Backup schemes

[Dubious Dude]

Yes it can.


My laptop support all the commonly used cards from cameras etc as well.


I still think you would be better off with a decent external drive.
Mainly because they are rather better value $/GB etc.


I keep mine using a decent password manager that supports
the use of full encrypted USB keys etc if you want to use them.
If you dont, its database is obvious so easy to include in a backup.


Does it really matter ? The overhead isnt that bad.

It depends on how often you write sessions. Each sesssion has I think
14MB overhead. That dissuades the writing of sessions as needed. One
tends to accumulate many changes before writing an incremental
session, which increases the risk of fogetting where all the changes
are. Unless there is special imaging software that creates
incremental sessions out of incremental images. But my practice until
now has been to forgo matching hierarchical directory structures
between backup and hard drive, which may make it hard to treat the
backup as an image. Considering what I've learned, I may change this
approach, simply to take advantage of the imaging approach.

I think its better to use a decent modern imager that does
incremental images, writing to an external drive if you only
have one laptop. I personally write to another drive on the
lan instead, but that obviously needs more than one PC.

I am indeed starting to think of this as a viable candidate for
my backup routine (external drive, that is).

Sure, but thats one big advantage with a decent incremental imager
and a decent external drive. It keeps track of all that for you.

Sounds good.

I do that on the hard drive, for code projects particularly.


I think its better to have the hierarchy on the hard
drive for the better speed, and only use the CD or
DVDs for protection against theft of the PC etc.

I do have the task-oriented snapshots on the main hard drive. I also
consider it to be the appropriate granularity of work for copying to
the auxiliary backup media, be it a 2nd hard drive, or an off-line
CD-R. The aim being to protect against crashing hard drives. So the
auxiliary drive should be updated frequently.

Basically because the optical media is too slow for convenience.

Yes, it's only a place to stash snapshots.

Yeah, most do use the registry for that now, tho I dont use
much in the way of dinosaur apps that dont myself anymore.


I think its time you got that, with a decent external drive.

Surely you must be able to fix that workspace problem ?

Not in the immediate term. In the long term, certainly.

An external drive doesnt even have to be on that workspace.

Space in general is an issue. Something that needs to be tucked away
each use will not be used as often as it should be. But that is life
at the moment.

I dont believe it is anymore, I havent ever lost one and I have
been using them since they came out first and havent even
bothered to keep them out of the sun. I compute in winter
in full sun, basking in the sun literally and the CDRs are just
in jewel cases in big metal CD towers that end up in the sun
in winter. Havent even lost any of those.


Yeah, that's what I meant.

Yes I was getting that impression .

I never have and I dont bother with premium CDRs anymore either.

Just recently had a problem with some of the cheapest that
you can actually see right thru that someone else picked up
for me from the cheapest place in town, but even with those
the only real problem is that some drives wont read them.


I do, and havent ever had a failure, even when
very slack about looking after them properly.



Thanks for the interesting discussion.

If you can point to any web articles that overview & compare
the different approaches and product options in each, I'd
appreciate it. Thanks for the thought, in any case. I'll
continue searching a bit more.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

It depends on how often you write sessions. Each sesssion has I think
14MB overhead. That dissuades the writing of sessions as needed.

Does it really matter when 14M is a small part of the total capacity ?

One tends to accumulate many changes before writing an incremental
session, which increases the risk of fogetting where all the changes
are. Unless there is special imaging software that creates
incremental sessions out of incremental images.

Not clear what you mean by that. You just write the incremental images
to the optical media and let the imager keep track of what its done.

But my practice until now has been to forgo matching hierarchical
directory structures between backup and hard drive, which may
make it hard to treat the backup as an image. Considering what
I've learned, I may change this approach, simply to take
advantage of the imaging approach.

Yeah, I would, and get an external drive as well, in your situation.

I am indeed starting to think of this as a viable candidate
for my backup routine (external drive, that is).

Yeah, it simplifys things dramatically.

Sounds good.

I do have the task-oriented snapshots on the main hard drive.
I also consider it to be the appropriate granularity of work for
copying to the auxiliary backup media, be it a 2nd hard drive,
or an off-line CD-R. The aim being to protect against crashing
hard drives. So the auxiliary drive should be updated frequently.

And with an external drive you can do that as often as you like.

Yes, it's only a place to stash snapshots.

Not in the immediate term. In the long term, certainly.

Space in general is an issue. Something that needs to be
tucked away each use will not be used as often as it should be.

Its only the drive itself that doesnt need to be on the
workspace, still connected to the laptop all the time.

Its not relevant that its tucked away out of the workspace use wise.

But that is life at the moment.

Yes I was getting that impression .

If you can point to any web articles that overview & compare the
different approaches and product options in each, I'd appreciate it.

I dont bother with those myself, so I dont keep track of them.

Thanks for the thought, in any case. I'll continue searching a bit more.

OK.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Would you know if Cobian Backup will do this?

Dunno, I'm not game to use products at that
level for something as important as backup.

I'm not even game to use just one imager either, I also
keep separate manual backups of the important stuff,
basically using Roxio Creator Classic and DVDs to
archive entire folder trees of the most important stuff.

In the near term, the situation that would probably require
me to rebuild the system (software & OS, not hardware) is
a hard drive crash. So it will be in a Windows 2000
environment. I am thinking about using Cobian Backup
for the image because it is free. But I'm wondering
if Windows 2000 has any native restoration capability along
the lines of the ones you describe above for XP?

Not with the files and settings transfer wizard, that came with XP.

2K does come with the standard Backup tho and its quite usable.

If not, I will probably have to build up the system
to the point where Cobian is running again.

Again, I would use True Image and an external drive instead.

Very simple to restore to the new hard drive
after you boot a rescue CD on the laptop.

I use the colorful term "build up" the system because that's
sure what it felt like when I had to do it in the past. Getting
drivers from the web, installing them piece by piece, etc..

Yeah, it can be a pretty long winded business,
although I do document the original install properly
in the database so its not that big a deal.

And the instructions were often not accurate.

Yeah, that's why I always keep my own notes.

Admittedly, I was not always cognizant
of exactly what it was that I was doing.

Yeah, can be a problem for people at your level.

 

[Dubious Dude]

I think you have to cover even the less likely
possibilitys like theft of the system or a fire etc.

Agreed. There are many things on hold for now. That's one of them.

Dunno, never used it. You can certainly browse images with Ghost.


I prefer more mainstream apps for stuff that important myself.

I was a bit reluctant about True Image for that reason and
use it because its head and shoulders better than Ghost.

Thanks for the perspective.

 

[Dubious Dude]

Does it really matter when 14M is a small part of the total capacity ?

Yes, if I wish to update the CD regularly, I'll often have content
amounting to much less than 14M. The ratio session overhead to
real data would be very small. Less than half of the capacity of
the CD might be used for real data.

Not clear what you mean by that. You just write the incremental images
to the optical media and let the imager keep track of what its done.

As long as the imager doesn't operate on top of the same standard that
requires 14MB overhead per incremental write, it would probably be
worthwhile to use it with optical media.

And with an external drive you can do that as often as you like.


Its only the drive itself that doesnt need to be on the
workspace, still connected to the laptop all the time.

Its not relevant that its tucked away out of the workspace use wise.

That makes sense...but space is still a bit of an issue, even tucked
out of the way. It's certainly better than not, though.

I dont bother with those myself, so I dont keep track of them.

Well, your thoughts are appreciated anyway.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Yes, if I wish to update the CD regularly, I'll often have content
amounting to much less than 14M. The ratio session overhead
to real data would be very small. Less than half of the capacity
of the CD might be used for real data.

Does that really matter if you use RWs ? All it does is double the number.

As long as the imager doesn't operate on top of the same
standard that requires 14MB overhead per incremental write,
it would probably be worthwhile to use it with optical media.

I think its time to cut to the chase and use an external drive.

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed wrote

Agreed. There are many things on hold for now. That's one of them.

Are you living out of your car or something ?

Makes a difference with the backup scheme.

 

[Toshi1873]

True. But for the average end-user I advise to put the OS on one
partition and user-data on a separate partition.
(And as I am lasy, I apply that layout also to my own PC

That's a great method. I used to do that as well.

Unfortunately, on my laptop I have to share files where absolute paths
matter (stupid, hardcoded software that we're not ready to replace). So
when we check things out of our source code system, everyone has to put
them in the same place on C:. As a result, I've gone back to just having
a single partition.

I do have a dedicated U: for my personal files on my home LAN. That's
my equivalent of a separate partition I guess.

(When I do a archival image of the laptop, I simply remove any of my
data directories off of the laptop first. That cuts down on the size
quite a bit.)

 

[Dubious Dude]

Does that really matter if you use RWs ? All it does is double the number.

True enough. I suspect that it will take several CD-RWs, though.
Do-able, though time-consuming, and a book-keeping nightmare waiting
to happen. Which makes an external drive look more attractive.

I think its time to cut to the chase and use an external drive.

Consumer Reports doesn't compare them, but I think that walking into
a university campus computer store is a good way to get an informed
decision on a good external drive. Thanks.

 

[Gerard Bok]

That's a great method. I used to do that as well.

Unfortunately, on my laptop I have to share files where absolute paths
matter (stupid, hardcoded software that we're not ready to replace).

You can still beat them. Just replicate (e.g.
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp) to a
directory on your data partition

 

[Dubious Dude]

Are you living out of your car or something ?
Makes a difference with the backup scheme.

Strictly speaking, no. Space is simply not very available.