OT: PC Backups...

[Jake]

Okay, a bit OT but hopefully people won't mind.

I have a hodgepodge of mostly full hard drives inside an ageing XP SP3 desktop PC, a 400GB, two 500GB, one 1TB, and two externals of 1TB each although one of these is less than half full. Laptop also has 1TB HDD. Most user created and essential files are backed up on either one of the externals or on another drive inside the PC, and also on memory cards, but it would still be extremely annoying if one or more of the HDDs failed, so I am looking at finding the time to organise these properly and tidy everything up.

I do have a HP Microserver with four spare slots, was thinking of getting some larger 3TB drives to go in here and move the stuff across, but I do only have 100 Mbps network capability, so that might well take an age...

I know XP can't read capacities of drives larger than 2TB so I can't add 3TB drives inside the PC, guessing that doesn't apply to 3TB drives in a Microserver which has a newer OS? How about reading external drives? I have heard at least on the internet that people have managed to plug in a USB 3TB drive and have read/write to the full capacity.

Partitions-wise, is it better to just chuck everything onto one 3TB partition and have folders for each? Or multiple partitions - how many?

Do I need RAID? Or just one copy on the PC and one on the Microserver (obviously essentials can have a further copy on an external drive). Now as to a backup strategy.... Hourly differential backups? Or a continuous 'mirroring' of files between PC and Microserver?

Any other tips I should be aware of?

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Gigabit network switches aren't very expensive, so even if you've currently got various devices connected to the (usually) 4-port switch that's part of most simple routers, it may be worth connecting your devices to a gigabit switch and connecting that to the router.

If your machines' network cards aren't capable of gigabit speeds that may or may not be simple to fix - easy on a desktop PC I expect, harder on a laptop unless you fit a USB2 or USB3 gigabit adaptor.

I don't know... but the larger a partition is, the longer - much longer - a chkdsk scan takes. If there's any likelihood you'll have to do that more than rarely, there's a lot to be said for small partitions!

It might also affect your backup strategy if you use a partition cloning tool rather than a file copier.

It depends on what you want to do. There's umpteen flavours of RAID with different pros and cons of each. You need to read some discussions of the pros and cons. Also... RAID does add complexity. RAID firmware can have bugs in it too.

I would think a mix of these things depending on which classes of data need which sort of treatment. Don't waste time backing up files that you could easily replace; don't frequently backup files that never change, don't backup files that do change but are inconsequential... and so on. Of course that presupposes you've got some structure to your file folders, so you know which ones contain data with one or another set of characteristics.

[Jethro_uk]

RAID isn't really a backup ... it reduces the chances of losing all your data due to faulty hardware, but if your house were to burn down, there goes all your data ....

That said I run a Linux software RAID, and it's pretty good.

[The Natural Philosopher]

RAID is for AVAILABILITY.

Backup is for RELIABILITY.

They address different problems and one is not an alternative to the other.

Probably RAID is irrelevant outside a big data centre: what you actually need is backup and that's easily accomplished these days wit ADSL by doing a bit of collusion with a friend and some rsynch between servers.

Two people needs 4 servers. In each locations the 'live' server does the work and the data is backed up (nightly) to the local and the remote backup unit.

If the local live server dies, a new one can be built from the local backup server. If the local backup dies, it new one will synch itself in time with the two live servers - local and remote - If the house catches fire, at leasts all the data is at yer mates house.

Rsynch only propagates changes so the actual data needing to be transferred over the adsl is small,. unless you insist on backing up all those ripped DVDS.

To get the process synched bring the mates server to your house to do the first synch.

I strongly recommend that anyone who cares about data sets up a small low power linux server with win disks, or two servers, and makes a habit of putting everything important on it.

That way when your desktop dies you have the data somewhere else.

The important principle is to have the data in at least two places and preferably three, one remote geographically.

And to separate it from Windows as far as you can.

[Bernard Peek]

It's probably not worth trying to tidy up the data. Just copy it all onto a big disk.

It needs doing. If necessary run the copy operation over a weekend. Start by getting an external USB disk big enough to hold everything, 2TB is probably the sweet-spot now.

AIUI XP can't handle files bigger than 2Tb but can handle larger disks, but it's quite possible that a PC of that vintage can't.

Only choose multiple partitions if you know in advance how big each partition should be. That avoids having some partitions overflowing and others with free space.

My microserver has 3 2Tb disks. One disk is used as a file store and that's automatically backed up to another drive every night. I use the third disk to take a separate snaphot before doing any maintenance on the live disk. Always have your data on at least three spindles.

Keep a couple of external USB disks and use those for off-site backups.

Now as

Decide how much data you can afford to lose then create a backup strategy that protects you against the commonest problems. Accidentally deleting the wrong file is by far the commonest problem.

You backup strategy should be based on the total quantity of data you have, the rate at which it changes, and what risks you want to protect against. For that reason it's impossible for anyone else to determine what strategy is right for you.