Computer data back-up schemes.

[David Paste]

Following on from my HD question:

I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
as-and-when I remember.

I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.

Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
back-ups, with one somewhere else) and on what media?

Thanks again.

[Joe]

On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:31:29 -0700 (PDT)
David Paste <paste...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Following on from my HD question:
>
> I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
> and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
> as-and-when I remember.
>
> I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.

With USB sticks, yes, even reputable makes can fail without warning,
generally not being recognised and therefore making all data
inaccessible. Multiple copies are the only reasonably safe way to go
with them.

>
> Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
> back-ups, with one somewhere else) and on what media?
>
>

I don't think you can beat mechanical hard drives at the moment. SSDs
haven't been around long enough to judge long-term reliability. I have
many backups on optical media, which is frowned upon, but I don't have
any trouble recovering files from twenty years ago. Of course, optical
drives are getting harder to find...

That's the problem with archives, not so much the media dying as
becoming impossible to read. Many of my hard drive backups are IDE, I
have two USB IDE adaptors, but they won't last forever. Happily, every
few years I buy another drive or two for the extra space, so I have
several retired drives of reasonable size. Keep more than one copy
of everything, just to be on the safe side.

Worth a look if by some chance you've never seen this:

http://www.taobackup.com/

--
Joe

[Peter Able]

I back up music/images/video to pairs of External Hard Drives. I
incrementally back up C:\ to Partition E:\ and to a USB stick.

I save MyDocuments and the Browser and Email profiles then restore the
last C:\ image, then restore the just-mentioned three about four times a
year.

I regularly compare the backup pairs.

And I still worry...;}

PA

[Bob Eager]

I back them up to cheap SSDs, one of which I keep off site.

I also back them up to Amazon S3 Deep Archive, whoch is stupidly cheap.




--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

[Jeff Gaines]

On 11/09/2023 in message

<2cdc9d8f-1309-49ed...@googlegroups.com> David Paste wrote:

>Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
>back-ups, with one somewhere else) and on what media?

I bought a big clunky dual Xeon processor HP Z620 from Bargain Hardware,
close to £20K new, about £500 second hand. My main desktop backs up to
it (using SmartSync Pro) every night on a schedule. Probably overkill but
I always wanted a dual processor machine and that enabled me to have one!

The back up drives (SSDs as all my mechanical drives have now died) are
exFat (see other post) so can be pulled and put in another machine.

I have no offsite backups which is a weakness.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Have you ever noticed that all the instruments searching for intelligent
life are pointing away from Earth?

[John Rumm]

On 11/09/2023 19:31, David Paste wrote:

> Following on from my HD question:
>
> I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
> and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
> as-and-when I remember.

I find backup to USB stick is usually frustratingly slow... but it is
cheap. Not massively reliable though.

> I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.
>
> Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
> back-ups, with one somewhere else) and on what media?

Well this is a deep question - much of which will be influenced by how
much of it you have, much you care about it, and what sized bag of money
you are happy to bludgeon the problem to death with.

Backup as a minimum needs several generations - i.e. you don't want to
have to destroy your one and only backup to make a new one.

Backups needs to be automatic and frequent - so you can't forget to do
them, and can't enjoy the bitter sweet feeling of relief that your file
is recoverable, but it is also a month old and you have lost weeks worth
of updates to it.

Ideally it wants to record multiple snapshots of changes to files. So
not only can you get back the file you accidentally deleted, but also go
back to the version of the file that you realised you corrupted a month
ago and it has been backup up in its corrupted form many times since then.

A NAS based solution can make a relatively sophisticated setup -
especially if you augment it with off site storage or cloud based
storage. So give it multiple disks in RAID 1 (i.e. a mirror with data
recorded on two or more drives so that if one fails you can swap in a
new one, and not lose anything). Most NAS will also use storage space to
keep snapshots - so you can easily go back file versions. The more
competent NAS boxen can also backup to other things (like another NAS
somewhere else, or to a cloud storage service like OneDrive, Google
Drive, Drop Box etc, and also to cloud based storage "buckets" like
Amazon S3. (their S3 Glacier Deep Archive is only about £12/year/TB -
but you might have to wait 12 hours to recovery your data)

You could also look at product offerings like Backblaze who offer a flat
rate "unlimited" data backup for one PC for ~$70/year. (needs decent
internet ideally, but they do have an option to mail out a HDD with your
data on it if you need to recover significant amounts)




--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[noth...@aolbin.com]

On 11/09/2023 19:31, David Paste wrote:

I don't trust myself to backup manually ("I'll do it tomorrow, tomorrow,
tomorrow ... bu&&er the HDDs failed and my last backup was umpty-ump
months ago") so am prepared to pay for something that just happens in
the background. Currently I use an automatic backup service called
Crashplan, but am looking for something cheaper ... all suggestions
gratefully received.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 11/09/2023 20:20, Joe wrote:
> don't think you can beat mechanical hard drives at the moment. SSDs
> haven't been around long enough to judge long-term reliability.

They have been around long enough to know that *if kept powered on' they
are more reliable than hard drives.

In use the data is cycled between blocks repeatedly and is therefore
refreshed. Switched off the charge can decay out of the cells.



--
“Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of
a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.”

Dennis Miller

[Davey]

On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:31:29 -0700 (PDT)
David Paste <paste...@gmail.com> wrote:

I run a short rsync (using Ubuntu) script every evening just before I
go to bed. It backs up my mail and any changed or new files to my CCTV
PC, at the other end of the house, and the files to a
permanently-connected HDD.
Occasionally I do the same to a different HDD.

--
Davey.

[Brian Gaff]

Well, I use the normal windows based on an image and incremental backups
with an occasional re image on an unpluggable drive. I have two 2tb ones on
different machines and both are wd. I've had no issues with those. Of course
if you want to pay, then get a dropbox account big enough and then you have
cloud back up as well. Win10 seems to use their own one drive solution and
of course there is google drive and if your upload speed is really fast
these solutions work well.
Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
bri...@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"David Paste" <paste...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:2cdc9d8f-1309-49ed...@googlegroups.com...

[Chris J Dixon]

David Paste wrote:

>I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
>and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
>as-and-when I remember.
>
>I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.
>
>Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
>back-ups, with one somewhere else) and on what media?

My PC has a SSD and two HDD. The second HDD is my E:\ drive.

I use Macrium Reflect Home.

Every night I backup my C:\ (SDD) and D:\ (HDD) to both the E:\
drive and my NAS. I run a full backup every week, with an
incremental every day, staggering the full backups across the
week and between destinations.

I have two USB drives, and back up to each of them alternately on
the first and fifteenth of the month.

As I pay for Office 365, I get plenty of free online storage.

To put myself in control of what Onedrive does, on my E:\ drive I
host a folder for all the files I want backed up to Onedrive,
which is essentially a subset of our data.

I update this by copying from my active files (thus avoiding any
issues with active databases) once a week. The program that has
made this very much easier is FreeFileSynch
https://www.freefilesync.org/

You can set it up in a number of ways to do exactly what you
need, and is quite useful in other scenarios.

One other precaution I take is to have a separate "archive"
backup, to my NAS, with a full taken every three months, and a
differential every month. I automatically keep only three
differentials, and weed out some of the full copies as they
accumulate, so that I still have the ability to go well back, if
necessary.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
ch...@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

[Frank]

On 11/09/2023 19:31, David Paste wrote:

I use two Synology 918+ NAS boxes and SyncBackSE
(https://www.2brightsparks.com/) to schedule and make the backups.

--
Frank

[Andrew]

On 11/09/2023 21:11, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:31:29 -0700, David Paste wrote:
>
>> Following on from my HD question:
>>
>> I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
>> and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
>> as-and-when I remember.
>>
>> I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.
>>
>> Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
>> back-ups,
>> with one somewhere else) and on what media?
>
> I back them up to cheap SSDs, one of which I keep off site.
>
> I also back them up to Amazon S3 Deep Archive, whoch is stupidly cheap.
>
>
>
>

As in how much ? (compared to say Microsoft 1-drive)

[Bob Eager]

I don't know the Microsoft prices. But S3 Deep Archive is as follows.
There is a 32kB overhead for each item stored.

- Upload is free.
- Storage is about 0.2 cents ($0.002) per GB/month in the eu-west region.
- Download is about 2 cents per GB, but the first 100GB per month is free.

There are some tiny other charges, but they are really tiny.

VAT has to be added on.

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 12:59:20 +0000, Bob Eager wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 13:23:12 +0100, Andrew wrote:
>
>> On 11/09/2023 21:11, Bob Eager wrote:
>>> On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:31:29 -0700, David Paste wrote:
>>>
>>>> Following on from my HD question:
>>>>
>>>> I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
>>>> and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
>>>> as-and-when I remember.
>>>>
>>>> I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
>>>> back-ups,
>>>> with one somewhere else) and on what media?
>>>
>>> I back them up to cheap SSDs, one of which I keep off site.
>>>
>>> I also back them up to Amazon S3 Deep Archive, whoch is stupidly
>>> cheap.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> As in how much ? (compared to say Microsoft 1-drive)
>
> I don't know the Microsoft prices. But S3 Deep Archive is as follows.
> There is a 32kB overhead for each item stored.
>
> - Upload is free.
> - Storage is about 0.2 cents ($0.002) per GB/month in the eu-west
> region. - Download is about 2 cents per GB, but the first 100GB per
> month is free.
>
> There are some tiny other charges, but they are really tiny.
>
> VAT has to be added on.

I omitted the retrieval request fees. You can have Standard (up to 12
hours delay) or Bulk (up to 48 hours delay).

Standard: 11 cents per 1000 requests, and about 2 cents/GB.
Bulk: about 3 cents per 1000 requests, and .5 cents/GB.

[Robin]

On 13/09/2023 13:59, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 13:23:12 +0100, Andrew wrote:
>
>> On 11/09/2023 21:11, Bob Eager wrote:
>>> On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:31:29 -0700, David Paste wrote:
>>>
>>>> Following on from my HD question:
>>>>
>>>> I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
>>>> and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
>>>> as-and-when I remember.
>>>>
>>>> I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
>>>> back-ups,
>>>> with one somewhere else) and on what media?
>>>
>>> I back them up to cheap SSDs, one of which I keep off site.
>>>
>>> I also back them up to Amazon S3 Deep Archive, whoch is stupidly cheap.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> As in how much ? (compared to say Microsoft 1-drive)
>
> I don't know the Microsoft prices. But S3 Deep Archive is as follows.
> There is a 32kB overhead for each item stored.
>
> - Upload is free.
> - Storage is about 0.2 cents ($0.002) per GB/month in the eu-west region.
> - Download is about 2 cents per GB, but the first 100GB per month is free.
>
> There are some tiny other charges, but they are really tiny.
>
> VAT has to be added on.
>

When I looked at Amazon Deep Glacier a while ago I concluded I /might/
manage interface now; would very possibly struggle if I lived on; and
would certainly be cursed ever more by 'er indoors should she survive me
and want her data. Is it still a case of using their command line or
writing code?

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

[Bob Eager]

It can all be done on the web, although I find the command line better. I
have scripts to do it all.

I have written a cheat sheet; you're welcome to a copy. Email me at
firs...@lastname.cx

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:37:49 +0100, Robin wrote:

> When I looked at Amazon Deep Glacier a while ago I concluded I /might/
> manage interface now; would very possibly struggle if I lived on; and
> would certainly be cursed ever more by 'er indoors should she survive me
> and want her data. Is it still a case of using their command line or
> writing code?

When you said that, I thought for a moment you were 'Huge', whom some
people may remember; a grumpy guy who frequented this group for a long
time. He's not so grumpy in person! I have known him since we were
postgrads together.

He has been saying similar things about not being able to do things in the
future, etc. With good reason. He has, for nearly two years, been
suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, which came out of nowhere.
He is just getting a van which will take his wheelchair 'up front'. It's
frightening how fast PSP moves.

[jkn]

On Wednesday, September 13, 2023 at 5:08:09 PM UTC+1, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:37:49 +0100, Robin wrote:
> > When I looked at Amazon Deep Glacier a while ago I concluded I /might/
> > manage interface now; would very possibly struggle if I lived on; and
> > would certainly be cursed ever more by 'er indoors should she survive me
> > and want her data. Is it still a case of using their command line or
> > writing code?
> When you said that, I thought for a moment you were 'Huge', whom some
> people may remember; a grumpy guy who frequented this group for a long
> time. He's not so grumpy in person! I have known him since we were
> postgrads together.
>
> He has been saying similar things about not being able to do things in the
> future, etc. With good reason. He has, for nearly two years, been
> suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, which came out of nowhere.
> He is just getting a van which will take his wheelchair 'up front'. It's
> frightening how fast PSP moves.
> --

Yes, I remember Huge. Thanks for the (sad) update on his health.

J^n

[John Rumm]

Many NAS boxes will have an "app" that interfaces with most of the cloud
storages services which makes the process more "point and click"

(although you would need to be able get as far as the web management
page for the nas)

[Lee Nowell]

I have used Crashplan for many years. I have all my files on a server (old PC) and all devices connect to that. Crashplan runs on that server and backups locally to another driver and to their cloud. You get full version history so can restore any file from any version. Storage is unlimited and it costs $10.99 per month. No extra charges for upload , download restores etc etc. You just install it, say which files you want backed up and it sorts it all out.

I believe if you are only backing up locally it may even be free.

[charles]

In article <b385b1eb-fc5d-4ad4...@googlegroups.com>, Lee

The trouble with local backup is that it doesn't protect data if your house
catches fire - especially if you aren't at home when/if it occurs.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4t้ฒ
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Robin]

On 13/09/2023 17:03, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:37:49 +0100, Robin wrote:
>

>>>
>> When I looked at Amazon Deep Glacier a while ago I concluded I /might/
>> manage interface now; would very possibly struggle if I lived on; and
>> would certainly be cursed ever more by 'er indoors should she survive me
>> and want her data. Is it still a case of using their command line or
>> writing code?
>
> It can all be done on the web, although I find the command line better. I
> have scripts to do it all.

I misunderstood what their site still has - viz

"Amazon S3 Glacier (S3 Glacier) provides a management console, which you
can use to create and delete vaults. However, you cannot upload archives
to S3 Glacier by using the management console. To upload data, such as
photos, videos, and other documents, you must either use the AWS CLI or
write code to make requests, by using either the REST API directly or by
using the Amazon SDKs. "

> I have written a cheat sheet; you're welcome to a copy. Email me at
> firs...@lastname.cx
>

That's very kind. Please mail to r...@outlook.com.

[Robin]

On 13/09/2023 17:08, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:37:49 +0100, Robin wrote:
>
>> When I looked at Amazon Deep Glacier a while ago I concluded I /might/
>> manage interface now; would very possibly struggle if I lived on; and
>> would certainly be cursed ever more by 'er indoors should she survive me
>> and want her data. Is it still a case of using their command line or
>> writing code?
>
> When you said that, I thought for a moment you were 'Huge', whom some
> people may remember; a grumpy guy who frequented this group for a long
> time. He's not so grumpy in person! I have known him since we were
> postgrads together.

I remember Huge well. I'm flattered (I think) to be mistaken for him
however briefly given, IIRC, the size of and facilities in his garage.

> He has been saying similar things about not being able to do things in the
> future, etc. With good reason. He has, for nearly two years, been
> suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, which came out of nowhere.
> He is just getting a van which will take his wheelchair 'up front'. It's
> frightening how fast PSP moves.
>

That's nasty. I'm thankfully not in that or like clinical territory. I
just happen to have a long run of data on my cognitive functions.

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 20:42:28 +0100, Robin wrote:

> On 13/09/2023 17:03, Bob Eager wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:37:49 +0100, Robin wrote:
>>
>>
>
>>> When I looked at Amazon Deep Glacier a while ago I concluded I /might/
>>> manage interface now; would very possibly struggle if I lived on; and
>>> would certainly be cursed ever more by 'er indoors should she survive
>>> me and want her data. Is it still a case of using their command line
>>> or writing code?
>>
>> It can all be done on the web, although I find the command line better.
>> I have scripts to do it all.
>
> I misunderstood what their site still has - viz
>
> "Amazon S3 Glacier (S3 Glacier) provides a management console, which you
> can use to create and delete vaults. However, you cannot upload archives
> to S3 Glacier by using the management console. To upload data, such as
> photos, videos, and other documents, you must either use the AWS CLI or
> write code to make requests, by using either the REST API directly or by
> using the Amazon SDKs. "

That documentation is out of date! They don't use vaults any more, but
'buckets'.

>> I have written a cheat sheet; you're welcome to a copy. Email me at
>> firs...@lastname.cx

[Tim Streater]

On 13 Sep 2023 at 17:08:04 BST, "Bob Eager" <news...@eager.cx> wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 16:37:49 +0100, Robin wrote:
>
>> When I looked at Amazon Deep Glacier a while ago I concluded I /might/
>> manage interface now; would very possibly struggle if I lived on; and
>> would certainly be cursed ever more by 'er indoors should she survive me
>> and want her data. Is it still a case of using their command line or
>> writing code?
>
> When you said that, I thought for a moment you were 'Huge', whom some
> people may remember; a grumpy guy who frequented this group for a long
> time. He's not so grumpy in person! I have known him since we were
> postgrads together.

Huge Rant? I remember him. Enjoyed his rants, too!

> He has been saying similar things about not being able to do things in the
> future, etc. With good reason. He has, for nearly two years, been
> suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, which came out of nowhere.
> He is just getting a van which will take his wheelchair 'up front'. It's
> frightening how fast PSP moves.

He's going to beconme Ironside, is he?

I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone asks how
to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is essentially
trivial, and it blossoms into an endlessly complex set of solutions. I just
plug in as it might be a Crucial X8, tell Time Machine to use it for backup,
and forget about it. Simples.

--
Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.

-- Tim Berners-Lee

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2023 21:23:26 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

> Huge Rant? I remember him. Enjoyed his rants, too!
>
>> He has been saying similar things about not being able to do things in
>> the future, etc. With good reason. He has, for nearly two years, been
>> suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, which came out of
>> nowhere. He is just getting a van which will take his wheelchair 'up
>> front'. It's frightening how fast PSP moves.
>
> He's going to beconme Ironside, is he?

Not for very long.

> I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone asks
> how to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is
> essentially trivial, and it blossoms into an endlessly complex set of
> solutions. I just plug in as it might be a Crucial X8, tell Time Machine
> to use it for backup,
> and forget about it. Simples.

Easy enough here too. But my stuff is about off-site backups.

[Robin]

On 13/09/2023 22:23, Tim Streater wrote:
>
> I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone asks how
> to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is essentially
> trivial, and it blossoms into an endlessly complex set of solutions. I just
> plug in as it might be a Crucial X8, tell Time Machine to use it for backup,
> and forget about it. Simples.
>

I'm impressed if you mean Time Machine plugs straight into AWS Glacier
storage.

If not then we are quite comfortable using a combination of Windows'
File History and SyncBack for local (including local network) and
off-site-on-hard-drive backups. Not as simple as Time Machine to set up
but then we would want to modify Time Machine's default settings in any
event.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/09/2023 22:23, Tim Streater wrote:

> On 13 Sep 2023 at 17:08:04 BST, "Bob Eager" <news...@eager.cx> wrote:
>
>
>> He has been saying similar things about not being able to do things in the
>> future, etc. With good reason. He has, for nearly two years, been
>> suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, which came out of nowhere.
>> He is just getting a van which will take his wheelchair 'up front'. It's
>> frightening how fast PSP moves.
>
> He's going to beconme Ironside, is he?
>

A friend of mine died recently from MND. First she had problems talking,
so she stopped, then she had problems swallowing, so the had a tube to
feed her, then she had problems breathing, and that was that.

About 2 years start to finish.

> I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone asks how
> to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is essentially
> trivial, and it blossoms into an endlessly complex set of solutions. I just
> plug in as it might be a Crucial X8, tell Time Machine to use it for backup,
> and forget about it. Simples.
>
I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone asks
how to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is essentially

trivial, and consists in running a second machine and using a cron
script and rsync to mirror all my data nightly.

All these cloud services are interfaces to Linux servers created for
numpties.
If you are not a numpty, you can create your own.

And let me tell you, fixing a linux server is a damned sight easier than
fixing leaking plumbing...


--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 13/09/2023 19:30, charles wrote:

>
> The trouble with local backup is that it doesn't protect data if your house
> catches fire - especially if you aren't at home when/if it occurs.
>

If my house catches fire I will have a lot of bigger problems than
losing 25 year old emails.


--
If I had all the money I've spent on drink...
..I'd spend it on drink.

Sir Henry (at Rawlinson's End)

[Jeff Gaines]

On 14/09/2023 in message <udu0gq$2gchf$2...@dont-email.me> The Natural

Philosopher wrote:

>I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone asks
>how to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is
>essentially
>trivial, and consists in running a second machine and using a cron script
>and rsync to mirror all my data nightly.

I expect the same is true of Windows users in reverse, we're just too
polite to say so.

>All these cloud services are interfaces to Linux servers created for
>numpties.
>If you are not a numpty, you can create your own.

They are "somebody else's computer" and the advantage is they won't burn
down when your house does. Creating your own is trivial in Windows too,
especially since ex business big iron is so cheap. If it stands next to
your computer though it will go up in the same fire.

>And let me tell you, fixing a linux server is a damned sight easier than
>fixing leaking plumbing...

Same with Windows for Windows users, with the advantage that if there is a
problem you pull the drives and stick them in another Windows machine.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
I've been through the desert on a horse with no name.
It was a right bugger to get him back when he ran off.

[Paul]

On 9/13/2023 5:23 PM, Tim Streater wrote:

> I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone asks how
> to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is essentially
> trivial, and it blossoms into an endlessly complex set of solutions. I just
> plug in as it might be a Crucial X8, tell Time Machine to use it for backup,
> and forget about it. Simples.

This is doing a one-off Full on Macrium.

The last time I did this, the output was a bit less than 4TB.
Because this is effectively my NAS, the partitions are relatively full.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/XvW3RYrj/painfully-difficult-backup.gif

The backup partition in the example picture, is not big enough to hold the backup,
and the destination partition is selected purely for taking photos. The real
backup drive is left disconnected when not in usage (ransomware).

You can store your backup, onto the source drive, for staging
if you want, but that is (naturally) a "not recommended" config.
This is why there are all those tick boxes, so you can do
goofy things if you want.

*******

The real destination drive, is a helium-filled one (my first such drive).
Previous drives were 6TB WD Black air-breathers. Purchased because
they were available at a local store (can get one when you need one).

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/bNtxyk09/sample-backup-drives.jpg

The Helium drive has a pressure sensor, in SMART. Or
so it is claimed. I haven't checked for it yet.
The gas is "guaranteed to stay in for five years" :-)
That's why the drive on the right has two lids.
Neither of which is as gas-tight as a gas cylinder.
The gas is actually held in by a "miracle adhesive".
The welding used, is purely for show. The adhesive does the real work.

What's weird about the Helium technology, is it should allow
a wider operating range for altitude, but the drive is still only "specced to
work in Denver" and cannot be used on top of Mount Everest. A technical
benefit of Helium (for me), is no longer worrying about the effects
of room Relative Humidity on drive operation. Disk issues here in the
past, have correlated with humidity control in the room. The HDA on the
left-most drive, runs at atmospheric pressure, and a hepafilter under
the breather hole, removes smoke particles but still would allow
moisture ingress if moisture is present long enough. The HDA equalizes to
the atmosphere as it runs, so "breathes in and out" as high and low
pressure weather systems pass overhead.

Paul

[charles]

In article <udu0k7$2gchf$3...@dont-email.me>,

The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On 13/09/2023 19:30, charles wrote:

> >
> > The trouble with local backup is that it doesn't protect data if your
> > house catches fire - especially if you aren't at home when/if it occurs.
> >

> If my house catches fire I will have a lot of bigger problems than
> losing 25 year old emails.

I keep accounts for a small charity - that's why I need 'safe' back-ups.

[NY]

"Frank" <ho...@nowhere.me> wrote in message
news:idSdnX8NqYZ0Ppz4...@brightview.co.uk...

I back up to my own external USB hard drives. I only have two copies: the
"live" copy and the backup. I should really alternate between two backup
drives so I have a total of three copies of anything important. The backup
drives live in another part of the house, rather than right next to the
computer, which may slightly increase the chance of them surviving if there
is a fire. Ideally I should keep them in the fire safe in the garage, but it
is a nuisance to have to go outside, bring the drive(s) in for making the
backups and then taking them back outside again afterwards - every day.

I do have cloud backups (Dropbox) of a few key files, but that is more so I
have access to them when I'm away from home rather than primarily as a
safety backup.

Cloud storage is fine, but it is *very* slow to make the initial full copy,
over a 30 Mbps (down) / 10 Mbps (up) VDSL link, especially backups of large
files like video files (typically 500-1500 MB) and Outlook .pst file
(because Microsoft choose to merge all the messages into one file rather
than having separate files for each email folder or even each message, so
you have to back up a multi-MB file even when there has been a single new
email message - not a very sensible architecture!).

I use Microsoft SyncToy for doing incremental backups (ie only back up files
which have changed, not backing up everything every time). I'm sure there
are newer programs which do the same job, maybe better. But I'm staying with
what works.

I have separate drives for:

- digital photos
- TV programmes that I have recorded
- WP documents, emails, iTunes music and a few other things

I also use SyncToy to keep the WP docs folders synchronised between my
desktop and laptop PCs.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 14/09/2023 08:19, Jeff Gaines wrote:
> On 14/09/2023 in message <udu0gq$2gchf$2...@dont-email.me> The Natural
> Philosopher wrote:
>
>> I must say I get great amusement out of these threads where someone
>> asks how to do something (usually on Windows) which on my machine, is
>> essentially
>> trivial, and consists in running a second machine and using a cron
>> script and rsync to mirror all my data nightly.
>
> I expect the same is true of Windows users in reverse, we're just too
> polite to say so.
>
>
>> All these cloud services are interfaces to Linux servers created for
>> numpties.
>> If you are not a numpty, you can create your own.
>
> They are "somebody else's computer" and the advantage is they won't burn
> down when your house does. Creating your own is trivial in Windows too,
> especially since ex business big iron is so cheap. If it stands next to
> your computer though it will go up in the same fire.
>
>> And let me tell you, fixing a linux server is a damned sight easier
>> than fixing leaking plumbing...
>
> Same with Windows for Windows users, with the advantage that if there is
> a problem you pull the drives and stick them in another Windows machine.
>

can do that in Linux, too

--
“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established
authorities are wrong.”

― Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV

[Paul Herber]

On 11 Sep 2023 20:11:01 GMT, Bob Eager <news...@eager.cx> wrote:

>On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:31:29 -0700, David Paste wrote:
>
>> Following on from my HD question:
>>
>> I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
>> and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
>> as-and-when I remember.
>>
>> I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.
>>
>> Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
>> back-ups,
>> with one somewhere else) and on what media?
>

>I back them up to cheap SSDs, one of which I keep off site.
>
>I also back them up to Amazon S3 Deep Archive, whoch is stupidly cheap.

Thanks for this heads up about Amazon S3, It is a very good price, 120GB uploaded now.


--
Regards, Paul Herber
https://www.paulherber.co.uk/

[Bob Eager]

Shout if you'd like my S3 Deep Archive crib sheet.

[Paul Herber]

On 20 Sep 2023 15:28:56 GMT, Bob Eager <news...@eager.cx> wrote:

>On Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:43:28 +0100, Paul Herber wrote:
>
>> On 11 Sep 2023 20:11:01 GMT, Bob Eager <news...@eager.cx> wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon, 11 Sep 2023 11:31:29 -0700, David Paste wrote:
>>>
>>>> Following on from my HD question:
>>>>
>>>> I currently back up my photo's and music to an external 3.5" HDD,
>>>> and important documents to four different USB sticks. I do this
>>>> as-and-when I remember.
>>>>
>>>> I feel that I have probably been lucky so far.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone recommend a good system (I know I 'should' have three
>>>> back-ups,
>>>> with one somewhere else) and on what media?
>>>
>>>I back them up to cheap SSDs, one of which I keep off site.
>>>
>>>I also back them up to Amazon S3 Deep Archive, whoch is stupidly cheap.
>>
>> Thanks for this heads up about Amazon S3, It is a very good price, 120GB
>> uploaded now.
>
>Shout if you'd like my S3 Deep Archive crib sheet.

Thanks, but it all seems very easy to use.
Just ensure Glacier Flexible Retrieval is selected when a file is uploaded.

[Robin]

I'm still pondering Amazon but at $0.0036 a month per GB the Flexible is
more than 3 times the "stupidly cheap" S3 Glacier /Deep/ Archive, and
I'm looking at a minimum 4 TB

[Bob Eager]

I should have made it clear. My crib sheet is for the AWS CLI. That's easy
for bulk retrieval.

[SH]

I like a File window for dragging files to and from rather than a CLI

Yes I am looking at OneDrive and DropBox. (both of which I use.)

Wil AWS S3 Deep Archive support windowed ops like this or has it got to
be CLI?

Also whats the DL and UL bandwidth like as I would want it to saturate
my FTTH service at 500 MBit/s (and if I upgrade to 900 MBit/s saturate
that too)

[Tim Streater]

On 20 Sep 2023 at 22:25:22 BST, "SH" <i.l...@spam.com> wrote:

> I like a File window for dragging files to and from rather than a CLI

This is most important when in the midst of something, perhaps a source file
has been saved and then it becomes necessary to revert urgently to the
previous version, in order not to lose development momentum. That's when I
*don't* want to fart about with CLI commands to effect a restore, I want the
EXACT same interface that the Finder already provides me with, to restore a
file, then I can get back to what I was doing in the minimum time.

--
"That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" -- Bill of Rights 1689

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 20 Sep 2023 22:25:22 +0100, SH wrote:

>>> Thanks, but it all seems very easy to use.
>>> Just ensure Glacier Flexible Retrieval is selected when a file is
>>> uploaded.
>>
>> I should have made it clear. My crib sheet is for the AWS CLI. That's
>> easy for bulk retrieval.
>
> I like a File window for dragging files to and from rather than a CLI

That's OK, but a bulk restore from nested folders is a lot easier, with a
single CLI command.

> Wil AWS S3 Deep Archive support windowed ops like this or has it got to
> be CLI?

Oh, the web interface works the same either way. But not drag and drop
(someone may have written one, I guess).

> Also whats the DL and UL bandwidth like as I would want it to saturate
> my FTTH service at 500 MBit/s (and if I upgrade to 900 MBit/s saturate
> that too)

Not sure. I saturate it at 50Mb/s up (my limit) and it seems to go much
master 'down' (I have 300 Mb/s). I could go up to 1Gb/s (nearly) but don't
need it.

[Bob Eager]

On Wed, 20 Sep 2023 21:46:39 +0000, Tim Streater wrote:

> On 20 Sep 2023 at 22:25:22 BST, "SH" <i.l...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>> I like a File window for dragging files to and from rather than a CLI
>
> This is most important when in the midst of something, perhaps a source
> file has been saved and then it becomes necessary to revert urgently to
> the previous version, in order not to lose development momentum. That's
> when I *don't* want to fart about with CLI commands to effect a restore,
> I want the EXACT same interface that the Finder already provides me
> with, to restore a file, then I can get back to what I was doing in the
> minimum time.

That's not what I use Deep Archive for. It's for long term backups, and
restore takes hours anyway (for the lowest price).

The stuff I need instantly is backed up elsewhere on the network, with
vital stuff on tarsnap too.

[Andy Burns]

SH wrote:

> Wil AWS S3 Deep Archive support windowed ops like this or has it got to
> be CLI?

I use a free version of S3drive from "/n software", it maps a drive
letter to a bucket, that way you can simply use any file manager you choose.

I use it for standard S3 buckets, not sure if it can be pointed to
glacier or glacier deep buckets?

[Bob Eager]

The point about Glacier* is that you can't just access the file. You have
to request it to be retrieved to standard S3 for a specified time, then
access it normally. So the GUI needs a way to specify a restore.

[John Rumm]

Would it be worth sticking on the Wiki Bob?


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[Bob Eager]

Indeed. I'll need an account first! Or I can email it to you.

[John Rumm]

Drop me an email with your preferred username and I will create one for
you... or send me the text if you prefer.

[Bob Eager]

Email sent.