Backup Strategy for a N00b

[Luddite]

I'm on Windows 7 still, and will be getting a new desktop computer (with Windows 10) sometime within the next several weeks.

I've never experienced a catastrophic hardware failure and haven't taken backup very seriously until now. I've always just backed up important files on a thumb drive. I only have a desktop PC, no laptop or portable device. My needs have usually been simple.

So along with my new computer, I'm going to start taking back-up more seriously. Will use the 3-2-1 method. I'm just confused over the best way to implement this method for my needs. I don't have a lot of storage, but I figure over the next 5-7 years, I'll probably accumulate a total of about 1 TB worth of files.

My questions are:

1. In the event of a catrastrophic hardware failure, and I need to replace an internal harddrive in my desktop PC, what's the easiest and fastest backup strategy for restoring all my files and programs I had at the time of the failure? Would this be with a disk image? If so, does a disk image allow me to restore the OS on a new harddrive without having to reinstall Windows and all individual files and programs, license keys, etc., from scratch? Do I keep the image backup on an external harddrive, and then transfer (clone?) it to the new harddrive? How exactly does this work?

2. Is getting a NAS for backup worth it for a single user?

3. If I get a laptop for backup, can I sync my desktop PC OS (and all files and programs) to the laptop? Or only single files/folders? How does syncing work?

Thanks!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Would this be with a disk image?

Yes, check out Macrium Reflect, they have a Free version, which, the newest one, allows you to schedule backups from within Windows, and then use bootable media (that you have to create), that uses WinPE 10 to do a bare-metal restore to a fresh drive. Also over a LAN, to/from a NAS (Windows File Share.)

Is getting a NAS for backup worth it for a single user?

Given my personal experiences with NAS, YES! I use QNAP products, they work for me. Not the cheapest around though. If you hurry, the QNAP 951X 10GbE-capable 9-bay NAS unit is $140 off at Newegg on BF with a promo code. HURRY! (Edit: Currently SOLD OUT from Newegg.)

That might be a bit much to start out with, but trust me, it makes sense to "buy more than you need initially", and "grow into it".

If you don't get a 951X, then check out the TS-451, TS-451+, TS-451P. Four-bay NAS, Intel Atom 64-bit CPU. HDMI output. Can do virtualization stuff on the NAS, too.

I have a TS-451, non-plus model, among others.

If budget is really a big issue, then consider, at the very least, a TS-231P model. It's a 2-bay, ARM CPU, but enough to get you started and up and running.

TS-231P, really reasonable at $118, must be a BF price. Limited expansion, only 2 bays, recommend 2x large SATA NAS drives, set up in RAID1 (mirroring - should be automatically configured when you install two identical drives).

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822107532&Description=qnap nas&cm_re=qnap_nas-_-22-107-532-_-Product

can I sync my desktop PC OS (and all files and programs) to the laptop? Or only single files/folders? How does syncing work?

Check out DropBox or OneDrive. I don't have extensive experience with drive-Sync-type products, I don't use them. I use my NAS for centralized file storage, rather than syncing up multiple individual clients, each with their own copies of those files. QNAP does offer their own file-Sync program that works in conjunction with their NAS units, called, Q-Sync.

Edit: Other NAS units, include Synology, and Drobo, and Asustore.

 

[Luddite]

Thanks Larry.

So is Macrium Reflect kind of like Time Machine for Windows?

If I had an up-to-the minute snapshot of my internal drive on an external drive, and I needed to replace my internal drive with a fresh unformatted new one, how does the transfer work exactly? If I had 1TB of data, what bootable media would hold that much?

What advantage is there to a single user of a NAS over simply an external harddrive? (I mean besides the obvious of being able to host). In terms of strictly backup strategy, what is the advantage? If there is a fire, the NAS will be destroyed too.

 

[Ranulf]

With Macrium and those types of image/cloners you would boot the computer from a usb stick with the Macrium OS/WinPE, and then run image restore. That would pull the back up image on your storage drive (external or internal) and put it on the new drive. For my gaming machine, I store the OS image and the game ssd drive image on an internal hdd in the game pc and on a seperate NAS.

The benefit of a NAS is that it is usually easier to grab that and run when there is a fire. A network transfer is also usually faster than an usb3 external hdd.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So is Macrium Reflect kind of like Time Machine for Windows?

I don't do Mac, so I don't know exactly, but it should probably function similarly.

If I had an up-to-the minute snapshot of my internal drive on an external drive, and I needed to replace my internal drive with a fresh unformatted new one, how does the transfer work exactly? If I had 1TB of data, what bootable media would hold that much?

The bootable media does not hold the backup images. Only the backup program and the OS to boot from to load the backup/restore program. Your backup images, would be on an external USB HDD, or a NAS.

What advantage is there to a single user of a NAS over simply an external harddrive? (I mean besides the obvious of being able to host). In terms of strictly backup strategy, what is the advantage? If there is a fire, the NAS will be destroyed too.

True, both are local on-site backups, and in case of fire or theft, you really want an off-site backup as well.

But in terms of both reliability and convenience, I think that the NAS solution wins in both categories, easily, even though it is initially more expensive.

For a laptop, for example, if you set up Macrium Reflect to do a scheduled incremental backup every day at 7:00AM, with an external HDD, YOU have to remember to get up, plug in the external HDD into the laptop, and wait for the backup to start.

With a NAS on your LAN (with a wifi router), it just does it's thing, no need for physical intervention.

 

[Luddite]

With Macrium and those types of image/cloners you would boot the computer from a usb stick with the Macrium OS/WinPE, and then run image restore. That would pull the back up image on your storage drive (external or internal) and put it on the new drive. For my gaming machine, I store the OS image and the game ssd drive image on an internal hdd in the game pc and on a seperate NAS.

Ah, thanks. So you boot from a stick (or DVD) and that brings up the EUFI, and from the EUFI you can instruct it to pull the image from an external drive onto your new unformatted harddrive?

The benefit of a NAS is that it is usually easier to grab that and run when there is a fire. A network transfer is also usually faster than an usb3 external hdd.

Interesting, I was just reading this: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/006678en

 

[Luddite]

For a laptop, for example, if you set up Macrium Reflect to do a scheduled incremental backup every day at 7:00AM, with an external HDD, YOU have to remember to get up, plug in the external HDD into the laptop, and wait for the backup to start.

With a NAS on your LAN (with a wifi router), it just does it's thing, no need for physical intervention.

I see, so could I actually schedule an automatic daily incremental backup from my desktop PC to both the NAS and the laptop simultaneously?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I see, so could I actually schedule an automatic daily incremental backup from my desktop PC to both the NAS and the laptop simultaneously?

No, you wouldn't backup the desktop to BOTH the NAS and the laptop... but you could backup the desktop AND the laptop, TO the NAS.

 

[Luddite]

How would I automatically backup my laptop? From the NAS or from the PC?

Also, if I have more than one internal HDD in my PC (let's say, three drives), can I schedule to backup from all my internal HDDs to the NAS (or external HDD). Or would I need to make three separate schedules?

 

[VirtualLarry]

How would I automatically backup my laptop? From the NAS or from the PC?

Install Macrium on BOTH the desktop and the laptop, and then point them BOTH to the NAS, to store the backups.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Also, if I have more than one internal HDD in my PC (let's say, three drives), can I schedule to backup from all my internal HDDs to the NAS (or external HDD). Or would I need to make three separate schedules?

Depends on how you configure the backup "job". You can it either way, I believe.

 

[Luddite]

Install Macrium on BOTH the desktop and the laptop, and then point them BOTH to the NAS, to store the backups.

Thanks. What if I want my laptop to have the same up-to-date data as my PC?
(That's why I was curious about syncing).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks. What if I want my laptop to have the same up-to-date data as my PC?
(That's why I was curious about syncing).

Then, that's really not an image backup, that you could bare-metal restore from.

That's more of a file-sync problem.

Edit: I should re-iterate, although MS, Google, and DropBox have internet-based services for file-sync, NAS units like the QNAP family and probably Synology (though I've never used those) should be able to handle it too, and at LAN speeds (gigabit or better), instead of internet speeds (which for most people, is less than a gigabit). (I have gigabit internet, and even so, I've been told that these file-sync services are "throttled" for gigabit internet users as well. So LAN is still superior.)

 

[Ranulf]

Ah, thanks. So you boot from a stick (or DVD) and that brings up the EUFI, and from the EUFI you can instruct it to pull the image from an external drive onto your new unformatted harddrive?



Interesting, I was just reading this: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/006678en

1. Yes. 2. That is faq is talking about 10/100 network speeds which most should not be using these days and even if you do have older 10/100 devices most switches and routers use autosensing on a port by port basis which means your whole network is not going to run at the slowest speed network card/port.

 

[Luddite]

Are most NAS and external HDDs hot swapable?

I was thinking of getting a 2-bay in RAID 1. Then hot swap out one of the drives every week/month to store off site.

Also, are there any decent priced 2-bay NAS with self-healing file systems like btrfs and come with ECC memory?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Also, are there any decent priced 2-bay NAS with self-healing file systems like btrfs and come with ECC memory?

I think recent QNAP OS firmware uses BTRFS now, as it now supports "Snapshots". As far as ECC, I have no idea.

 

[Luddite]

Just another quick question: When hot swapping a disk in RAID 1, does the disk need to be new and empty? Or can I hot swap a disk that has data on it and was previously hot swapped? I am wondering if I can use three disks and keep them each updated by rotating them in and out?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think that they need to be clean / empty.

 

[Luddite]

After some more thought I've decided I don't need a NAS.

All I'm trying to accomplish is simple backup. What I want to do is back up my internal desktop drive(s) to an external drive(s), and then have a copy of the external drive located off-site.

What is the simplest, cheapest way to accomplish this? (Cloud storage is too expensive)

Should I use some kind of RAID or JBOD configuration? I want to be able to update/backup the off-site drive about once a week/month. Can I rotate my off-site drive in and out of a RAID configuration? Or would I need to copy the data from the RAID to the off-site drive?

Currently I'm looking at an external drive something like this: https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.a ... gnorebbr=1 It can do single disk, JBOD, RAID 0 and 1

I'm open to other models.

 

[UsandThem]

Have you looked at the cloud services from Google and Amazon?

For example, for 2TB of data with Google, it is $99 year. They have a program that even auto syncs all the files you add or change. If you think you will stay under 1TB of data, then Amazon has a plan for $59.99 for a year.

This way you are not having to buy storage like you linked to, and if you went with Amazon's plan, that's almost 4 years of storage for the price you would have paid. That's what I do for my backup needs. One local external drive + cloud copy.

 

[Charlie22911]

If you want to DIY, pick up a SBC like the Raspberry Pi and keep it at a friends house running with nextcloud or syncthing.

 

[Luddite]

If you want to DIY, pick up a SBC like the Raspberry Pi and keep it at a friends house running with nextcloud or syncthing.

No idea what this is.

 

[Luddite]

Have you looked at the cloud services from Google and Amazon?

For example, for 2TB of data with Google, it is $99 year. They have a program that even auto syncs all the files you add or change. If you think you will stay under 1TB of data, then Amazon has a plan for $59.99 for a year.

This way you are not having to buy storage like you linked to, and if you went with Amazon's plan, that's almost 4 years of storage for the price you would have paid. That's what I do for my backup needs. One local external drive + cloud copy.

I'm looking at probably accumulating 4TB over the next ten years.

Google's subscription would cost me $1000. over that time.

 

[Charlie22911]

I don’t mind helping, but at least take some of the initiative to look it up; we can’t do it for you

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=50378

 

[Ranulf]

I'm looking at probably accumulating 4TB over the next ten years.

Google's subscription would cost me $1000. over that time.

For only 4tb of data, unless you care about speed just go with external drives. Go buy 1-3 4tb+ externals and rotate them at your offsite storage per week/month/whatever.