What Program Do You Use for Backup?

[Anderton]

I want to upgrade to something with incremental backup. I'm currently using the free version of Macrium for imaging and such, but incremental backup requires using the paid version. I'd definitely not adverse to paying them some $$, but I wondered if any of you had any favorites.

[KenElevenShadows]

I use something that is rather boringly called File Synchronization by Nemesys. 

 

However, I'm not sure whether its incremental or differential. I'm happy with it so far. Seems to work in a very straightforward, efficient manner.

[Joe Muscara]

Which platform?

 

I do a few things on my Macs for backup. I have Time Machine drive hooked to an AirPort Extreme for "constant" backing up. I also have a Time Machine drive that I plug in occasionally. Weekly, I clone my drives with Carbon Copy Cloner (not incremental but it only copies new or changed files).

 

I also run Backblaze. I have two rotating clones with CCC, but since my wife started working full time from home, I lost that convenient way to always have one clone off site. I do keep the clones in a fire proof safe but still, they're together). Backblaze provides my off site back up. I don't know how good it is, but people I trust swear by it.

[Docbop]

Geez Joe between DGPS and backing up do you have time to do anything else.    I worked in data centers for some of the biggest corporations including banks and we didn't backup that much.    We'd do  weekly full backup then daily incrementals.  Then as needed different updates or moves do full backups.   

 

My stuff I used two things Carbon Copy Cloner now and then. It's a bit copier so not exactly fast.     Then I use a Unix tool called rsync which is what a lot Mac app's use, but they make a nice GUI and then in the background call rsync since Apple includes it Unix utilities they leave on OSX.    rsync you have source directory(s) and target directory that will be a carbon copy.    You run it and rsync compares directores and any new files or updated files are copied from the source to the destination.   rsync has a zillion command line options to really customize what it does.   One place I worked at we used rsync to keep multiple web servers in different state all identical copies of each other.  rsync isn't exactly easy to learn with so many command line options but real handy if you do.     

 

There is another unix dd tool  down in the unix terminal of OSX that does what Carbon Copy Cloner does called  dd.    dd is for device to device copies at the bit level.   It's slow but it's like Xerox  machine for drives.   dd also has a zillion options and quite a learning curve. 

 

So glad I'm retired and don't have to deal with this stuff anymore.    

[Anderton]

4 hours ago, Joe Muscara said:

Which platform?

Yeah, I guess that info would help   I use Time Machine on the Mac, and save material that could be useful in the future to the cloud. 

 

My Windows computer is what generates the most data because it does video, which is the main reason I want good incremental abilities. I'm not really interested in backing up 10-20 terabytes of data in the cloud, seems like it would take forever and cost over $100 a month. I'd be happy with selective local storage.

 

I'm asking here because there are soooooo many options that it's hard to compare and contrast.

[Joe Muscara]

10 hours ago, Docbop said:

Geez Joe between DGPS and backing up do you have time to do anything else.    I worked in data centers for some of the biggest corporations including banks and we didn't backup that much.

Ha! I'm glad it sounds like a lot, that must mean I'm doing okay as far as backups. 

 

Time Machine and Backblaze run automatically in the background. I try to run the weekly clones overnight, and I just do them once a week. I have CCC set up so that the drives are a task and let it do them all at once in sequence.

 

6 hours ago, Anderton said:

I'm not really interested in backing up 10-20 terabytes of data in the cloud, seems like it would take forever and cost over $100 a month. I'd be happy with selective local storage.

 

I'm asking here because there are soooooo many options that it's hard to compare and contrast.

FYI, I think Backblaze says it's unlimited data, $7/month, $70/year, $130/ two years. I realize that the time (and bandwidth, depending on your internet connection) to back up terabytes of ever-changing video data is probably prohibitive for your needs, Craig. But I wanted to clarify this option just in case.

 

Good luck. Backing up data is good, and not enough people do it. It's a bummer whenever I hear someone say something like, "I lost my phone, and all my photos and contacts are gone." (While I realize mobile phone backing up is different, it's easy to have access to that data on your other devices.)

[Anderton]

Thanks, I got the numbers confused with a different service I checked out. Those figures are per computer (2 x Mac, 2 x Windows), and I have four computers that need backing up, so it would be under $30 a month. Not bad at all.

 

The biggest problem for me is they don't back up the OS or application files, so it's not like imaging where I can restore my computer in a few minutes in case of hardware failure. Also, I wonder if they consider Kontakt libraries applications, or data. A lot of my data is sample libraries. I assume this means they'd also exclude plug-ins.

 

I took their speed test, and they estimate it would take a day to back up 250 GB of data. Still, for backing up articles, books, etc. it might be worth doing. I currently have 2 TB of OneDrive storage, and that handles my important data for now. My ideal solution would back up every aspect of the computer, so in case of catastrophic failure, I could just restore and be back in business in under an hour. 

[Joe Muscara]

I'd recommend redundancy, having the Backblaze or similar offsite backup, as well as whatever you find to image your computer. The nice part about having incremental backups is that since they're done more frequently, you can recover a lost or accidentally deleted file, or if a more recent version of a file is needed than you have on your clone/image from six days ago, you can use the clone/image to get back up and then grab the recent file from the incremental backup.

 

[I'm guessing Craig already knows this, but I just wanted to point it out for anyone else looking at backup strategies.]

[KuruPrionz]

Mac only here. Twice a month I plug in 3 different hard drives and just drag folders to them. Then I am asked if I want to copy everything or just merge the new data. 

I merge, go do something else for a while and let it run. 

 

Mostly that's work I'm doing on my DAW. I always do a "Save As" in my DAW projects when I am going to make changes, that way I can go back to previous versions of the work if needed. I've got 31 incremental versions of my High Velocity project, just for instance. Save As will work in any program, it's a good way to keep your work in progress organized. 

 

No program used or needed at this point. 

[timwat]

Time Machine and CCC here.

[RABid]

I had what I thought was a great backup for Windows. A RAID system with mirrored drives and a spare that would automatically kick in if another drive went out. Unfortunately it was not a drive that eventually went out, it was the RAID card. By then it was too old for replacement parts and you cannot just move RAID drives into a new case and have the data show up. I lost it all. Now I use a much simpler approach. I keep two external drives and rotate backing up to each of them. It is not incremental backup, but that does not bother me. I drag everything over and then go to bed letting it copy over night. Not advanced or fancy, but it works.

[Notes_Norton]

I run Windows.

 

I'm using a paid version of Acronis. When it runs out, I'm thinking about switching to Macrium. It gets a lot of good reviews and recommendations by people I know on these forums. I'll go for the paid version if I like it. I believe in supporting people that make the products I use.

 

I use a 'toaster' backup drive, so when I'm not backing up or making a new image, it's not on-line and vulnerable to hackers. Plus, since I can take hard drives out of the 'toaster' and store them in a desk drawer, I keep quite a number of months of disk images just in case there is a sleeper malware waiting to spring into action.

 

I keep data and incremental backups on other drives I can pop into the toaster.

 

I started doing this many years ago with an app called Norton Ghost (I liked the name <grin>) but when they discontinued I went to Acronis.

 

Having a disk image has saved me more than once. Here is the best example.

 

Many years ago, in the 'Norton Ghost' era, I bought a guitar pedal that came with a Limited Edition of Cubase on CD. I hadn't tried Cubase in years, didn't like it at first, and wondered if the new version was any better.

 

So I do what I always do before installing, I waited for an appropriate time, made a disc image, and then installed Cubase LE.

 

In the middle of the installation, the computer locked up. The 'throbber' quit throbbing and after a longer than necessary wait, I tried Ctrl+alt+del. That didn't come up, so I forced the computer off.

 

I tuned the computer back on, In the boot up sequence, I got a notice to finish the installation. I had no choice but to click OK, but it locked up again. I tried booting in the safe mode, figuring that might work, but the same thing happened.

 

So restoring from the disk image fixed the problem. I promptly trashed the CD and went on with my work.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

 

 

 

[KenElevenShadows]

On 5/23/2022 at 5:56 PM, KenElevenShadows said:

I use something that is rather boringly called File Synchronization by Nemesys. 

 

However, I'm not sure whether its incremental or differential. I'm happy with it so far. Seems to work in a very straightforward, efficient manner.

 

I forgot to mention that I also use Backblaze for off-site back-up in addition to the above.

 

If you want to know more specifics, this article explains my current back-up. I have to back up quite a few terabytes of data, and this is an inexpensive way to do it effectively.

Terabytes of data on a budget: Six reasons why this external hard drive setup may be best for you

[Philip OKeefe]

On 5/25/2022 at 10:34 AM, timwat said:

Time Machine and CCC here.

 

Same here. The combination of the two works well for my needs. 

[drawbars]

I use SyncBack Pro on Windows.  It handles just about every kind of backup except an image.

[mcgoo]

Windows user here. I use iDrive. $100 / yr normally (with a sweet teaser price for first year) for 10 TB storage. Covers multiple devices including phone. I've been pleased with it.

 

20 Years ago I was using Retrospect, backing up to a DAT drive. I recently had a client ask me to retrieve an old project from those days. I had to go buy a DAT drive, got the cheapest version of their current software and was able to restore the project with no problem. Gotta tip my hat to them for all of that working flawlessly! 

[David Emm]

Another Time Machine and CCC advocate here. I'm a laughably low-key user when contrasted with a busy guy like Craig, but I'm fairly diligent. I'm a candidate for a fishing vest with 20 pockets I can fill with my carefully date-marked SSDs. If Mac Minis get one size smaller, I'm going to wear everything and become a Mac cyborg.

[Greg Mein]

For simply syncing between drives; connected drives or over my network, on Mac I've been using ChronoSync for years. I bought it once and it's been free updates ever since.

[elif]

PC, Windows 10,

 

Iperius -> NAS -> FileZilla -> Backblaze

 

I use Iperius to back up everthing except the OS to a local NAS.  The backed up units are organized by directory (Music, Docs, ProgramSources, etc.) and each gets zipped with the same password. Iperius will back up directly to cloud services (S3, Backblaze, Azure, Dropbox, etc.) but after some experience trying it with Azure, I use FilezillPro to copy the zipped modules from the NAS to Backblaze.

 

With Windows, many programs store configuration data in %USERNAME$\AppData\...  For example, the Iperius backup configuration files are store there.  Those and the FileZill configuration files I back up unzipped.

 

I don't backup up the OS.  All user data is located on a separate drive from the OS. I also use a lot of Portable Programs.

 

In my experience, it takes a while to come up with a backup plan.  Also, the complete restoration plan needs to be tested.