Msg: Re: Backup--OT

-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Binswanger
To: xywrite
Sent: Sun, Apr 20, 2014 11:35 am
Subject: Re: Backup--OT

I perhaps have oversold the difficulty of using the Aluratek drive duplicator. To take out the drive, shove it in the device, add a backup drive, and get the process started takes about one minute. The duplicating process itself, for my SSD to copy to a non-SSD hard drive takes about 20 minutes. It's a 128 G drive. I have two (bare) backup drives that I alternate, doing a dupe about every 10 days. I have (many, many) other ways of backing up the data. One that I recommend highly is Dropbox with "pack rat," which I've mentioned before. It saves *every* version of every file that's in your Dropbox folder. I have over a thousand versions of some oft-used files. To restore is very easy: you go to Dropbox.com, log in, and see immediately a directory of everything as it is now. When you navigate to the file you want a previous version of, you right click on it and select from the pop up menu "Previous versions" (or some such wording). You find the one you want and it's one click to download it to your computer (doesn't overwrite anything, IIRC). I have all my data files as sub-folders off my C:\Dropbox folder. E.g., C:\Dropbox\Eudora7 and C:\Dropbox\xy I have over 40 Dropbox sub-folders. Using Dropbox this way is counter-intuitive, but amazingly good. There's no drag on your system. It uploads files *really* fast and works in the background (I turned off the little notification messages). --Harry >I'm also an Acronis TI user, and it has saved the day for me a couple >times in the past, though I don't know how much that really puts it to the >test. I rely on its image backups for a few different computers -- which >I really ought to do more like every couple weeks, rather than the 2 - 3 >month intervals I seem to manage -- and just hope for the best. > >It is true that the only *drop-in* replacements (no boot-up / restore >process, with images and the software that made them) are full, identical >or equivalent duplicate hard drives. I have done this occasionally in the >past, and may do it again at some point, but it's clearly more of a big >deal to do this, with associated negatives and limitations. Not just >needing a bunch of extra HDDs, which is not cost-prohibitive to the degree >it once was, but that the work involved is much more, and then the job is >only good for a few weeks (at the most) before it would need to be done >again. Then, storing some of these off-site is probably also a better >disaster procedure -- unless your city is hit by an earthquake, or >something. I guess it depends on how vital your backups are. > >I facilitated this by standardizing on desktop rigs that had very easily >accessible HDDs and a couple of built-in hard drive controllers, plus >e-SATA ports as an alternate method, providing additional ways of >temporarily hooking up an external drive for direct cloning. USB-3 has >largely replaced e-SATA on newer systems, and should be just as good for >this, if not slightly faster; USB-2 is painfully slow. I know someone who >favors tower desktop systems with pull-out drive trays. That would make >it easy, too. Laptops would probably be the most difficult, for cloning. > >But not many will go to this trouble or expense. Conventional imaging >solutions will continue to be the most practical ones, for full boot-drive >backups. > > > Jordan > > > >From: Kari Eveli lexitec@xxxxxxxx >To: xywrite@xxxxxxxx >Sent: Friday, April 18, 2014 1:34 AM >Subject: Re: Backup--OT > >I have used Acronis with success for years despite its somewhat flaky >user interface. Acronis makes a true whole-disk image (sector-by-sector >if needed) that can resized to fit resized partitions.