What's your backup strategy these days?

Thanks for the SyncToy recommendation. Nice program, easy to use, and remembers your previous folders. I'll use that from now on. I do something very similar, not online backup, but weekly backups of one folder containing all my personal files, one folder containing all my portable programs, and music.

 

File and folder backup - Robocopy (via command script).
Image backup - Macrium Reflect FREE (will be purchasing full version soon).

 

OS: Windows 7 x64

Two main partitions - one for OS and programs, and one for data. Backups are stored on the data partition, and then periodically burned to DVD, with one burned copy placed offsite and the other copy remaining onsite.

OS backup: Macrium Reflect Free
Data partition file-based backup: Areca Backup (free)
Online backup of files within My Documents: SpiderOak free 2 GB account
Synchronization and folder contents comparision: FreeFileSync

 

Paragon Backup & Recovery Free, always image my system partition every week.

Uses SkyDrive for important data, sometimes with encryption.

 

I have a Synology NAS device with Raid1 mirrored drives that now house my important data.

I use Macrium for system images and store these on the NAS box and dvd on occasion.

I have 1 80gb SSD drive for system, 1tb for programs and 750gb for general stuff, like VMs and projects.

I have other servers as well, but tend to use the NAS box more now. At work I have been using Turnkey Ubuntu appliance lately for a file server in Raid1, but still use a 6 disk array (5x scsi 15k hot swap with 1 spare) with W2k-AS for the really important stuff.

I use Beyond Compare when needed to sync working directories with the archived directories.

I now tend to create custom scripts that copy my projects to other media. For example, a shortcut (F12) in one IDE will make a copy of the current code to a custom directory on a share or a flash drive. I then use Beyond Compare periodically to sync these incremental files to the master archive.

Sul.

 

Summary:
- Paragon HDM 2010 Suite.
- 250GB Seagate Drive.
- System partition + Data Partition + Paragon Backup Capsule.
- Frequent backup of System and Data partitions to Backup capsule.
- Less frequent sector-by-sector clone of Seagate 250GB drive to WD 250GB drive.

The WD drive is only used for the clone operation, using a Stargate trayless drive bay for quick insertion/extraction. Note that cloning takes 2-1/2 hours, proportionally longer time for larger drives.

If the Seagate drive were to fail, I would simply replace it with the WD cloned drive.

 

Good thread! Lots of product ideas to try out.

I have 2 drives (1 OS/apps, 1 data), each RAID1 (though I don't know if it's worth it -- I only had a motherboard failure, not drive, but replacing it caused me to rebuild the OS (took about 16 hours!) because of the change in the RAID controller).

System drive: I image my OS/app drive using Image For DOS (boot from floppy). Before making a new image, I restore my last known-good image, reinstall what I want to keep, update software, and make the new image. Basically my last known-good image is about 3 hours old from initial install over 1 year ago. Worked well even when my system drives were recently upgraded; no down time!

Data drive: I use Beyond Compare to synch my data drives to an external (eSata) drive. Once the initial copy is in place, updates take about 5 min. and I'm left with a copy I can plug in anywhere and use as if at home, then resynch back to my data drive.

 

Going to try out Paragon System Backup after saving MBR and system image.

Anyone had good or bad experiences with it?

 

Isn't skydrive limited to 50MB file uploads? I would think an image would not fit in that category, or did you mean something else?

Al

 

SkyDrive is mainly for important documents backup.

 

I do full image back-up of every system using ATI Home every month(or any major changes to software,files) on separate drive(internal for image back-up only).

My Personal files in encrypted in USB hdd/DVD/thumbdrive.

Have Seagate DiscWizard on an old system which has an internal back-up drive (for full system backup only).Every month(or any major changes to software,files).

 

It works great for me, and is compatible with my Paragon imaging program. Chose to incremental snapshot every day and disabled system restore.

Successfully restored twice now, using MBR recovery environment.

 

For a while now, I've had the following setup for backup...

Raid0 Partitions - C:\ Windows (50GB) , D:\ Documents (1.69TB)

• Initial backup of C:\ with Active@ Disk Image to External Drive.
• Daily backups of C:\ with Active@ Disk Image to D:\.
• Manually copy over data from D:\ to External Drive as needed.

dja2k

 

My backup strategy is very simple

I install Windows 7 Ultimate x64 --> Installation of all required software except security setup --> Customize my installation (Windows unnecessary features turned off, secpol.msc, gpedit.msc, services.msc, Windows Updates, visual enhancements by themes and settings) --> Cleaning of all junk from "C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download" and other places manually and by using Disk Cleanup and CCleaner --> Defragmentation via Raxco PerfectDisk Pro 11 --> Run sysprep from "C:\Windows\System32\sysprep" to make generalized backup image in case my HDD show error or I upgrade system at later stage --> On restart, boot from Active Boot Disk Suite via USB (made with Active@ Boot Disk Creator 5.0.5 + license) and full backup on other HDD with password protection --> Install and use strong up-to-dated security combination (see my signatures) along with Returnil --> Backup image storage on two different secure places.
Never has any problem with above process. Important files are stored on second HDD. Very important files are stored on two places + online account with strong password protection in archive format.

 

Drive snapshot for windows imaging + Copy of important files in an off-line hard disk.

 

Same here.

DS is been flawless from beginning to present and continues even though i stayed with 38 and not 39 version, because it seems to work nearly as well from DOS on XP for me using a boot disk.

The backups are immaculate as are the restores.

Just can't say enough for this little jewell!

A once-in-a-lifetime worthy piece of skillful work by it's designer!

EASTER

 

As one who also uses (and praises) DS, I would strongly suggest that you upgrade ...not to the 39 version, but to the current 40 version (current build is 1.40.0.15045).

 

Just purchased Shadowprtotect 4 and a new 1tb Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache hdd £39.99, For backing up my laptop and my mac osx.
I`m loving shadowprotect speed and simplicity it`s awesome. Done a full image of about 120gb in about 45minutes ( rough est of time)

 

Software used: ShadowProtect v4.0.1

Backup location: 2 TB Synology DiskStation DS209 (NAS) - RAID 1

Frequency: Full image once per week with daily incrementals for the each drive. I retain the last four image sets for each drive.

This setup is for all of the PCs on my home network.

 

Gladly, but under one condition.

What is the benefit of upgrading without a DS DOS Boot Disk because the old version is been for me 100% flawless and that is proven itself in a league of it's own. More then can be said about plenty of today's softwares in spite of their so-called guarantees.

Need more info why please you feel this upgrade needed at all.

Thanks

 

The following enhancements were made throughout the v1.39 builds:

· Supports Restore into VMware
· Mounted Snapshots are writeable (data are buffered in RAM)
· Ability to exclude files and folders has been enhanced (exclude:*.mp3)
· Defective Images may be able to be repaired
· Allows installation of additional disk drivers in WinPE/BartPE
· Fixed some bugs in Vista x64

The following enhancements were made throughout the v1.40 builds:

· Ability to intiate a system restore (at next restart) from within Windows!
- Added capabiity for image password protection
· Moving image to different hardware assistance
· Support for Windows 7

Hth,
Aaron

 

Presently, none.

I just rely on FD_ISR.

Not willing to tamper with my current setup!

P.S. I have been up and running continually since September 2007, with the original install...no reformats, and I test betas all the time.

P.S.S. Data is on separate drive to the OS...so if one or the other drive fails, well you can surmise...

 

I am living on "hope and a prayer" as they say. Currently no backup routine other than an occasional image or backup before doing something that might cause problems.

For example I am getting read to shift from Slackware stable to current, I will create a full image before just in case Murphy steps in.

I do have plans but alas have not put them in to practice yet. A simple task, need only to modify some existing scripts. Only excuse is lazy. Hope it does not bite me.

 

• Data is first stored on my laptop's 640GB SATA hard drive. Videos are viewed online or in DVDs/BDs.

• A backup of bookmarks, docs, feeds, pics and musics is stored on my 8GB Sony Micro Vault Click USB flash drive. Excluding the musics, this data is stored on the SkyDrive online service as well. The update frequency is monthly - sometimes more, sometimes less.

• Some favorite musics are stored on my 2GB Sony Ericsson K810i Memory Stick. I don't have any iPod. The favorite musics change overtime.

• Passwords and other sensitive data are stored on the LastPass online service. A strongly encrypted backup of this sensitive data is stored on different secure locations with an update frequency of "when needed".

• As for system related backup, there are many ways to restore things if a failure occurs. The laptop comes with HP tools for that end that are well combined with Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium x64's own related features. All in automatic mode.

 

Thanks, will shall take those new measures into serious consideration!

QUALITY/FLAWLESS BACKUPS ARE PRICELESS!

EASTER