There is quite oftena queue here as well but the delay is normally fairly short as it only does things that are new/changed. If some one has downloaded a couple of programmes from iPlayer (ie a gig or so) it does take a while but if you wanted you could exclude the iplayer filestore from the directroies SecondCopy looks in.
Running at logoff is a feature of SecondCopy. IIRC you can have logon, logoff, manual and scheduled.
Cheers for that, Rod.
What you do for back up depends on what your priorities are, ie is it years worth of business information that would be a pain if you lost or is it the windows system?
I back up important information but not the windows system as one can access via another PC if need be. I also take the view that if my PC goes bang then a back up within that PC will more than likely be lost as well. So what I have done is this.... My important stuff is backed up on an old hardrive installed alongside the hardrive in my PC, back up No 1. I then have an external hardive (cost around £40) which is a further back up so I could take this to another PC if necessary to access my important information, back up No 2.
I feel this covers me as I now have 2 back ups, one in my pc and if that goes up in flames I have my external as well.
At least use two sticks, they have a limited life and can fail (or get lost!).
Storage and software are cheap compared to cost of losing data.
Suggest seeking alternatives to Norton, many find it faulty and resource heavy.
On-line backup is OK for moderate amounts of data but several companies have had data and access loss so should not be sole option. Privacy/security may also be an issue.
Windows backup can save documents (and settings?) which may be enough for you.
I use Acronis with a USB drive to take full backups each month and incrementals in between on automatic schedule. Current version can manage backup storage automatically, deleting oldest data when new exceeds free space. Now I would use a NAS so can be away from PC to avoid loss of both in case of fire/theft etc. By backing up the whole PC I am sure I have all data and if the PC fails I can quickly restore all applications and settings rather than having to re-install and re-setup email etc.
In my day job on big iron we duplex backups and off-site 1 copy to ensure business continuity even if site is lost.
HTH
Paul.
Paul Harris :
Like you, I back up the whole PC (weekly, to tape). And I agree that it's good to have *all* the data. But if I needed to do a complete restore[1], I'd take the opportunity to install Windows and the applications from scratch, selectively copying files and registry branches from the backup. It would be different if the job was urgent, as it is in many businesses.
[1] I've got tapes stretching back to 1994. I've never[2] needed to do a complete restore, except as part of a planned hardware upgrade. [2] Touch wood.
I had/have a Seagate (250GB) one. Niggles included the fact that it used a bulky wall-wart rather than integrated PSU (and "kettle lead"), the fact that it was tall and thin (so could be knocked over easily), and the fact that it'd automatically spin down after x minutes of inactivity (increasing potential for failure - drives generally don't like lots of stop-start cycles)
I ended up tearing the guts out of it and re-homing it in a more sensible case (complete with 5V PSU). Never completely fixed the auto-spin-down issue, which is irritating - but as it's just used for backups now (not convenient extra space for my laptop) I don't have any need to keep it plugged in and running for long.
cheers
Jules
Perhaps an unfortunate choice of words! .-)
DAT's a good point!
That was a QIC response!
Can't see why this kit would need a kettle lead a small fig 8 one would do but I agree integrated PSU would be nice but that adds to the cost. They can't just automatically make 10 million identical units and then "regionalise" them by just adding the wall wart for the destination region when they are manually packaged.
Having a USB powered device would be nice, no wall wart but I think the negatives out weigh that convience. The negatives being that the drive will probably be "laptop" spec and I can't site the drive remotely from the server that it is backing up.
That particular Seagate sits flat.
Depends what makes it spin back up again. I have NAS drive in a cheap enclosure but it is slow. A full back up takes around > 18hrs for 30 odd Gig, the same drive in a networked PC only took a couple of hours. The spin down delay time is configurable think I have it set to 5 mins and AFAICT it doesn't spin up unless you really try to access the drive. ie windows network chatter "I'm here, are you?" stuff doesn't spin it back up.
Yep, true - although I quite like one standard lead for computer kit rather than each of them doing their own thing. I think any case (with adequate ventilation around the drive) probably ends up being high enough to take one of the sockets.
Yeah, I can understand why they did it - I just don't like wall-warts as they often get in the way of adjacent stuff (and they have a habit of falling out of the shitty things that pass for plug sockets here in the US :-)
Oh yes - agree with that totally; I wouldn't want one powered solely via USB for that same reason.
Given it's 500GB rather than the 250 I have, I assume it's a more recent model (I got mine in 2007) - sounds like they fixed that particular flaw.
This one is configurable in terms of delay, but the delay feature can't be turned off completely - and given how start-up's the most "stressful" time for a drive, I'd like to reduce the frequency of starts as much as possible (energy-saving be damned).
In the early days of having it, it caused a few headaches too because the drive would spin-down due to inactivity, and access would wake it back up again (that being a function of the controller that the drive was plugged into) - but the OS (Linux) assumed* it was an "always on" disk and so any access would fail until the drive was back up to speed.
cheers
Jules
you do know that Virginmedia offer 5Gb of online Storage/backup free to customers.
Ok its perhaps not the most secure or safest out there, but the chances of both it and your PC having a catastrophic event at exactly the some time are slim.
I didn't!
I am on there top package - cheers Mike.
Indeed. The worlds slowest backup system :-)
I've unlimited - I'm not sure I could ever get to 5GB tbh. It's *painfully* slow (and the client leaves rather a lot to be desired).
I like dropbox, dead easy to use. Vstuff is a poor substitute (I suspect it's deliberately slow to stop people using it too much).
Still, worth a try if it's an option for you.
Darren
Unless it has improved dramatically in the last few months, the Virgin thing is a pile of s**te. I've just started using Dropbox, and it really couldn't be simpler
You need a hard drive (or 2) to backup to. These can be externals, or if you dont mind taking case off and powering down when you want to back up they could be internal drives. There's really no other optoin that compares.
2 hdds rather than one gives you some protection against malware, corruption and unnoticed deletion, which are also an issue IRL. Just back up to each one alternately, so you've got 2 backup generations not one.Dont forget to disconnect the backup drive after the job's done, else it'll be as vulnerable as the data on the pc. Store one offsite if possible.
More frequent minbackups of vital stuff can be done to usb stick.
Most of us are at the point now where our data is worth far more than the pc, and if its not backed up it will be lost sooner or later, pretty much guaranteed.
No software is needed to do a backup. Just copy the lot over. Software was of use when you needed to compress data onto a small drive, nowadays the disadvantages of doing that outweigh the advantage.
NT
Laptop drives are designed for thousands of stop start cycles at the expensive of not being as reliable as desktop drives when left running.
I would caution against one element of this approach, on the grounds that "copying over" has the potential to destroy good backup with one that has corrupted files. If you don't spot the problem soon, then you have lost your recovery route.
Copying to a new dated folder each time (onto alternate disks) would be preferable - that way you can keep as many generations as you have disk space for. You also need to make sure the backup is automated - that way there is a fair chance it will always get done!
While the requirement for compression is less, there are still advantages of using software. Generally it is better at keeping track of changing versions better than a straight copy (or Xcopy) - allowing far more incrementals to be preserved for a given amount of space.
I suspect they're not "designed" as such - it's merely a by-product of having less rotating mass, and hence less stress on the spindle motor...
It works ok for me i upload during the day and get 85% of my quoted upload speed, admittedly i don't have an enormous amount of data to save and only upload a few hundred Mb at a time.
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