What's Your Backup Strategy?

I really need to get into the habit of maintaining a disciplined backup routine. It’s never really been my strong point. Honestly, I think there’s something to be said for actually going through a catestrophic loss of data; all my friends who have done that once in their lives now have a bullet-proof backup strategy. I haven’t been burned yet, and thus it’s tough for me to get serious about getting a backup plan in places, even though intellectually I know that odds are I’m due for a crash. As jamie says, “the universe trends towards maximum irony”.

I’m shocked you don’t use the standard Vista Imaging stuff, or Windows Home Server. There’s lots of options.

Microsoft SyncToy (powertoy downloadable from their website) is also a snazzy GUI tool I use for weekly backups.

more like an advertisement of Acronis :smiley:
On Winodws I don’t backup at all…important files are already under version control…
It always feels nice (if necessary) to wipe out everything and do a fresh install.

XDelta is a CLI backup similar to rsync but with improved compression and speed, plus works across all platforms. Too bad it’s not included natively in anything. ;_; That rsync gui is neat.

Mozy is my offsite. If my house burns down, I have more important things to worry about than having every single thing I ever downloaded, let alone all the ginormous working files. But a local drive does back that up, it’s reasonably fast. Finally convinced myself after a few near-misses that it’s insane not to.

Oh yeah, the trouble with user-mode windows backups (anything CLI especially) is that you won’t get the registry while it’s in use, as well as any other files exclusively opened or you don’t have permission to see. Offline backups are way too much hassle, so make sure you get something that uses Volume Shadow Services.

"If you are using a Mac, the command you use to back up is this:

sudo rsync -vaxE --delete --ignore-errors / /Volumes/Backup/

If you’re using Linux, it’s something a lot like that. If you’re using Windows, go f*ck yourself."

Haha! class :slight_smile:

Funny thing is, even after several failures, I do not regularly back up my data.

Another Mozy user here… it works ok for me. I do not back up everything… just the data that cannot be replaced. Right now I have about 90GB of that and Mozy backs that up just fine. Just be patient when it does the initial backup.

Since Mozy will only back up one computer (technically local drives + USB connected drives on the local PC), something you can do is to sync all your files the PC that has Mozy (use Synctoy, SyncBackSE, etc.)

I’m in the process of storing everything I ever own (digitally, of course) on to Amazon S3, using S3 Backup for Windows. I believe there’s a well written ruby script for it too if you’re on *nix.

I dislike JungleDisk because it is a lock-in. JD has it own conventions for naming data on S3, so if the author ever pulls support, it’ll be a hassle.

RAID-1 is actually the best insurance against hard drive failures. I’m currently running RAID-5 on an array of 4 250 GB drives right now and rather paranoid about the controller dying and not being able to find an exact replacement.

I use Windows XP. I backup anything I wook on daily to a second HD in each PC. Weekly I backup to 2nd HDs on other PCs and external drives. Every once in a while I do an image of my C drive (operating system and installed software, all data is on D or elsewhere).

Tools:

  • Beyond Compare
  • Ghost
  • Various source control softwares, depending on the project and client, some local, some off site
  • SQL Server built-in backup

I used to back up documents and even databases to source control, but it just seemed like an extra step for something that can’t be usefully compared anyway. Now I just keep the folders backed up to other drives. The exception to this is project documentation, which I keep with the source, regardless of type, and which may have useful comments tied to the check-in.

Oh, once every couple of months (I hope – I should really make a set schedule for this) I take a hard disk (and sometimes a DVD or 2) to a safety deposit box at my local bank for off-site backup.

  1. Buy a Windows Home Server machine (mine’s the HP MediaSmart Server).

  2. Install client app on each PC.

  3. Sleep soundly knowing each PC is backed up fully every night.

Seriously, the WHS machine is the best investment I’ve ever made because while I can go through setting up scheduled tasks and installing various software bits and configuring various things I’m too lazy (and my time is better spent on paying projects) and setting up WHS took all of 10 minutes, plus I have a full backup of all the machines in my house with a restore so easy my wife can do it even if I’m not around to help.

I can’t get myself to use online data storage for backing up sensitive personal data, such as credit card info, accounts and passwords, etc. I read about breaches and leaks too often.

My backup strategy for my code at work (all automated I might add):

  1. All projects are in Subversion repositories on a dedicated server.
  2. The Subversion server locally makes zipped archives of all repositories daily, and keeps rolling weekly and monthly copies as well.
  3. The Subversion server is backed up to tape.
  4. My checkouts of those repositories on my development PC are backed up daily as zip archives.
  5. Those zip archives are copied to a NAS, which is also backed up to tape.
  6. Those zip archives are weekly uploaded to my home server.
  7. The deployed code on the production application server is also backed up as zip archives and backed up to tape.

I never thought about it, but when I type it out, it seems paranoid… :slight_smile:

OS X Leopard users can just use Time Machine. Plug in an external drive, click the “Ok, use this drive for time machine button” and that’s about it.

Although SuperDuper is still useful as a bootable backup (I have a 10.4.10 bootable partition, a partition for the Aperture library backup and a few other things like my completed video-projects and one for the bootcamp backup image)

Aside from the laptop OS backup, I generally just copy important files to several drives, and sometimes to DVDs

“5) If you’re on a Mac, that backup drive will be bootable. That means that when (WHEN) your internal drive scorches itself, you can just take your backup drive and put it in your computer and go. This is nice.”

Good quote. Thank you for quoting that.

“7) That third drive? Do a backup onto it the same way, then take that to your office and lock it in a desk. Every few months, bring it home, do a backup, and immediately take it away again. This is your “my house burned down” backup.”

Good quote. Thank you for quoting that.

“You don’t even technically need a second or third hard drive; if you have a large enough primary drive, Acronis will allow you to create a new, hidden partition to store a complete backup image.”

Oh. Um. Out of curiosity, why did you quote those two previous bits of advice?

I keep disk images of a clean OS installs that can be restored onto my MacBook Pro in a few minutes. Every major OS X version except 10.0, one Vista and an XP I probably still have my 98SE image.

Also a bootable 500GB TimeMachine disk, another spare/unused 500GB disk that could be used for backups whenever I start needing it. Nothing offsite tho, if my house burns down I have more important stuff to care about than my data.

When my harddisk fails I’m can theoretically be up and running again in 15 to 30 minutes. I learned my lesson at the last harddrive that went suicidal on me.

You don’t even technically need a second or third hard drive; if you
have a large enough primary drive, Acronis will allow you to create a
new, hidden partition to store a complete backup image.

You must be crazy :slight_smile:

Storing the backup on the same harddrive from where that backup is made? That’s by far the worst backup-strategy ever and should not even be mentioned in any case (as someone might take it seriously).

Windows Home Server. No work necessary.

  1. each night it does a incremental backup of all 4 computers
  2. i can backup the backups to an external USB drive and take to work once a month
  3. use Mozy/Carbonie for critical files (like my life would be ruined if I lost them)
  4. use FolderShare to replicate C:\users\omars\documents to all my computers