A lesson in having reliable backups

kelper · Tuesday at 11:37 AM

hsehestedt said:
It's just an external storage box that holds 5 disks attached to the PC via USB. The disks have no special formatting - just plain NTFS. As a result, any one or more of these disks can be removed from the enclosure and attached to any Windows PC and be perfectly readable with no special software.

I don't backup to VHDs but one logical reason is because a VHD or VHDX can be instantly booted. So where rapid access to your data after an "event" is needed, that makes an attractive option.

But do you tend to leave this connected to your computer?

gunrunnerjohn · Tuesday at 11:39 AM

hsehestedt said:
I don't backup to VHDs but one logical reason is because a VHD or VHDX can be instantly booted. So where rapid access to your data after an "event" is needed, that makes an attractive option.

Not a problem, an automated daily backup to both a separate physical drive in my machine and to my NAS solves the problem of instant access to the data from another machine.

hsehestedt · Tuesday at 11:45 AM

gunrunnerjohn said:
Not a problem, an automated daily backup to both a separate physical drive in my machine and to my NAS solves the problem of instant access to the data from another machine.

I should clarify - by instant access I mean that you can boot the VHD so you can be up and running from the VHD almost instantly without having to restore any data.

gunrunnerjohn · Tuesday at 11:56 AM

hsehestedt said:
I should clarify - by instant access I mean that you can boot the VHD so you can be up and running from the VHD almost instantly without having to restore any data.

I guess I don't get how you're instantly running from a VHD.

kelper · Tuesday at 12:17 PM

gunrunnerjohn said:
I guess I don't get how you're instantly running from a VHD.

It would only take a couple of seconds to boot a virtual disk if you had a fast processor, a fast SSD and plenty of RAM

gunrunnerjohn · Tuesday at 2:09 PM

kelper said:
It would only take a couple of seconds to boot a virtual disk if you had a fast processor, a fast SSD and plenty of RAM

Boot it with what? Doesn't that require a working system you can boot?

kelper · Tuesday at 2:24 PM

gunrunnerjohn said:
Boot it with what? Doesn't that require a working system you can boot?

Well said. I don't think a virtual disk, on its own, is a useful recovery resource.

Hazel123 · Tuesday at 2:36 PM

hsehestedt said:
I just suffered a major PC failure. After repairs, I went to my Reflect backup only to find out that my backups over the past several days are corrupt. I had to go back to May 5th to get a good backup.

Here is my backup scheme:

Every 1st of the month is a full backup. Every Sunday is a differential backup. Every other day is an incremental backup.

Backups are saved to storage array in TRIPLICATE and a verification is run after each backup.

So, the lesson: Perform backups to multiple locations, NOT in the same location. Even though I am storing data on three separate drives my storage solution seems to have failed me and corrupted all 3 copies somehow (still not sure how). This is especially weird since I always perform a verification after backup.

Really sorry. Anything can go wrong anywhere. I had something similar a couple of years ago. Lightning storm - computer plugged into an extension cable without surge protection. I did retrieve the data. Another time my external drive with images and file backups got corrupted before I had moved them back onto a computer. Managed to retrieve most of it with recovery software.

Since then though I use idrive as a second backup and have had more peace of mind

Yes I'm sure something could go wrong with that as well but it's another a layer. It costs me £99 a year but I'm spending quite a bit less on external hard drives.

I would recommend it to anyone.

kelper · Tuesday at 2:42 PM

From what I have read, most surge protectors would not be effective if lightning struck near you. In forty years I have never suffered any loss due to lightning.

gunrunnerjohn · Tuesday at 4:11 PM

kelper said:
From what I have read, most surge protectors would not be effective if lightning struck near you. In forty years I have never suffered any loss due to lightning.

I just got an electronic buffer amp that I sell (not computer related) that took a near lightning strike. It smoke every IC in the box! Yes, he had a whole house surge protector, the strike took the whole top cover off the box! It also took out most of his dimmers, a couple of TV's, and his router. Lightning is way more powerful than anything we can put in the house to guard against it!

RD Mercer · Wednesday at 8:41 AM

I guess one of the good thing about getting old is, I don't have but a couple apps on my OS drive, and it was "cloned to another drive from the original install" and any docs. or pictures or etc. are on a external Seagate HDD. cloned to a couple more of the same drives. There are many different ways, to backup, clone, copy, whatever you want to call it, and I respect any way anyone wants to backup, it's just I choose the simple method, well the simple method that works for me.

Hazel123 · Wednesday at 2:07 PM

kelper said:
From what I have read, most surge protectors would not be effective if lightning struck near you. In forty years I have never suffered any loss due to lightning.

I don't know. But I know when we were on holiday once there was a big thunderstorm and lightning directly over the village. Pretty sure it came into the house as there was a big flash! Every single wifi router and TV in the village was rendered inoperable! There was one gadget in the house on a surge protector (can't remember what it was now) and that still worked! So to my mind it was better than no surge protection.

It was an interesting day next day as there wasn't really a mobile signal in that area either!

On the other hand, you would think some of the houses (and the pub) would have had surge protectors - but everybody's wifi routers were inoperable.

kelper · Wednesday at 2:21 PM

A surge protector may be better than nothing. But most surge protectors won't work if lightning hits near your property, especially as the voltage can come through your earth/ground connection, which surge protectors can't interrupt.

Hazel123 · Wednesday at 8:04 PM

So I guess the key is - unplug your computer when there's a lightning storm! I kind of knew that in the back of my mind at the time but somehow didn't do it! Preoccupied.

TraderGary · Wednesday at 8:58 PM

Hazel123 said:
So I guess the key is - unplug your computer when there's a lightning storm! I kind of knew that in the back of my mind at the time but somehow didn't do it! Preoccupied.

The really handy thing about our using laptops is that we can unplug them and keep right on computing!

Levitate11 · Wednesday at 10:08 PM

Short story on surge protection: Local protectors may work on some equipment and may help to destroy others.

Surge suppressors trigger and send the spike down the ground wire. Unfortunately, residential electrical systems bond the ground to the neutral at the service panel. So the surge will hit the bus bar at the panel and travel back up the neutral to your equipment.

The only real solution is a whole house protector. That will have some very fast blow devices and a grounding system sufficient to handle the 20-30K amps that a strike produces.

The NEC (USA) now requires a whole house protector for new installations or renovations that involve the service panel.

Helmuuth · Wednesday at 10:26 PM

i never bother doing backups. i possibly never will. i mean i tried in the past with macrium and one other...strangely enough i dont mind reinstalling the OS

SoFine409 · Wednesday at 10:48 PM

Levitate11 said:
Short story on surge protection: Local protectors may work on some equipment and may help to destroy others.

Surge suppressors trigger and send the spike down the ground wire. Unfortunately, residential electrical systems bond the ground to the neutral at the service panel. So the surge will hit the bus bar at the panel and travel back up the neutral to your equipment.

The only real solution is a whole house protector. That will have some very fast blow devices and a grounding system sufficient to handle the 20-30K amps that a strike produces.

The NEC (USA) now requires a whole house protector for new installations or renovations that involve the service panel.

A whole house protector is definitely less expensive than your PC or any other piece of electrical equipment.

CountMike · Wednesday at 11:01 PM

Helmuuth said:
i never bother doing backups. i possibly never will. i mean i tried in the past with macrium and one other...strangely enough i dont mind reinstalling the OS

It's not about OS, it's everything else I worry about. I have 100' programs and applications installed most of which have to be activated and registered. That alone is a week or two of work. Then there are passwords for various sites and places. OK, I do keep data base of them but even that has to be stored on separate media or can be lost with other stuff. By this step all is more or less replaceable but what about results of work done by all those programs and/or games ?

pseymour · Wednesday at 11:11 PM

gunrunnerjohn said:
Boot it with what? Doesn't that require a working system you can boot?

kelper said:
Well said. I don't think a virtual disk, on its own, is a useful recovery resource.

You can boot from a VHDX file regardless of whether you have Windows installed on the actual drive.

Boot to a virtual hard disk: Add a VHDX or VHD to the boot menu

learn.microsoft.com

A lesson in having reliable backups

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