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Forum Discussion
Best backup software
I´m about to setup a workstation at home for some cad that my macbook can't do. It will run windows 7 x64, and connect via wlan to the readynas. What software for backup should i choose? I´m use...
I"m the developer of QuickShadow Backup.
I'll tell you what I do - having found pretty much everything else lacking.
Firstly, I use Clonezilla to do a "bare metal" backup of my PC to my ReadyNAS. This *is* user hostile, not being the most user-friendly of programs to run. But it does work, and it works very well. I have used this a number of times to restore a PC when there has been a disaster. For Clonezilla, you make a CD or DVD, and boot off that - this then guides you through the process of what you want to backup to where. It's text based, and you need to know what you are doing.
Next, I use my own QuickShadow Backup to take backups of all my data directories (eg s/w development, photos, documents). I don't bother to backup the Windows folders because I've never yet seen a successful restore work using plain-ole-file copies. QuickShadow will allow backup of open files, saves multiple versions on the backup device, and so on. It also detects files as they are changed, and copies them to the backup device within a minute or so, unlike doing a daily / scheduled backup - though you can do that too.
Finally, I have my ReadyNAS set up so that it in turn does a backup of its volume to a USB drive - at present I do this every day.
For me, this gives me layers of protection:
- If my PC main drives dies completely, I can restore the machine using the Clonezilla backup. My data will be out of date, and maybe even some of my installed programs - but not many if I remember to take these backups about once a month. Then I can restore all my data files as a 2nd step.
- If I lose, delete, corrupt, or just want to roll back to a prior version of a data file I have been working on, then I can just copy those back from the NAS pretty much any time.
- And if my NAS dies for some reason, I can also restore the backup it made to its external USB drive - of course if there were a complete disaster it might take a couple of days to buy another NAS, this is pretty unlikely though.
(I've also gone a step further and through some customisation of the NAS, I backup to Amazon S3 as well, but thats for the truly paranoid and I'm not suggesting you go there.)
I'll tell you what I do - having found pretty much everything else lacking.
Firstly, I use Clonezilla to do a "bare metal" backup of my PC to my ReadyNAS. This *is* user hostile, not being the most user-friendly of programs to run. But it does work, and it works very well. I have used this a number of times to restore a PC when there has been a disaster. For Clonezilla, you make a CD or DVD, and boot off that - this then guides you through the process of what you want to backup to where. It's text based, and you need to know what you are doing.
Next, I use my own QuickShadow Backup to take backups of all my data directories (eg s/w development, photos, documents). I don't bother to backup the Windows folders because I've never yet seen a successful restore work using plain-ole-file copies. QuickShadow will allow backup of open files, saves multiple versions on the backup device, and so on. It also detects files as they are changed, and copies them to the backup device within a minute or so, unlike doing a daily / scheduled backup - though you can do that too.
Finally, I have my ReadyNAS set up so that it in turn does a backup of its volume to a USB drive - at present I do this every day.
For me, this gives me layers of protection:
- If my PC main drives dies completely, I can restore the machine using the Clonezilla backup. My data will be out of date, and maybe even some of my installed programs - but not many if I remember to take these backups about once a month. Then I can restore all my data files as a 2nd step.
- If I lose, delete, corrupt, or just want to roll back to a prior version of a data file I have been working on, then I can just copy those back from the NAS pretty much any time.
- And if my NAS dies for some reason, I can also restore the backup it made to its external USB drive - of course if there were a complete disaster it might take a couple of days to buy another NAS, this is pretty unlikely though.
(I've also gone a step further and through some customisation of the NAS, I backup to Amazon S3 as well, but thats for the truly paranoid and I'm not suggesting you go there.)
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