Let's Talk Computer Backup Plans

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yay, my hard drive failed! While I was still able to run the OS on the dying drive, I couldn’t clone the disk image due to corruption, so all the settings and program files are long gone. Fortunately, I keep all of my documents on Dropbox. I’m now the proud owner of a brand new solid state drive. I haven’t given it the gaming test run yet, but I can boot my computer in about 20 seconds, which is… 1 minute and 40 seconds faster, give or take. So at least something good came out of it.

This little disaster (which took days of my time to resolve and was highly stressful) has made me think more critically about how I’m backing up my data. I didn’t bother with any backups prior to this because there was nothing of importance on the machine that wasn’t also on Dropbox… but I’m not sure Dropbox is a very robust backup plan, either. I’m currently doing a trial run of both Acronis and Backblaze, but the reviews are mixed and I’m questioning whether it’s just overkill.

So the question I ask the teeming millions is, what exactly should I be doing to back up my data and safeguard against future emergencies? The answer becomes especially confusing in the wake of cloud storage and sync being virtually everywhere. For example, despite losing all my local gaming files, I didn’t lose any gaming progress because Steam syncs everything. Once I installed MS Office, it remembered where all my files are, too. It’s getting harder to lose stuff.

I have, truth be told, about 5G of documents that I consider critical, and don’t really care about anything else. Does it really make sense to use cloud backup with something like Backblaze when those same files are already stuffed in the Dropbox cloud? Or to save an entire disk image to an external hard drive using Acronis when there’s hardly anything on that disk? IIRC when the 1TB HDD failed it had less than 40G total saved on it and most of that was program files. Reinstalling programs is a pain, but it really only took me a couple of hours.

The machines:

Alienware x51 PC - used primarily for gaming and to run remote/virtual desktop at work (this is the machine that crashed.)

Macbook Pro 2017 - used for everything else; where I do most of my writing

The documents: All in Dropbox, so local copies on each machine + cloud

The only files I deep down truly care about are my Scrivener documents, which represent years of artistic labor that can’t be replaced. The thought of losing that shit makes me panic. Currently, I keep Scrivener docs on Dropbox. Scrivener autosaves to Dropbox with every two-second pause, and every time I close the program, it automatically backs up to a second location - in this case, GoogleDrive. I occasionally back up to USB but I forget to do that regularly. One thing that appeals to me about Backblaze is that is backs up my Dropbox folder continuously, thus would ensure that I had another copy of my writing stored somewhere easily accessible (especially important since I don’t actually close Scrivener, and trigger the auto-backup, all that often.) Since it’s stored locally both on my laptop and my PC, is that enough ‘‘local storage’’ to cover it? Or should I ensure it’s on a USB flash drive somewhere?

Thanks for the input.

2

I have three HDD that are partitioned for different media. Books, music, movies and misc. are each on their own partition on two of the drives with the third drive being C:. C: gets imaged to alternate external hard drives every week. The others get backed up once a month on a third external drive since not much is added to those drives these days.
I don’t do cloud as my upload speed is too slow. The image backup would take 95 hours at best speed.

3

As a Mac user, I run Time Machine, which keeps incremental hourly backups. Great for when I accidentally save over a big spreadsheet I was working on or something similarly boneheaded. The downside is that Time Machine is very slow to rebuild a full drive image in case I have a serious hardware problem.

For those major breakdowns, I have Carbon Copy Cloner create a bootable copy of my laptop drive every night. Should I have a hardware failure, I can boot from that drive immediately, and then clone it back to a new laptop or internal drive when convenient.

Since both of those drives sit right next to my laptop, a catastrophe could take them all out in one fell swoop, so my worst-case backup is to the cloud using CrashPlan.

I go to these lengths mostly because I work remotely and want to stay in the good graces of my IT, Facilities and Ops folks. I never want them to hear that I’m down or a project is stalled due to a hardware or software problem on my end. Everything I do is geared toward getting back in the groove immediately after a problem, expecting little to no IT support from my org.

Most of my stuff would be covered (photos in the Apple cloud, ditto books, music, emails with other business docs somewhere in the depths of OneDrive) but all of that would more time to recover than I care to wait for.

4

I subscribe to an online service. (Backblaze.) Not too pricey, and a huge comfort.

(Although I confess, I was living in a fool’s paradise for a while: the password to recover my files was…on my computer. It took a number of months before the penny dropped, and I wrote the password down and gave it to my sister to keep at her house. Well, duh…)

5

Spice Weasel, what is your concern about drop box? They keep multiple iterations of your files, and it seems very unlikely that a physical problem that took out your hard drive would simultaneously take out their servers.

Pork Rind has a more robust plan for getting up and running quickly, but I’m not sure what is wrong with your plan for your needs.

I also have a Mac, and I use time machine. I’ve had good luck restoring (slowly) from time machine. I am looking for an external backup plan. I’ve considered Dropbox, because I already use them. I believe they are secure and accessible and robust. A nephew worked there for as a summer intern, and I quizzed him on their practices.

CrashPlan is the industry standard right now for reliable and flexible home/small business computer backup, but they became expensive with their recent price changes, which are geared towards business users.

Carbonite charges by machine, and it’s Mac interface is old and clunky, but their data-restore reliability is said to be excellent, and it has a useful set-it-and-forget-it option. It has a free trial. I should get off my duff and sign up.

6

I dunno, paranoia?

I’ve read about twenty articles by people claiming online cloud storage and online cloud backup are so totally not the same thing, but the explanations make little sense to me. A cloud is a cloud is a cloud, right? Backblaze seems to have super secure data encryption, which is good, but I don’t really have sensitive files I’m worried about.

My gut instinct is that if something took out both of my hard drives and Dropbox at the same time, I’d have bigger problems on my hands than data loss (like, zombie apocalypse bigger.) But I’m curious what savvier folks than myself are doing.

I would be looking into CrashPlan if they weren’t ditching individual consumers over the enterprise model.

7

The problem with cloud storage is that if you get malware on your PC it can corrupt your files before you notice but after they get synced with your local device… So your cloud copies are now corrupt. And if malware can access an online backup of your data, then that too is at risk.

I recommend two separate methods of backup or redundant storage. Cloud is good for one, but there’s not much that can beat a good old-fashioned offline backup.

8

All right, now you’ve got me worried.

I think I’ll just regularly back up Dropbox to external, local storage from now on.

9

Most cloud storage keeps a few versions of your files.

I believe CrashPlan lets you set parameters around that (although I’m not certain, I researched this a while ago.)

I first learned of ransomware from a friend who works for Carbonite. Their versioning algorithm was suboptimal for ransomeware recovery at the time, and he did a lot of work both to recover customer files and to improve the algorithms. (They actually noticed it because a customer’s space would suddenly grow, as EVERY FILE changed.) I am comfortable that a Carbonite customer can now recover their pre-corruption files.

And that was precisely what I quizzed my nephew about re Dropbox.

I think you’ll be okay with any of them.

10

Backblaze definitely does versioning. I know people who have gotten old versions from Backblaze.

To me, Backblaze seems cheaper than Dropbox. You can still get your files online, so I’m not sure it’s not the better deal. I mean, it is unlimited storage.

11

I have one folder with a few gigs of files (email, docs, CAD drawings, spreadsheets, etc.). Once a week I connect an external hard drive, manually back up that folder to it, and then disconnect the drive. The drive is velcroed to the underside of a desk; if someone steals the computer, they won’t notice the hidden backup drive. The files on that drive might be up to a week old, but that’s far better than nothing.

A have a few other folders with many gigs of photos and MP3 files; the content of these folders doesn’t change very often. Once every six months, I connect a second external drive and manually back up those folders (and the first folder) to it. Then that drive goes in a zip-loc bag in a foam-lined case and stored in a fire-resistant, water-resistant safe that’s bolted to a shelf in the basement. If a tornado or fire takes the computer and the under-desk backup, I’ll still have the one stored in the safe. The files on that one might be six months old, but that’s far better than nothing.

12

Well, Dropbox is currently free for me, but Backblaze isn’t super expensive so I’m not too worried about the cost if it will provide me additional security.

For some reason I appear to have 30G of free space in Dropbox, I’m using 5.2G, I guess the extra space is just from being an early customer. I notice it’s being advertised as ‘‘up to 5G free!’’ but my account shows me using 5G of 30G.

13

Put the drive in your car or at a friend’s.

14

This is pretty much what I do as well. Backup every month or so to the external, which gets stashed elsewhere, and an every 6 months backup that gets taken to work and stashed there. All of my work files are automatically backed up on the district servers, so I don’t have to worry about those.

The only thing that gives me chills is losing all my music files. I have digitized 40 years worth of vinyl in addition to all the CDs I owned. Notice the past tense - “owned.” If those files got stolen or destroyed I could never replace them. And I worked in a record store, so I got copies of shit that sold maybe 12 copies nationwide.

15

You could do your own file-hosting with a reliable web host, maybe a VPS managed or unmanaged ( = managed by you if you like that sort of thing ) since unlike website hosting they allow simple storage.

Every week or every month just FTP the files up.

One can get 50 GB space for about $20 a year at Low End Box and other places — you needn’t run a website from it. I haven’t got a VPS, but I’ve been with DreamHost for 10 years and they’ve never lost a file.

[ Not that I would recommend DreamHost for storage, not only have they moved to a Flat Slab Style control panel, which will cause me to leave them, but their object storage plans work on the same mechanism as Amazon AWS, wildly complicated with buckets. ]

16

I have a Synology NAS that I swear by. It uses 4 drives for redundancy, and it features a ton of apps that allow it to connect to cloud backup services. Right now I’m using AWS Glacier for backup, but I might switch to Amazon’s more mainstream option at some point. With glacier it’s super cheap to store and backup, but expensive to restore. It also backs up all my pictures and family videos to Amazon Photos which comes with unlimited photo backups for Prime members.

17

Here’s a thought: periodically copy everything down to an optical disk or two.* It’s offline storage and should you use the “one session” option, the disk will be read-only to prevent malware (or fat fingers) from deleting or altering your data. They’re relatively cheap enough to make multiple copies and durable enough to send to friends elsewhere as offsite backups.

*A single-layer data DVD holds almost 5GB (4.7GB). Double-layer DVD’s hold over 8GB. One single-layer Blu-Ray holds about 25GB.

18

I am in the “don’t keep personal things in online storage” camp - among other things, what if your online connection is down?

I back up the files I can’t duplicate onto SDHCs and thumb drives.

19

I use Crashplan. There are cheaper options now, but it has been reliable for several years.

But whatever you use for your primary automated backup, you should consider that there is a risk that it might not protect you against ransomware if the versioning is not robust. For last resort ransomware protection, about once a month I copy key files onto a thumb drive, put a date on it, and don’t touch it again. (Well, I could reuse after a while, but they are cheap enough that I don’t bother.)

If you are really paranoid, you could put the thumb drives in an EMP-proof box.

20

Probably a hijack, but what the hell.

Late last winter my hard drive failed. I was actually in the middle of a webinar for school when it died, which pissed me off more than the failure did. At first I wasn’t too worried because I saved everything important to Dropbox—all my school papers, my tax returns, and some pictures.

When I got a new hard drive installed and went about recovering my files I discovered that my Dropbox was completely empty—it had somehow been erased when the hard drive failed. No tech person I’ve spoken with could explain why that happened. One theorized that the the drive sent some sort of erase command to Dropbox when it died. I got a few condescending chuckles, but not much else. I was seriously pissed. That contained all my undergrad coursework and research, as well as a couple of years tax returns. Now I only have paper copies of those, which is better than nothing but still… I was seriously pissed. All my undergrad work is gone. Someone else said that the paid version of Dropbox periodically saves your files so if they’re erased they can be recovered. I have no idea how true that is.

I (obviously) am about as computer savvy as your average octogenarian. I’m going to follow this thread with interest as I still have no really good backup plan… I still use Dropbox and periodically email folders to myself so at least it’s on Google’s servers if something happens.