Backup Setup Recommendation

[Collider]

Hi all,

I'm considering some options for my backup setup and wanted to gather some recommendations. This is for my home PC.

Environment, things I'm looking to backup:
80GB SSD (OS/ProgramFiles) - complete clone of this drive
2x640GB RAID-0 (Games/work files) - backing up just work files
2TB (Media) - most of this drive, currently 80% full

I'm thinking to fit everything comfortably and have some room to spare I'd need either a 3TB or 2x2TB. There are some attractive options around such as DROBO but they're too expensive.

So far I'm a bit lost between all of the options available (NAS, eSATA, or internal). I know each one has its pros/cons but some additional input would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[LurchFrinky]

NAS is most useful if you have several computers needing access to the same files. It is not, in and of itself, a backup solution (although there is nothing keeping you from using it as such).

The two simplest solutions would probably be an online backup service and a simple external hard drive. I think 3TB might be a bit much for a consumer level online option, so I would suggest an external hard drive. It doesn't have to be anything fancy - a single 3 or 4 TB HDD in an external enclosure should be fine. For this much data, you will want to use either USB 3.0 or eSATA in order to finish in a reasonable time.

You may want to plan a more elegant solution in the future, but I would suggest periodically copying everything over and then moving the backup somewhere safe (offsite or in a fire safe).

 

[Coup27]

The cheapest and simplist option for you for that volume of data is an external drive(s) connected over either eSATA or USB3 which you backup onto and then store in the loft preferably in a fireproof & waterproof metal container. This keeps all the bases apart from an off-site backup covered. Off-site though is pretty inpractical for a domestic user but if its fire and water proofed and out of the practical reach of theft you should be covered.

Online backup solutions for that amount of data are a non-starter. You could stick a NAS drive somewhere else in the house, or even loft but then it won't be protected from a disaster.

Edit: what about a 4TB ioSafe SoloPro? http://www.anandtech.com/show/5731/...-proofing-your-storage-needs]Anandtech Review

 

[iluvdeal]

I'd back the USB3/eSATA recommendations as well. I'd go with the most storage you can afford, it's not just enough to match the current storage you have, remember you'll also be wanting to backup the deltas, ex. you want to retrieve a copy of word document from 1 month ago before certain changes were made to it or a clone of your boot drive before you got infected with virus.

 

[Collider]

One thing that I was thinking was to back up OS/Program files disk & work files -> 2TB drive after making it a mirror raid-1 array w/ another 2TB drive.

This way I'll have a copy of everything including my media.

Bad idea?

 

[Coup27]

One thing that I was thinking was to back up OS/Program files disk & work files -> 2TB drive after making it a mirror raid-1 array w/ another 2TB drive.

This way I'll have a copy of everything including my media.

Bad idea?

Either I don't get it or your post doesn't make much sense. Remember a "backup" should include your master (on-site), and an off-site. As off-site for domestic is inpractical, it should be fireproof and waterproof and away from theft. Having loads of RAID1 of your data will be great from a disk failure perspective, but won't cover you for any of the above.

 

[Collider]

Either I don't get it or your post doesn't make much sense. Remember a "backup" should include your master (on-site), and an off-site. As off-site for domestic is inpractical, it should be fireproof and waterproof and away from theft. Having loads of RAID1 of your data will be great from a disk failure perspective, but won't cover you for any of the above.

I see your point.

 

[jimhsu]

Suggestion: Tier your backups. I assume you aren't a heavy 1080p video editor or processing multi-gigabyte datasets, as your needs in that case will be different from normal people. But here goes:

Tier 1: Irreplaceable data, frequently changed (documents, personal effects, work, thesis, wedding photos, etc): multiple backup locations. Mirror on a local/external disk. Back up online (Backblaze, crashplan, etc). Get a 3rd copy on another online source (i.e DropBox), or use some offsite storage (work computer? friend?). If especially paranoid, write a script to automatically make a 4th or 5th copy on a flash drive that you carry with you / wallet / etc.

My current backup strategy for the above:
a. Local disk mirror, automatically scripted
b. SVN repo on an internet VPS host (that is subsequently backed up by c). This automatically gets me desktop, laptop, and remote backup simultaneously.
c. Automatic crashplan to online source.
d. Automatic crashplan to another computer that I own (somewhere else)

This is across three/four different cities in the US, separated geographically. Living in TX, this makes sense if we get a monster category 5 hurricane.

Tier 2: Hard to replace data, infrequently changed (music, movies, misc photos): Mirror on a local/external disk. Online backup for the parts that are somewhat more important. Additional offsite storage, possibly burn some DVDs and stash it somewhere.

Tier 3: Easily replaceable data (program files, games, windows install): Local disk mirror. Make sure the original install media is safe, if that is non-replaceable.

 

[icanhascpu2]

I would highly suggest Acronis TrueImage Home 2012. Set it to a daily incremental backup with a full backup every 7 days or so. You can also limit the backups so they will delete the oldest after a certain size is reached or time etc. Has compression and many many features and you do not even need a bootable OS to recover a full (SSD) partition (rescue flash drive)

 

[Collider]

Thanks for the info guys, this gave me some ideas on what I should be doing.

 

[kmmatney]

There are a lot of options if it just one computer. i have 6 computers to back up at home, so Windows Home server worked best for me. The automatic backups are nice - you just set it up and forget about it. I'm still using WHS ver 1, which was great as I can just add random drives whenever I need to expand the storage pool. Hopefully this feature will return win WHS v 3.

 

[Charlie98]

I use a local backup storage drive for OS/programs, an external HDD for weekly backups (stored in safe in house,) and every so often I make a complete image of my SSD on another HDD and store it elsewhere. Additionally, I have my data files on my laptop, updated weekly.

As far as my media (music and video) I consider it somewhat expendable (my life won't end if I lose it, but I won't be happy about it...) I use an additional local storage HDD (to counter a drive failure, not computer loss) and, for the moment, back it up as well on the external HDD (it fits now, but won't soon.)

 

[Topweasel]

If you can something like a Windows Home Server setup for once a week backups with the WHS being stored at a family members house and vpning in with something like himachi, could work.