Re: Backup--a different approach

["Carl Distefano" cld@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from Harry Binswanger  Mon, 29 May 2017
01:16:02 -0400

> ... I've been extremely pleased with disk cloning through
> *hardware*. I have the Aluratek drive duplicator.
>
> https://www.ebay.com/p/?iid=122491856845&&&dispItem=1&chn=ps
>
> Every Saturday morning, I shut down my Lenovo ThinkPad laptop,
> unscrew the one simple screw that holds in the hard drive, ...

Interesting, Harry, though, as you note, as a backup solution it
depends on having easy access to the installed hard drive.

Inspired by this thread, though, I went and got ShadowProtect and a new
Western Digital Passport 4 TB external drive. (It's been about five
years since my last external-drive purchase; this time, the same money
bought me twice the storage at one-quarter the size. The WD Passport
comes in a range of spiffy colors, with matching hard-shell carrying
cases.) Setup and performing/verifying full and incremental backups
proved easy, though I do take Kari's point about the ShadowProtect user
interface, which is a bit clunky ... but no matter.

The biggest challenge, such as it was, was to make sure that the system
is awake for each scheduled backup. I do this via the Windows task
scheduler, by establishing a dummy task (cmd.exe /c exit) to be run a
minute before each scheduled backup and -- critically -- in the
Conditions tab, checking the box to "Wake the computer to run this
task". It works.

My next step will be to acquire additional drives, for more space and
off-site storage.

--
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx