Online backup

TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

Decided to look into offsite backup for my house, and went with Mozy. It's $5/month, unlimited storage.

Problem is that Mozy doesnt support Windows 2008 Server as a "normal" OS and made me want to upgrade to a business (much pricier) account. But, it's where we store all our videos, photos, etc.

So... I created a virtual machine running Windows 7 in Hyper-V, and copy all my stuff to that (which is basically a virtual HD on the Win 2k8 box), and then back it up to Mozy.

It's slower than death, cuz TWC gives me a 384k pipe, but I'm sure at some point it will get through the 400GB I have to store.
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thibodeaux
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Post by thibodeaux »

This still working out for you?

What are you the rest of youse guys using?
GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

No offsite backup. Just instructions to the wife, "If there is a fire, THIS is the external HD you want to grab."

She'll grab that HD before she grabs the cat.

We have a safety deposit box. Have been entertaining the idea of putting a HD in there.




Edited By GORDON on 1294077169
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thibodeaux
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Post by thibodeaux »

Gordon,

Do you have a backup program to keep your stuff on the HD current?
GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

thibodeaux wrote:Gordon,

Do you have a backup program to keep your stuff on the HD current?
Nope. Just copy shit over to the external now and then.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

I'm not big on online storage (or email or any other SaaS). Too many variables. You don't know if that company will fold overnight. You don't know who they hire and if they go through your files (if you've worked in IT, you KNOW that's a real possibility). You don't know how good their security is, what their backup procedures are like, etc.

I don't use such services for my personal or corporate needs.

Instead, I do essentially what Gordo just stated. External storage is too big, easy to use, and cheap as hell to ignore. I just bought a 3TB Ext HD for $150 (1TB model was less than $100) or so from Best Buy. These things are doing nothing but going up in size too. Plus, they're now USB 3.0.

I store everything on my computer's secondary drive, and then back it up onto the Ext HD. I could store it in the bank, but bringing it into work and putting it in my desk is essentially the same thing.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
thibodeaux
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Post by thibodeaux »

How do you copy it? Robocopy or xcopy or something? Scheduled batch job, or just whenever you think about it?
TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

I let my subscription die. I just dont have enough bandwidth to backup everything I'd want backed up.

Instead I use stuff like Windows Live Mesh to backup selected important files (<5GB total), and use a 6-drive RAID 5 to store all important media.

I just read about Easeus Backup which is supposed to be a great home-use backup tool that can backup to external drives.

I think my new plan is 1) buy 2 external drives, 2) keep one at home, one at work, and rotate monthly.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

You can setup a backup using even the basic backup program that comes with Windows.

Sounds like Gordon and I use the same drag and drop copy method whenever we happen to remember to do it. Save all your files where ever you put them and when you remember to backup, simply copy the file onto the ext HD. Anything already exists, just skip that file or overwrite it.

I think my new plan is 1) buy 2 external drives, 2) keep one at home, one at work, and rotate monthly.


That is the exact plan I recommend to all my family, friends, employees, and private clients.




Edited By Leisher on 1294078361
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

I have a batch file that copies all imported files from the server to my desktop. It then starts a winrar script that compresses all the files with a password. I use the Windows scheduler built into Windows XP and tell it to run every day at 2pm after my PC has been idle for over 10 minutes.

I have other batch files that copy laptops to my hard drive as well and run the winrar scripts for password protected compression.

My plan included copying the files to DVDs and handing copies off to my niece who visits once a week for the offsite part of the back up. I haven't stuck to this part though.

So, batch files that are kicked off daily using Windows scheduler with relatives acting as offsite storage for me, is my plan.

I also have my own email server. I don't trust the domain host servers any more. Any time my domain host, or people I know's hosts, have issues and have to restore from a backup, the amount of data loss is catastrophic. Last case for me, after 3 years of being with someone, when they restored from back up, my website was reduced to the 'welcome to [host name site], the owner of this site will be updating soon'. In other words, wiped out to a default site. Had to recreate all email accounts, etc again. NOTHING was saved after 3 years of being with them. So, ya, I don't trust online sites that claim daily, or whenever, backups.
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Post by Malcolm »

thibodeaux wrote:How do you copy it? Robocopy or xcopy or something? Scheduled batch job, or just whenever you think about it?
Back when I used to give a damn about backups, yeah, I'd write a tiny script and schedule it weekly (or nightly if I was really paranoid at the time).
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TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

For the record, if I had upload bandwidth (like friends with FIOS), I totally would have kept Mozy. They made a lot of great improvements in the software over time (bandwidth scheduling, etc). It just couldnt handle the vast amount of stuff I wanted to backup. (~25GB/week)
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TPRJones
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Post by TPRJones »

All my data is on a NAS, and I've got a scheduled batch file to kick off weekly backups of my desktop to the NAS as well. Nothing offsite, although I do have plans to get a fireproof box set up to slip the NAS into and stash it in a hidden location, the better to keep it from being destroyed or stolen. Until then it sits on the counter and I just hope I'm not robbed (again).
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Cakedaddy
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Post by Cakedaddy »

Make sure your fireproof safe is as fireproof as you want it to be. Many fireproof safes just guarantee that the safe its self won't burn. But the interior temp gets so hot that the contents are still destroyed. So, ya, your hard drive didn't burn up. But the melted pile of goop in the safe is still useless. Paper isn't safe either. If the temp is high enough, the end result will be carbonized paper (paper that looks burnt, but never actually burned).

So, make sure it's a good fireproof safe if you want the contents to actually survive a fire.
TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

I have changed providers. Today I signed up with CrashPlan.

Why?
- Because it's free to backup to a friend's computer, but you can still use their software.
- The cloud plans are affordable with much larger storage than others have for the same prices.
- I use Windows 2008 as my OS on my main machine. I'm not a business, but every other provider wants to charge me business rates.

I have a 20TB array on my server, and have set a quota of 500GB for my brother to backup to.

If anyone else wants to back up to my array, let me know. I have 5mbps up / 30 mbps down connection.
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Paul
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Post by Paul »

You just want us to backup our pr0n.
TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

Today one of the drives in my laptop died. Fortunately, all the crap I cared about was backed up to CrashPlan and my server, so 20GB of stuff is restoring now.

Seriously, if anyone wants space to backup to my array for remote backup, let me know.
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GORDON
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Post by GORDON »

TheCatt wrote:Today one of the drives in my laptop died. Fortunately, all the crap I cared about was backed up to CrashPlan and my server, so 20GB of stuff is restoring now.

Seriously, if anyone wants space to backup to my array for remote backup, let me know.
I have 20ish GB of photos I wouldn't mind backing up.

Would probably take a brajillion years to upload all of that over my cable modem.
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TheCatt
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Post by TheCatt »

Invitation sent. Yeah, it will take a while. My uplink is 5mbps, so if you ever need a recovery, it shouldn't be too bad (10 hours or so). Hopefully faster Internet gets here some day.
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Leisher
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Post by Leisher »

3 TB Ext HD is around $100-$150 dollars.

You guys seem to be going through a lot of bandwidth and trouble for no reason.
"Happy slaves are the worst enemies of freedom." - Marie Von Ebner
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies..." - Orwell
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