Computer backup recommendation

[Tailgate]

Currently use Backblaze for cloud backup. Never have had to recover anything (yay!) but curious about alternate programs. Backblaze is $60 a year. I use an Imac. Any other program I should look at before renewal date?

 

[Sunset]

I just backup my data about once per week/month to external drives.

I used to use backup software, taking snapshot delta's of the changes all the time (which is how backup software saves space & time).

But I just keep a few year's worth of backups on my external drives, so I have different versions of my data, although most of it is unchanging. I don't back up photos repeatedly , as the ones from a decade ago are not changing.

I made a simple script backup my home directory, which compresses everything.

I'm on Ubuntu.

 

[Scrapr]

I use Carbonite on the business W10 computer. I think we have used it once in 10 years? The big one to make sure is backed up is the Quickbooks Pro. We back up weekly on a flash drive as well. That is an important deal

Personal stuff is on Chromebook. Pictures go to Dropbox automagically. I should probably switch that to Google photos. But use Dropbox for business & personal. So not much additional cost there

 

[scrabbler1]

I do monthly backups of all my personal files and save them on thumb drives. If my PC starts behaving strangely, I will do a mid-month backup once in a while.


The monthly backups include only files I have created or changed that month, a pretty quick and easy process. But every 3 months, I do a complete copy of all personal files. This results in some multiple versions of files which was a little cumbersome when I have had to restore the current version of all files after replacing my PC/hard drive, but I was able to sift through everything and restore the right version.


I keep these backups on separate thumb drives in separate folders with a paper directory of all the thumb drives (I have 5) so I know which one I can overwrite with newer data.

 

[ls99]

I had a standalone terabyte hard drive sitting arround for a few years. Finally last week for the first time ever I did an image of the hard drive. Maybe I should do that once a month? Decisions, decisions......

 

[mountainsoft]

I've mentioned this before, but I don't like online cloud backups. If your hard drive fails you have to reinstall Windows and reinstall your applications before you can restore your personal data from the cloud. Not to mention it's slow and unusable if you generate large volumes of data (recording or editing video for instance). I've heard many times how people lose data they thought the cloud program backed up but didn't.

I use Macrium Reflect to perform an image backup of my drives every night. I use the "incremental forever" mode, so it usually only takes a few minutes to backup each night.

I backup to an external USB hard drive. I can easily restore a single file or two if I need to. If my hard drive fails I can replace the drive (even with a larger drive) and restore everything back to where it was quickly. I don't have to reinstall Windows, applications, or reconfigure any of my personal settings.

About once a month I swap my local backup drive with a second drive I keep in our safe deposit box. That gives me protection from major disasters like fire, flood, tornado, theft, etc. that could take out my local backup drive too.

As a final layer of protection, I burn my critical data files (photos, music, home movies, financial records, etc.) to BluRay data discs about once every year or two. If something should corrupt my main drive and propagate to my backup drives, I know the data on the BluRay discs will be unchanged.

About $100 for each backup drive, and maybe $75 for the backup program. Less than $300 total with no ongoing subscription costs. Much more complete backups and much faster operation.

 

[OldShooter]

I've mentioned this before, but I don't like online cloud backups. If your hard drive fails you have to reinstall Windows and reinstall your applications before you can restore your personal data from the cloud. Not to mention it's slow and unusable if you generate large volumes of data (recording or editing video for instance). I've heard many times how people lose data they thought the cloud program backed up but didn't. ...

This.

I have a local Network Attached Storage (NAS) system from Synology with two mirrored drives; both DW and my computers are automatically backed up to it. This pretty well protects us from disk crashes, etc. but of course not theft or fire. For that I occasionally make a backup of the NAS onto a a large SATA drive that normally lives in my fire-resistant gun safe.

A Synology 218-series box is in the $200-300 range. Add a couple of disks and it is plug and play. The Synology OS has a lot of nifty feature packages, too, like a private Cloud, media servers, etc.

 

[Car-Guy]

For large and/or numerous "static" files (home pictures, videos, music, etc) I simply copy them to an external hard drive. (maybe yearly or whenever I add a lot of new files) For active or consistently changing files (spreadsheets, password file, etc) I copy those to a thumb drive (~monthly). Cheap, fast, easy, secure.


So simple a caveman could do it.

 

[walkinwood]

I use iDrive. It seems to work well. I've "recovered" files to test the backup and that worked fine. The software hasn't affected performance of the computer. They do have a process where they'll send you your backed up files on a hard drive if you request. Cost seems reasonable.

I should install a secondary backup system for local backups on a regular basis, but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet.

I only backup data.

 

[Unpaintedhuffhines]

Another Carbonite user here. There are many other less expensive methods, and if you have the discipline, they can work really great for you. I like the "set it and forget it" aspect of Carbonite. I'll even get an email when (maybe 2x a year), the backup is stuck for some reason.

About 20 years ago I lost a disk with family photos. Vowed it wouldn't happen again.

 

[misanman]

Acronis

 

[jim584672]

https://clonezilla.org/

What is Clonezilla?
Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to True Image® or Norton Ghost®. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery.

 

[easysurfer]

For my Win 10 desktop (my primary PC) I use Macrium Reflect. I have an automated scheduled incremental back ups that runs every night to an internal hard drive. On back up backs up a data folder that I keep all my data (duh). Another back up backs up my entire computer. Additionally, once every month I manually run a Macrium Reflect backup definition to incrementally back up my data folder to an external drive. Then once a quarter, I manually run a Macrium Reflect backup definition to incrementally back up my entire system to an external drive.

 

[OldShooter]

For my Win 10 desktop (my primary PC) I use Macrium Reflect. I have an automated scheduled incremental back ups that runs every night to an internal hard drive. ...

I have done this sometimes in the past. Just add a hard drive to the computer; no wires, no hassles. If the C: drive dies, you are still in business. The downside of course is that it does not protect against fire or theft. Life is tradeoffs.

 

[dvalley]

Photos: Google photos (happens automatically)
Movies/etc: external drive (fairly static, low impact, so about once a yr)
Important docs/tax returns/passwords etc: they live encrypted on dropbox so I have access from anywhere

 

[mountainsoft]

I have done this sometimes in the past. Just add a hard drive to the computer; no wires, no hassles. If the C: drive dies, you are still in business. The downside of course is that it does not protect against fire or theft.

Or viruses, malware, or power surges... I leave my nightly backup drive connected to the computer, but rotate that with a second drive I keep off site.

 

[easysurfer]

I have done this sometimes in the past. Just add a hard drive to the computer; no wires, no hassles. If the C: drive dies, you are still in business. The downside of course is that it does not protect against fire or theft. Life is tradeoffs.

Yes, the internal drive is convenient.

But as a safety measure to reduce the risk of only internal drive is why I do a back of my data to an external disk monthly and entire system quarterly.

I'm more concerned with the risk of malware locking out my system and internal drives than the risk of fire and theft.

To make the extra backup not that cumbersome, the external drives are used as swap drives for a swap drive bay.

 

[easysurfer]

https://clonezilla.org/

What is Clonezilla?
Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to True Image® or Norton Ghost®. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery.

I had a chance over the weekend to check out a backup program called Rescuezilla. This is a second act for an older program called Redo Backup and Recovery. Which I tried years ago but was buggy. Now under new maintainer of the program, it does seem to do the job of bare metal restores. Doesn't perform as many functions as Clonezilla. For example, Rescuezilla does not do a clone of a drive to drive but is just for imaging. But is nice for those how like a graphical look and only need to make an image of the hard drive for a bare metal restore. Rescuezilla kind of reminds me of another imaging program I've used in the past called DriveImage XML, but is a bit easier to use.

 

[camfused]

@Tailgate, maybe I missed it, but why do not just use TimeMachine? It is built into Mac OSX, and works perfectly. You can have it backup to a thumb drive if you want. I have mine go to a TimeMachine drive on my Synology NAS. Bare metal (well, start from scratch with Mac) works fine, and it constantly versions all your files for you. Since you have a Mac, I truly don't see a need for any other program.

If you *really* want to backup to the cloud, there are ways with TimeMachine.

Personally, I have my Desktop and Documents all mirrored to iCloud (which also makes them accessible on other Macs I have). Between that and my continuous TimeMachine backups, I feel well covered.

 

[DrRoy]

I just backup my data about once per week/month to external drives.

You can get ~4T in external HD storage for ~$100. No monthly payment.

 

[tomesquez]

At work I have 3x 2TB HDD for RAID storage. So it makes it safe from HDD failure etc. Use it to store clients videos for multiple years.

 

[davebarnes]

For backup to external drive—SuperDuper by Shirtpocket.
Happy customer for over a decade.
I have “tested” it when my internal drive died.

 

[tomesquez]

By the way, I just started googling and found that iDrive gives 5TB of storage for only ~3.5$ for the first year. So if someone is looking for a lot of storage for short term - might be a great option.

 

[jim584672]

For those on Windows 10, just a tip, use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool to create a bootable USB. You can reinstall the OS on a new drive and it will auto activate if it has a digital license. The new 20H1 version is out now and you can get a fresh reinstall of the OS.