous regulations about data security and client confidentiality, so the data on the backup device (or service for that matter) would probably need to be encrypted/protected in some way...

Grimnir

Joined: 29 Mar 2007
Posts: 372
Location: Northants/Beds border

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 07 10:50 am Post subject:
Have you tried Mozy? https://mozy.com/ They are data backup people and will give you 2GB storage free - I've just backed up all my docs, pics, links, etc. As my last pc died on me it's a big relief to get this one backed up!

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28115
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Fri Apr 06, 07 11:20 am Post subject:

dougal wrote:

Its likely that the amount of varying data is fairly small - probably megabytes (at most) rather than gigabytes.

I have read some unpleasant statistics though on the failure to recover from backups, failures often caused by complexities and oversights that tend to occur with attempts to minimise what is backed up.

Having said that you cannot backup entire systems daily

I myself compromise with an assortment of techniques, multiple working copies, incrementals, offserver, offsite, full daily non incremental backups of database.... and more to the point I do test restore data quite regularly.

I think the realities are that backups are a real pain to get right, but one you must address.

mrutty

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1578

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 07 10:23 am Post subject:

Daft question but why use Norton Ghost and the like if running Win2K or greater when you can attach a USB hard drive and do a full backup (listed as normal) then back up system state. If both of these are then moved off to CD/DVD you can then run either Differential or Incremental to the drive and back these off once a week. Then you have off line and online storage. The CD/DVDs can then be stored with a mate, job done.

I used to run a remote backup service but as Jema has pointed out you need the media close by. Getting calls at 4 in the morning from someone who couldn't remember how to recover wasn't worth the money.

Why is it that machines never die when you have loads of spare time???

mrutty

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1578

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 07 10:29 am Post subject:
Oh and if specing a machine remember RAID and set to RAID 1 not the RAID 0 that is default on most systems. https://www.two3five.com/raidsets.htm

jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28115
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 07 11:32 am Post subject:
I like RAID5 Use it in the servers, speed and safety.

mrutty

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 1578

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 07 3:39 pm Post subject:
Yes i prefer RAID 5 but most desktops now come with SATA options which only have 0 or 1

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28115
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Apr 09, 07 3:41 pm Post subject:
It has to be said that with the price of drives now, RAID as a home option is worth serious consideration.

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