Poll on Backup software

SlicEnDicE · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
what happens if you encounter a power surge, or lighting strike to the home or business, and it fries your PC and everything in it?

That is why you use UPS and surge protectors.

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

SlicEnDicE said:
That is why you use UPS and surge protectors.

As someone in the Electrical and A/C business, I have seen what 77,000 highline volts can do to a UPS and Surge protectors, so go ahead and count on one of those.

SlicEnDicE · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
As someone in the Electrical and A/C business, I have seen what 77,000 highline volts can do to a UPS and Surge protectors, so go ahead and count on one of those.

The UPS is there to provide power, the surge protector is there to protect from surges. If you think you'll encounter crazy surges then get a beefy one that can handle millions of volts. But if you expect such surges, I'm surprised your house hasn't blown up already.

wags1 · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
I understand all of that, so what happens if you encounter a power surge, or lighting strike to the home or business, and it fries your PC and everything in it? Do you unplug the drive/drives you backup to? if not a cloud based backup would be your only savior. I have nothing to sell here, or I have no horse in this race, and I respect whatever anyone wants to use, even a hammer,chisel and stone tablet. I'm just saying the duplicators work best for me personally, I'm certainly not trying to change anyone minds on the backup devices they want to use. Just seems there's a lot of bias here, use what works best for you, personally I switched to stand alone duplicators after to many failed recoveries, so I solved that problem with the duplicators.

Any decent backup strategy needs to take local disasters into account. I personally use Carbonite for constant/instant automatic cloud backups of all my critical files in addition to MR daily image backups to my NAS (weekly full and daily incremental, I keep 3 complete sets) in addition I copy my full MR backup file off to external storage (I alternate between a HDD and a SSD and keep 3 weeks) weekly which I keep disconnected from both power and network. I also do a monthly complete backup of my NAS to external storage that I keep in a fire resistant safe. I do periodic tests to ensure everything can be restored. It’s not perfect but it is works for me.

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

SlicEnDicE said:
The UPS is there to provide power, the surge protector is there to protect from surges. If you think you'll encounter crazy surges then get a beefy one that can handle millions of volts. But if you expect such surges, I'm surprised your house hasn't blown up already.

Matter fact, we just had a storm here that the surges/lighting killed 70% of what is in some homes, lots of PC related equipment, garage door openers, refrigerators, A/C systems, etc. It's been good for our business, but it's really sad for the folks that have encountered these losses.

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

wags1 said:
Any decent backup strategy needs to take local disasters into account.

Ding, Ding, we have a winner!

Wynona · Mar 29, 2024

kelper said:
@cereberus

Eeeee, you're getting grumpy in your dotage! I'd be interested in what members think of the backup solutions not included in the current poll.

I've seen backup options here that I've never heard of! And, Consequently, probably won't be trying.

Megahertz · Mar 29, 2024

Brazil is the world champion on lighting strikes.
- I always shut down the computer when not in use and turn off the surge protector switch.
- I do a data backup every Friday and disconnect power cable of the backup drive when done.

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

Megahertz said:
Brazil is the world champion on lighting strikes.
- I always shut down the computer when not in use and turn off the surge protector switch.
- I do a data backup every Friday and disconnect poer cable of the backup drive when done.

You would be considered, one very smart human, but my guess is, you are in a very, very small percentage of these humans.

trevo · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
I was trying to break up the monotony here with a little humor, is humor still ok today?

kelper · Mar 29, 2024

I'm downloading Veeam CE to trial it but it's an 8.8GB download which is taking ages, 90 mins so far and 35 to go!

hdmi · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
I understand all of that, so what happens if you encounter a power surge, or lighting strike to the home or business, and it fries your PC and everything in it? Do you unplug the drive/drives you backup to? if not a cloud based backup would be your only savior. I have nothing to sell here, or I have no horse in this race, and I respect whatever anyone wants to use, even a hammer,chisel and stone tablet. I'm just saying the duplicators work best for me personally, I'm certainly not trying to change anyone minds on the backup devices they want to use. Just seems there's a lot of bias here, use what works best for you, personally I switched to stand alone duplicators after to many failed recoveries, so I solved that problem with the duplicators.

I wasn't trying to refute. Just wanted to add these extra details for those who don't fully understand all of it (yet).

A power surge or lightning strike can destroy a duplicator just like it can destroy my 2 laptops and everything in them, and can do so even after I physically unplugged them from the power grid and I also physically unplugged everything that is physically connected to them. That's just because a power surge or lightning strike can still cause a home fire, which, in turn, can fry my laptops and my pile of external USB 3.0 HDDs. I have already been pointing this out in several other discussion threads here on the forum, repeatedly in the past. BTW, the second "1" in the 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule actually means that one backup copy needs to be kept offline, i.e. not physically connected, or "air gapped". Air gapping a backup copy is to protect against ransomware. But the air gap also helps to stop a power surge or lightning strike from propagating across all of the backup copies, and, the reason why this matters is because even an expensive power surge protector could still fail. USB connectors are specifically designed to be able to be physically unplugged countless times. SATA III connectors are not. They are not so delicate that they break far too easily I mean, but the more expensive type of duplicators generally use caddies or sleds, which can help to avoid that potential risk and at the same time also help to better protect the actual HDDs themselves.

As for having had too many failed recoveries, I have never witnessed a failed restore of a .tib or .tibx image (full or incremental, doesn't make a difference... both always work equally fine) on a PC/laptop after the image in question was made by using the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis True Image with the Verify option enabled, excepting only after it turned out that the source/target HDD had (partially) crashed or a power outage had occurred before the restore was finished. As long as the PC hardware still works, the restore also works. Every single person I know who also has been using the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis in this same manner over the past whole decade (or sometimes even longer) has been confirming that it does. None of these people keep Acronis True Image (or Cyber Protect) software installed on their PC. Instead, they all simply uninstall it after they have used it to create the bootable Rescue Media ISO. As do I. Point me to one report of a failed recovery by someone on the forum who was using the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis in this same manner, where the failure was actually caused by the bootable Rescue Media ISO of Acronis itself. Just one. Talk to me more about there being a lot of bias here. LOL!

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

hdmi said:
I wasn't trying to refute. Just wanted to add these extra details for those who don't fully understand all of it (yet).

A power surge or lightning strike can destroy a duplicator.

You are correct! We agree on something, “but” it won’t destroy mine, because mines unplugged when I’m not using it. Anything else?

hdmi · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
You would be considered, one very smart human, but my guess is, you are in a very, very small percentage of these humans.

Physically unplugging the power cable from the backup drive is not enough. The data cable (SATA/USB/Ethernet/etc.) also has to be physically unplugged because else a power surge could still fry the drive via it. Where there's Thunderbolt, there is lightning bolt.

hdmi · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
You are correct! We agree on something, “but” it won’t destroy mine, because mines unplugged when I’m not using it. Anything else?

My external USB 3.0 HDDs are also unplugged when I'm not using them, "but" it can destroy them when I am using them, "BUT..." that's why I don't use them all at once (as that would break the second "1" in the 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule).

RD Mercer · Mar 29, 2024

hdmi said:
Physically unplugging the power cable from the backup drive is not enough. The data cable (SATA/USB/Ethernet/etc.) also has to be physically unplugged because else a power surge could still fry the drive via it. Where there's Thunderbolt, there is lightning bolt.

Are you paying attention here? My standalone duplicator has no connection to my PC. It just plugs into the wall when I use it, and I unplug it when I’m not using it.

SlicEnDicE · Mar 29, 2024

We could also get run over by a car or get crushed by a tree when we leave our house.

Jeez Boiz! Let's move on.

kelper · Mar 29, 2024

I bet 80% of the surge arrestors sold today would be useless if there was a lightning strike close to your home. Most have a very low rating

hdmi · Mar 29, 2024

RD Mercer said:
Are you paying attention here? My standalone duplicator has no connection to my PC. It just plugs into the wall when I use it, and I unplug it when I’m not using it.

I was referring to what @Megahertz wrote about unplugging the power cable from the backup drive. He would be considered a very smart human if unplugging only the power cable were enough. It isn't.

kelper · Mar 29, 2024

Veeam backup took two hours to download, over twenty minutes installing and longer to remove with Revo Pro when it would not run. It's obviously not for the home user! It took up 45GB of space at one stage, but about 20GB after a reboot.