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Maintenance and Backup
Summary: Backing up your computer's data is critical. What program should you use? There are many, but the best is which ever one you actually will use.
What backup program should I use?
Doing backups is kind of like eating healthier; everyone agrees we should and yet very few of us actually do. Much like the heart attack victim who no longer visits McDonald's the most religious users of backup procedures are those who've been bitten hard by a failure in their past.
Asking what backup program to use is very much like asking "what's the best exercise program?" The best program for exercise or backup is whatever one you'll actually do.
Do you know how you'd recover your data should your computer crash?
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In order to choose what's right for you, there are several questions you should be asking yourself.
Do I want to put a lot of thought into this? If not then prepare to spend a little more money for some additional disk space and get one of the stock backup programs. I'm currently quite pleased with my external USB/Firewire Maxtor drive and while I run my own custom backup (more on that below), it comes with Retrospectwhich is a respected backup package.
Am I comfortable re-installing my system if something goes wrong or do I want the backup to take care of that? This is one of those comfort versus space tradeoffs. If you're ok with re-installing your system, and that means your operating system as well as applications and customizations and you can clearly identify what does and doesn't need to be saved, then you can save a lot of disk space by backing up only your data. This requires some amount of diligence on your part because anything you don't specify to whatever backup program you use will be lost in the case of a catstrophic failure.
Is there another machine nearby? Quite often you don't even have to go out of your way to get additional hardware for backup purposes. Hard disks are so large these days that quite often simply having another machine on your network with sufficient free space can be a quick and easy solution. Many backup packages will allow you to backup across a network. Having two machines each back up to the other is a quick way to ensure that if either has a problem your data is safe on the other.
How valuable is what you're doing? As much as we hate to think of it we should: what if your building including your machines and all their backups were lost in a fire? If the potential data loss just sent a shiver down your spine then you should be considering off-site data storage for your backups. That could mean burning a CD or DVD periodically and leaving it at some other location or if the sizes are small enough or backing up across the network to some server not in your home.
How important is incremental access? By incremental access I mean; how important is it that you be able to recover a file from a specific day and not a day before or after? If you simply back up all your files on top of previous versions you'll only have the most recent version. In many many cases that's enough. In some cases it's not such as needing to recover an older version of a file that became corrupt at some point.
What resources should I backup? Have you thought of all your computers? All the drives therein? How about external hard drives you're not using for backup? Do you have a web site? Do you have a backup of it? What would happen if your ISP "lost" it? (It's happened.) If you're a small business, do you have databases that need backing up? Office machines that belong to everyone but no one?
Let's use myself as an example for those questions:
I also recommend picking up a copy of 10 Quick Steps to Perfect Backups. This is a good, quick overview of simple, "back-it-all-up" strategies, and can get you up and backing-up quickly.
The bottom line for backup is simple: just do it. Understand what you have and what you're willing to invest in but do something.
Before it's too late.
Update: I now formally recommend Acronis True Image for most home users. But ultimately which program you use - within reason - isn't nearly as important as simply having some backup strategy and sticking to it.
Article C1894 - February 15, 2004
Restoring to a new computer seems to be like doing illegal copies of your OS.
Posted by: Victor at November 9, 2008 6:31 AMBut what if your hard disk crashes? I had to deal with that problem: I had a 80GB hd and it crashes. Hd I could buy was 200GB. Backup programs simply made a first partition but I loose 120GB. I had to reinstall all to be able to use the whole disk.
Is there a backup program able to do this tasks?
I recently bought Acronis, because of recommendations here, to use on my wife's laptop, Vista OS, and the program comes back with a failure window every way we have tried to make a drive image whether onto a USB external drive, networked computer, or network drive. Acronis will make backups of e-mails and docs but it is very slow. Their support is not only slow but has been unable to provide a workable answer for image making failure and a password problem getting onto the network drive. They suggested using router password for the later.
Posted by: Bob at December 9, 2008 1:48 PMI think I am going to trash Acronis and buy new Ghost program which (Version 9)has worked for years on my desktop computer. I do regular backups of data but want regular full drive images in case of drive failures, of wich I've had only three in twenty five years of computers. I probably should consider myself very lucky.
If I back up everything then am I not risking backing up, and then restoring, the bad stuff? Not just something catastrophic like a virus but all the registry crud that might be slowing me down?
(If I'm worried about a hard drive crash, or a fire, I would want to restore to everything exactly as it was.)
I suppose I should buy the program and try out the settings. Besides my data (and I can copy that easily enough) I'll want various applications, and also various settings (I've got my start menu and my desktop just the way I like them.) How do I back up and restore the good while leaving the bad?
So if you need to restore an entire system, then that's what you should expect, the entire system as of the time you took the backup. That's the point.
Most all backups also allow you to restore individual files, so in cases where you don't need to restore everything, you can pick and chose individual files to recover from your backup.
But if you're trying to clean your system, other methods are much more appropriate.
31-Dec-2008
Posted by: David Chesler at December 30, 2008 9:17 AM
I don't think Leo mentioned that often many external hard drives come with a backup function as well. Such as my mybook I got (by western digital) came with.
Posted by: Matthew at January 7, 2009 7:01 AMLeo, I am not real bright when it comes to computers.But, I do know that my computer XP has a virus that anit virus programs will not touch. And I also know that I have lots of stuff on my computer that is very important to my business. I also know that '10 Quick Steps' is not working.
Posted by: George at February 2, 2009 10:23 AMDo you recommend any off site storage businesses?? I need to save MS Office and its files. HELP, and thanks for your time.
Because of a failing hard drive, I backed up my system using both Macrium Reflect and the backup tool in Windows XP Home onto a separate external hard drive.
My plan is to replace my laptop hard drive and use the (external) backup to restore the system back to it's current state.
My question is, once I install the new blank hard drive, how do I get the system going again? That is, do I simply hook up the external HD with the backup on it, and hope the computer finds the backup files automatically?
Or do I need to install windows or something on the new internal HD first?
The problem here is that windows was preinstalled on my dell laptop, so i have no windows CD to work with.
Many thanks!
10-Feb-2009
Acronis only restores to the backed up computer. I want backup software that will backup to a new computer. If mine crashes I will purchase a new computer. What program should I use? Thanks. Jay
I'm not aware of a *backup* program that will do what you're asking for. Moving software from one computer to another is typically way more complex than just putting the files from one computer onto another.
My recommendation for setting up a new computer is that you set it up ... install everything for that computer on that computer. Then transfer data
- perhaps using your backups. Most backup programs work fine for that.
- Leo
True, but I've seen more than one disc-imaging program which is designed to be used on a regular basis, and which claims to permit a "bare-metal restore"...that is, restoration of the disc image to a new computer, in case of complete destruction of the first machine. Any experience with these?
Posted by: Owen Glendower at February 19, 2009 7:30 PMThank you for the advice above. I found it by looking on the internet for the answer to the problem I found when My backup failed because of the fat 32 problem. When I first read your advice, I thought that my computer's hard drive was FAT 32. When I opened the command and inserted the request to reformat the internal hard drive I got a message saying that the drive was already NTFS. I then changed the command to drive E (which it was - an iomega hdd. I then got the message "The type of the file system is FAT 32. Enter current volume label for drive E:" I have no idea how to answer this. Simply putting in Iomega did not work> I would be grateful for any advice!! With thanks in advance
18-Mar-2009
To Victor (November 9, 2008):
Posted by: Henrik Nielsen at March 31, 2009 3:36 PMWhat you need (in addition to the backup software) is a program that can extend the system partition of your HD onto the unused space. Partition Magic can do it for $$, EASEUS Partition Manager can do it for free (if you're a home user).
I purchased a new 1.5 terabyte external hard drive, with the intent of backing up my extensive picture files created in Adobe Lightroom. I didn't want to use the "mirror" approach - just want to back up the actual raw (.NEF) photo files and their sidecar (.XML) files. When comparing the original non-system internal hard drive (G:)to the new external hard drive (H:), there is a 134 GB difference (i.e., G > H). Should I be worried that something didn't copy that should have? I can't "see" the 134 GB when reviewing properties...
Posted by: Richard at April 12, 2009 5:17 AM