My new PC Backup Strategy

[Clariman]

Having lost a complete Hard Disk with about 25 years worth of data on it, what have I learned

• I am an idiot, for not having a more up to date backup
• A lot of the stuff I had gathered on my hard drive was old and useless, but stuff you never feel like deleting.
• I'm thankful that I had a full backup from 2017 and some more recent backups of important folders

All in all, my old and/or partial backups meant it was not catastrophic.

My new backup strategy...

• Monthly full backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 6 months (automated using Macrium)
• Daily differential backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 30 days (Macrium)
• Monthly (?) copy of full backup to additional USB hard drive (manual and then disconnect drive)
• May also backup some files with MS OneDrive for additional protection

The first 2 items in the list are primarily to protect against data loss from hard disk crash or accidentally deleted files
The last 2 items are to provide additional protection against ransomware attacks and I may store in different part of house in case of a localised fire in home office.

Any comments appreciated. In particular I am wondering whether the manual backup to a normally disconnected hard drive should deliberately be an older version of a backup, in case I copy a ransomware-infected version onto the removable drive?

Thanks
Clariman

[scrumpyjack]

One thing you can also do is email important files to yourself. Assuming you are using something like gmail, you will then forever have a copy on the net of that file at that point.

[xeny]

For the penultimate item, I"d consider 2 drives. alternated monthly and ideally stored somewhere else.

That gives you more than a month of history, so you've got some defence in depth against ransomware, and better protection against catastrophic building fires.

If you arrange this with robocopying/rsync to only copy updated files (depending on OS) keep an eye on the run time - if it is very long and you've not changed much, that's a strong indication you're looking at either disk issues or potentially corrupted files....

[Midsmartin]

Macrium works well with multiple USB drives (you have to add the extras as alternative destinations in your backup plan). When you swap them round, it just backs up to whichever one happens to be plugged in at the time without you having to tell it.

[GeoffF100]

My new backup strategy...

• Monthly full backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 6 months (automated using Macrium)
• Daily differential backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 30 days (Macrium)
• Monthly (?) copy of full backup to additional USB hard drive (manual and then disconnect drive)
• May also backup some files with MS OneDrive for additional protection

I suggest that you do make a monthly copy to an external drive and disconnect it. I suggest that you do the same on MS OneDrive or similar (log in, make a backup and immediately log out), spaced equally between the MS OneDrive backups. That protects you against losing data when your house burns down. MS also does its best to protect against ransomware. I also suggest that you keep some older backups, to protect against ransomware that encrypts your backups. You can have a cycle of flash drives for that. Overwrite the oldest copy. Alternatively, you can use DVDs if the data size is small enough.

[mc2fool]

My new backup strategy...

• Monthly full backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 6 months (automated using Macrium)
• Daily differential backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 30 days (Macrium)
• Monthly (?) copy of full backup to additional USB hard drive (manual and then disconnect drive)
• May also backup some files with MS OneDrive for additional protection

The first 2 items in the list are primarily to protect against data loss from hard disk crash or accidentally deleted files
The last 2 items are to provide additional protection against ransomware attacks and I may store in different part of house in case of a localised fire in home office.

Ok, so given the last point, why have you chosen to do backups to your attached 1TB external drive when you already have a 2TB NAS in a different part of the house that you could do the backups to directly and would satisfy the "in case of a localised fire" requirement?

In regards to "May also backup some files with MS OneDrive", why so equivocal? I do think you are missing an important trick here. Putting your working folders and all of your personal data on OneDrive instantly gets you off site storage, protecting you from all "local" problems (disk failure, fire, physical theft, meteor strike, etc), and with versioning and rollback also protects you from deleted/cocked-up files and ransomware for the stuff you can't otherwise replace -- and it all happens immediately and automatically, no effort needed.

If you're uncomfortable putting your more sensitive files on OneDrive, then put those on Sync.com instead for zero knowledge end-to-end encrypted storage.

[Clariman]

Ok, so given the last point, why have you chosen to do backups to your attached 1TB external drive when you already have a 2TB NAS in a different part of the house that you could do the backups to directly and would satisfy the "in case of a localised fire" requirement?

Fair question. A few reasons, probably not insoluble issues. Firstly Macrium could not see the NAS drive so I went with an easier option. Secondly the NAS is accessible from any user and can also be accessed by WiFi, so I felt more comfortable with a simpler solution where I know it is just my laptop that accesses it.

In regards to "May also backup some files with MS OneDrive", why so equivocal? I do think you are missing an important trick here. Putting your working folders and all of your personal data on OneDrive instantly gets you off site storage, protecting you from all "local" problems (disk failure, fire, physical theft, meteor strike, etc), and with versioning and rollback also protects you from deleted/cocked-up files and ransomware for the stuff you can't otherwise replace -- and it all happens immediately and automatically, no effort needed.

That's a very good point. I'll add it into the plan.

Thanks
C

[jaizan]

I use Robocopy in some batch files which backs up key files from the main SSD to another internal drive. I do this on most days.

Every month or two, I do a full backup to a separate drive. I rotate the drive used and there are 3 of them.

Some files get copied to google drive.

[mc2fool]

Firstly Macrium could not see the NAS drive so I went with an easier option. Secondly the NAS is accessible from any user and can also be accessed by WiFi, so I felt more comfortable with a simpler solution where I know it is just my laptop that accesses it.

Ummm...Macrium sees whatever drives/shares your PC sees, so not sure what's happening there.

You can almost certainly control who accesses the NAS, fair chance on a per folder/share basis.

Re the NAS can be accessed by WiFi: so can your laptop. And if you're not careful so can anything connected to it. But LAN security is another, albeit related, topic....

[JohnB]

One thing to watch for is the file deletion you didn't realise you did, which propagates from backup to backup over a few months. Like your 2017 backup, having occasional snapshots you don't update can be useful.

[Mike4]

Having lost a complete Hard Disk with about 25 years worth of data on it, what have I learned

• I am an idiot, for not having a more up to date backup
• A lot of the stuff I had gathered on my hard drive was old and useless, but stuff you never feel like deleting.
• I'm thankful that I had a full backup from 2017 and some more recent backups of important folders

All in all, my old and/or partial backups meant it was not catastrophic.

My new backup strategy...

• Monthly full backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 6 months (automated using Macrium)
• Daily differential backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 30 days (Macrium)
• Monthly (?) copy of full backup to additional USB hard drive (manual and then disconnect drive)
• May also backup some files with MS OneDrive for additional protection

The first 2 items in the list are primarily to protect against data loss from hard disk crash or accidentally deleted files
The last 2 items are to provide additional protection against ransomware attacks and I may store in different part of house in case of a localised fire in home office.

Any comments appreciated. In particular I am wondering whether the manual backup to a normally disconnected hard drive should deliberately be an older version of a backup, in case I copy a ransomware-infected version onto the removable drive?

Thanks
Clariman

Huh.

I'll give it about a week before this begins to slip, and three months for you to have completely forgotten what you are supposed to be doing every day and every month.

Your strategy needs to be FULLY AUTOMATED or it will eventually lapse once real life intervenes, I predict. Even if fully automated you will forget what the strategy is, eventually, so write it down. Oh you have, here.

Just relaying my own personal experience of back-up planning and what actually happens to it in the long term.

[Clariman]

Huh.

I'll give it about a week before this begins to slip...
Your strategy needs to be FULLY AUTOMATED or it will eventually lapse once real life intervenes, I predict. Even if fully automated you will forget what the strategy is, eventually, so write it down. Oh you have, here.

Thanks Mike, I think you missed this bit

My new backup strategy...
Monthly full backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 6 months (automated using Macrium)
Daily differential backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 30 days (Macrium)
...

And how can I have a FULLY AUTOMATED backup, beyond the above, where the disk with the backup of the backup (no.3 in my original list) needs to be disconnected except during the backup process. Surely that one has to be manual?

C

[scrumpyjack]

Of course the advantage of cloud storage/backup (Dropbox, Onedrive etc) is that it is automatically off site. If your house burns down, the USB drive attached to the computer is going to be destroyed long with the PC. Similarly a burglar may well take the USB drives along with the PC!

[Mike4]

Huh.

I'll give it about a week before this begins to slip...
Your strategy needs to be FULLY AUTOMATED or it will eventually lapse once real life intervenes, I predict. Even if fully automated you will forget what the strategy is, eventually, so write it down. Oh you have, here.

Thanks Mike, I think you missed this bit

My new backup strategy...
Monthly full backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 6 months (automated using Macrium)
Daily differential backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 30 days (Macrium)
...

And how can I have a FULLY AUTOMATED backup, beyond the above, where the disk with the backup of the backup (no.3 in my original list) needs to be disconnected except during the backup process. Surely that one has to be manual?

C

Sorry Clariman, I guess I did not communicate my point properly - I blame too much excellent Viognier having just joined the Wine Society and received my first delivery

To clarify, my point is that any strategy is not fully automated if the user has to physically plug a drive in and out once a month. In the fullness of time and given human nature, such a strategy stands a good chance of failing looking at my own failure to continue doing anything manually for backing up on a regular basis in the long term.

So I am suggesting revising your backup strategy to get rid of the need to plug in USB drives and remove them, but you know your ability to be disciplined about such things better than I do!

Given what scrumpyjack has told us (in the other thread I think) about the service called "Sync", this seems quite a good way of avoiding plugging stuff in and out, if you decide you need to avoid it. I know from personal experience my own back-ups absolutely have to be fully automated or eventually they fall into disuse.

[Julian]

I think Mike4 makes a good point about automation specifically with your point 3 usually-disconnected drive and point 4 ("may also back up some files" doesn't inspire confidence!).

scrumpyjack then raises the subject of cloud storage/backup that is "automatically offline" and the significance of that in terms of a major incident such as a house fire or burglary. Personally I don't consider any backup strategy truly complete unless it includes at least one fully automated (to pick up on Mike4's point) all-of-your-data-files (as opposed to system files) cloud backup in the mix to give a comprehensive fully automated off-site backup.

For what it's worth I subscribe to 2 cloud backup services - Carbonite and Crashplan. I have a separate data drive in my PC (a mirrored pair actually but they just look like a D: drive to Windows) where all my data is stored. I also moved things like the Desktop, Download, Music, Video etc default Windows folders for my user account onto my D: drive so anything stored there is captured by my cloud backups as well as the rest of my data. I have both Crashplan and Carbonite set up to pretty much constantly backup all changes on my D: drive. Crashplan is explicitly set to check for changes every 15 minutes and Carbonite is in theory real time ("Back up continuously") but in reality seems to check every few minutes so about the same frequency as the Crashplan backup. This gives me two totally off-site backups held in different data centres so that if one of my providers has a meltdown/earthquake/etc I still have another offsite copy and also created by two different software applications so if a version of one of the backup clients has a bug or gets corrupted such that one of my backups silently stops or starts to create corrupt archives on the server I don't have a single point of software failure.

The downsides of my solution are -

1 - It incurs ongoing fees. I think my Crashplan sub is about £10 a month and Carbonite maybe about £50 a year. Personally I consider that a price I am willing to pay to maximise the protection of my ever growing lifetime dataset but clearly that's a personal tradeoff that will differ across individuals.

2 - My C: (System) drive isn't backed up so if I had a crash there I would need to install Windows and my apps again from scratch. Personally I am OK with that. I do a rebuild of my C: drive every couple of years anyway and knowing that I might need to do an unscheduled rebuild encourages me to streamline the apps I install and not clutter my PC with unnecessary junk. I also keep a log book (electronically and printed) that is a step-by-step record of my rebuild process so I can do it easily and quickly and don't have to rediscover how to get around issues such as "Monitor Type not Detected" during the initial install (when I hit such issues I document them in my logbook and write instructions to myself about how to solve them in the future).

3 - Concerns about putting personal documents on the internet. I have those concerns which is why I would never use a backup service that doesn't offer the ability for a user to specify his/her own encryption key that is never disclosed to the backup provider so, if their data centre were to be hacked, my files would be strongly encrypted with no record of the decryption key anywhere in the data centre. For me that is enough to assuage that concern but I accept that others might be even more cautious (do I really trust the backup provider that their client software on my PC isn't secretly or accidentally sending my decryption key to their servers?). As I say, I am willing to make that leap of faith but others might not be. It's also worth noting that if you lose your private encryption key you can never get to your backup because the backup provider can't decrypt your data and offer to encrypt it with a new key for you (aka "reset my password"). If you lose your encryption key you need to create a new backup of all your data from scratch.

4 - Both my backup plans offer unlimited storage so my data set also includes a lot of music and a few video files hence is quite big (currently about 400GB) so that took a very (very, very) long time to do the initial upload to the Crashplan and Carbonite servers. Once done however my data files mostly never change apart from a handful of documents I might be working on and the occasional flurry of one-off additions when I download new music or scan a stack of paperwork to PDF.

5 - Technically my scheme isn't fully automated because just backing up is only part of the issue, the other part is periodically checking that you can read the backups that are being made. That is sadly still a manual process whereby I occasionally look at my online backups and pick a few random files to check they are readable.

As you can probably tell I am a huge fan of online backup services and consider them an essential part of my backup strategy, the key part in fact, but I do realise that others have different views regarding online backup. One other advantage is that both of my providers, Crashplan in particular, offer good versioning capabilities which I have used in the past when I've accidentally saved something into the wrong file and overwritten something else that I hadn't intended to overwrite. It is trivially easy to roll back to the previous version of the overwritten file to put such things right.

- Julian

[yorkshirelad1]

Two (if not 3) external HDDs to store backup images which you rotate and store off-site.
Keep a spreadsheet (google sheets?) of your backups so you know what's where.

[jackdaww]

i keep data that changes daily , such as my diary and schedules , shares database , cash etc in a desktop folder.

this folder i copy to several USB's - that are permanently plugged in - religiously every time i update anything , which is several times a day .

its not too onerous .

less frequently changed data is kept in a monthly desktop folder , copied to USB's when a change is made .

photos, videos , tv recordings are backed up to powered portable HDD's . (many of these i will probably never look at again) .

[langley59]

I recently posted this on a different topic:

After much deliberation over this following a corrupted hard drive earlier this year I back up my files to a USB drive every evening. Every month end I also back them up to One Drive manually. So I have a daily onsite backup with monthly offsite backup. There is no synching of One Drive with my PC.

[mc2fool]

Firstly Macrium could not see the NAS drive so I went with an easier option. Secondly the NAS is accessible from any user and can also be accessed by WiFi, so I felt more comfortable with a simpler solution where I know it is just my laptop that accesses it.

Ummm...Macrium sees whatever drives/shares your PC sees, so not sure what's happening there.

Just looking through my setup and see that I have (long forgotten) set up login credentials for my NAS in Macrium -- even though I have the NAS set up to be accessible from any user. IIRC you have a Buffalo Linkstation, and I do too (an LS220) and it has a "guest" account and that's what I set up in Macrium.

Open Macrium and choose Other Tasks -> Edit Defaults... and click on Network. Then click on Add and add \\yourNAS\thebackupsfolder (or whatever!), with guest for both username and password, and see if that helps.

And how can I have a FULLY AUTOMATED backup, beyond the above, where the disk with the backup of the backup (no.3 in my original list) needs to be disconnected except during the backup process.

Maybe it doesn't need to. Your no. 3 was "Monthly (?) copy of full backup to additional USB hard drive (manual and then disconnect drive)" with the disconnect being "in order to provide additional protection against ransomware attacks and I may store in different part of house in case of a localised fire".

Ok, so your NAS is already in a different part of the house, and the Linkstation has:

• a USB port you can connect a USB drive to AND
• the ability to do automatic backups of the NAS or folder(s) therein to that USB drive AND
• can restrict access to the USB drive from the LAN.

At least mine does and I think those are common features on Buffalo NASs. So, if you did your backups to the Linkstation, you could (permanently) plug your USB drive into the Linkstation and get it to automatically backup the backups to the USB drive, and set it up so that there is either just read-only access or no access at all to the USB drive from other devices on the LAN, making the backups on the USB drive ransomware-safe.

Well, safer. The ransomware would have to actually infect the Linkstation itself, rather than just encrypt the files remotely from your laptop.

[Clariman]

Revised Backup Strategy

• Automated (Macrium) monthly full backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 6 months
• Automated daily differential backups to attached USB hard drive - retained for 30 days
• Manual Monthly copy of full backup to additional USB hard drive, then disconnect drive
• Have moved non-confidential data to OneDrive for automatic synchronisation, offsite backup and ransomware protection
• Have created a more secure randomly generated password for my MS Account
• Confidential data is all in a local folder on hard drive
• Will manually copy confidential data to OneDrive Personal Vault for additional secure backup

I think that will do me

C