Tag Archive for 'backup'

The Perfect Backup Strategy Part 3

Published
by
djaef
on November 13, 2008
in Computers
. 1 Comment
backup my brain

I thought I’d update my series of posts on backup. The first one can be found here and the second part here.

Of course, there is no perfect backup strategy. Just like there’s no Santa Claus (sorry to dissapoint kids).

But depending on several things, like the volume of data you need to back up and the frequency you need to do it, it’s possible to design a backup strategy that comes pretty close…

After several months (or is it years) of researching, thinking, trying and failing and retrying, I think I’ve come up with a strategy that works really well. I’ll nut it out here so you can see what you think. For my needs and budget, I’ve decided to forego several technologies that many would see as essential or at least very desirable to solid backup. Namely, NAS (Network Attached Storage) & online backup. The advantages of this is that is provides a good basis for most people at an affordable level. This is clearly not Enterprise backup we are talking here. This is for home and small, small business users.

OK. The basis for any decent backup strategy is redundancy. A backup is not a backup unless it’s in at least 2 places (NOT including the original data).

Then there’s what to backup. I see backup split into two areas - data and system. Both need different approaches.

Finally there’s software. One for backup for data, one for the system drive.

For my data, I use SyncBackSE. I sync my data between my laptop and my desktop, and I back it up to an external 1GB drive, and a second external drive which I then keep off site (at my next door neighbours house). That gives me my data in 4 places, one of which is always off site and another which is off site sometimes (the laptop). I have the software run the backup profiles every night and I run them manually during the day if I’ve created something or have otherwise introduced new data. It’s an excellent bit of software and worth every cent ($25 or so). Small things like changing the Outlook data file’s location to the same directory as your data also make a lot of sense. All you data should preferably in one place.

Then there’s the system drive. I am trialling Acronis Tru Image, and it seems to be a very solid product. The idea here is that you can make a system image of the c drive and store it on (yet another) small external drive and for extra security a set of dvds. I also currently have my system drive in a RAID array. This is useful in the case of a total hard disk crash, but NOT in the case of an OS meltdown (any system problems get transferred to the RAID drive!) In future systems, I think I might forego the RAID Array and just rely on the mirroring technique. A great suggestion I got previously was to use a smaller, faster drive (80 or 100GB, but 10,000RPM) for the system drive to increase performance.

So that’s about it. I’d love to hear anyone’s ideas about it and by all means, let me know if you see any weaknesses in this strategy. I think it’s pretty solid.

The Perfect Backup Strategy Part 2

Published
by
djaef
on July 19, 2008
in Computers and photography
. 4 Comments

In an earlier post, I spoke about back-up and the need to develop a system that does what it needs to do - save your data from all potential loss, and allow you to get back up and running in the quickest possible time.

Photographers have special requirements with regards backup. They generate huge volumes of data in a very short time. It would be in no way unusual that in one photo shoot, I might generate from up to 4GB of data. And this is data, that if lost, is totally irreplaceable. The sheer size of it as well precludes online backup strategies for most, as upload speeds are too slow, and adsl account limits are often 20GB or less (this is of course only an issue if your ISP includes uploads as part of your allowance).

Peter Krogh, the DAM (Digital Asset Management) specialist, talks a whole lot about backup strategies in his book, The Dam Book. I’m not going into that much detail here, but there are a few things that are worthy of mention. There are many considerations when designing a backup system, including cost, scalability, and redundancy. With regards cost, he gives very good advice when he says to ‘buy the backup you need now, not in 18 months.’ I spent months looking into backup systems, including expensive raid arrays and JBoD boxes and home servers etc… That was because I was focussing on scalability more than cost. But all those solutions were too expensive, at least for me. I couldn’t justify the expense. So I thought about what I needed right now. And that was basically 1TB of storage. The quickest and cheapest solution would have been to just buy a cheap internal drive and an enclosure, and hey presto, a 1TB USB external drive. But the build quality of many cheap enclosures is suspect, and for a very similar price, you can get a entry level external drive. Then there is the question of interface. USB 2.0 is the basic requirement, but there’s also Firewire 400 and 800 and eSata (forget NAS devices for the moment).

In the end, I decided to take a small step up and get a WD My Book Home Edition. It has a triple interface (USB, Firewire 400 and eSata). I finally realised that there would be no instant implementation of a perfect system, and that it would be something I developed over time. My immediate requirement was to safely secure my data. I already have a 320GB external I built myself. That is now my secondary off-site backup, which is placed at a neighbours house. When I do a shoot, I backup to the 1TBdrive, and then go and collect the 320GB drive and backup to that, and then return it to the neighbours house. There’s my data in 3 places, one of them off-line. That is a secure backup.

But then there’s my system drive. At the moment I have my system drive ina  RAID array (Raid 1- mirroring). This is a great solution in the event of a total drive failure, as I have an exact copy ready to go. But what about OS problems? Recently I had a terrible security failure in Vista, which meant that the OS was basically kaput and needed to be re-installed, something I didn’t want to do. All those programs, all those settings… But I realised my mirrored drive now had exactly the same problems. Hmmm… So it seems to me, I need a complete mirror image of my drive to be backed up to an external drive whenever I make any major system changes or updates, and to have that stored offsite as well. So that means another external drive, and a program like Norton Ghost to make a mirror image. That has to come soon. Then, I should feel a little more confidant, that when (not if) a drive fails or the operating system decides to die, it will only be a new drive and a few hours, and all will be back as it was. That’s the idea anyway. Am I missing anything?

The Perfect Backup Strategy

Published
by
djaef
on May 16, 2008
in Computers
. 2 Comments

I’ve been deliberating lately about data backup, and how to design a solid strategy for both OS and data. All on a tight budget of course… :)

Being a photographer and avid net user, I can fill up hard disks with the best of ‘em. And having a ‘hoarder’ personality type also means that I don’t like to delete anything. So backup is a subject that has always been dear to me (see my earlier post on backup). But given that I’ve been a pc user for 15 years, I’m doing pretty well. Despite 4 hard disk deaths in that time, I’ve only ever really lost vital data once. And that just reinforced a lesson I already knew. So to me, backup means double or triple redundancy, with one set off site. But that’s in theory. In practice I have a more complicated and not quite complete set-up. Budgetary constraints shoulder most of the blame for that, but now I have decided that it’s time for no more excuses!

Continue reading ‘The Perfect Backup Strategy’

A cautionary tale about backup

Published
by
djaef
on October 10, 2007
in Computers
. 3 Comments

With computers, the bottom line is that you can’t have enough backup. I have learnt this many times over the last 14 years. But I still keep learning it…

On Saturday my daughter was allowed her half hour on my computer to look at kids websites / games. She was on the Danish Radio web site when she called out to me that horrible phrase “Daddy, your screen is all blue”

Upon rebooting, there was a distinct clicking noise coming from the box in the vicinity of the hard disks. “Uh oh” I thought as I tried to remember when I’d last done a thorough backup. I had a long computerless weekend as I waited until Monday for the computer shop to open. I took it in, already knowing deep down that my disk had crashed and that I’d lost whatever I hadn’t backed up. I was guessing about 3 weeks.

Continue reading ‘A cautionary tale about backup’