The 2008 Best Way Ever to backup your computer?

[TriniXaeno]

After just losing a 500gb drive to a spontaneous crash, I am faced with this question.

How does a GATTer, in this day and age, back up his massive HD?

I've been using some external HDs to do the deed but it's hardly a regular nor scheduled event.

Windows Home Server looks like a very suave way to not only backup your gaming rig, but any other machines you may have laying around the network.

http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/2007/06/03/under-the-hood-windows-home-server-backup/

Sounds too good to be true and in some ways, it is. Windows Home Server corrupts files on its shared data store. That's no fun, no fun at all.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/windows-home-server-bug-corrupts-files/

I'm thinking to go old school and Mirror Raid the mofo.

What else is there? Has someone found the holy grail of backup?

[Nephilim]

noob you read my mind dread, after a long deliberation I'm planning to implement this;

2x160

2x500

raid 1 ITMC

costing me about 1000,drives only really.
I'm using software raid, for the savings and peace of mind i consider the performance and resource hit a smaller price to pay, and with the 4GB i have on the way the hit will be focused around the processor (which i could just O/C a little more) more than memory.

if you running more storage than 500 at a time, well i don't even want to think about what it would cost you

backing up...its f@#$in' biotc4...

[TriniXaeno]

Sounds like a plan. What OS are you going to run to do the software raid?

[Crixx_Creww]

man

yu have had the solution for years now

hire/ capture a download gnome
really thats the best way..

other than that
get a dedicated online backup system

[TriniXaeno]

lol @ download gnome.

a dedicated online backup system for a 500gb drive??? surely you jest

[Nephilim]

Sounds like a plan. What OS are you going to run to do the software raid?

XP/Vista

[Crixx_Creww]

  no jesting at all

when i say dedicated, i mean a paid pro service
if yur data is worth it, then its worth it.. other wise, get those poke ballz out and go walk round in circles in the bush hoping to stir up the download gnome

[Kraeoss]

ok ok... new guy to this stuff... wha is a download gnome (lame man terms plz)

[TriniXaeno]

lol @ download gnome.

I'm thinking an upgrade to that NasLite we used in tech might be in order.

Freenas looks like it's ready for primetime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeNAS

[Crixx_Creww]

yeah free nas and its lite breathren are pretty awesome
and with the insanely cheap prices of hds now
slapping ah 5 hds in ah nas could wok.. except if yuh house bun dong.. den yu woulda wish yu had listen to me and had offsite backup

also
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=4

intels new flash hds, expensive yes, not an option now, 500+ dollars for 80 gigs is not a backup solution

but soon enuff, they will be.

Extremely hardy devices, really fast and none of that moving parts business

[MessiaaH]

OpenFiler is also a good free software to convert a pc lying around into a NAS, but openfiler is a bit advanced.

Also there are mainly 2 options for backups. Go with a dedicated Server/Nas , or go with raid in your machine. A raid5 is best, for fault tolerance and performance.
If you are going with a NAS i recomend something from Lynksys for lowend, and for highend - Thecus. I currently have a Thecus 5bay NAS, with 5 * 320GB drives in a RAID5.
Performns beautifully. (willing to sell ). Im currently building a new server with an Areca raid contoller card, which wil replace my Thecus NAS. im going with 4*500GB in that, followed by 4*1T later.

If you are using a NAS you can store your game images, videos, music on it, as well as backups of your machine. In that case you wont need redundant raid in your machine, and can juss go with 2 Drives ina  RAID0 for perfromance, and just backup important data to your NAS. The software i recomend of this is Acronis. It rules.
It does complete backup images of your machine, so if one day you come home and your machien cant boot, no worries, restore a previous acronis backup, and ure up and runing.
Acronis also has a very good compression ration, bring 50GB OS installs down to 20 when backed up.

So to sum it all up.

Internal RAID5 = Cheap Solution.
NAS with RAID5 + PC with RAID0 = Recommended Solution but costly.

P.S. Acronis can be used to backup your machine to external drives as well, so if u have a HD lying around, be it 40 or 60gb, put it to good use when combined with Acronis.

Any Questions?

[TriniXaeno]

Open Filer looks hot. Definitely more advanced than FreeNas but feature rich.

I don't know if I have powerful enough hard ware for it, looks like the requirements are a bit high.

Got a spare dell desktop sitting down doin nada.

Acronis works like a champ, good call there.

[Nephilim]

hmmmm, hey noob maybe you could document this as a potential tech article...

[Netizen1]

Long time now I planning to setup a home NAS box. Actually had some articles bookmarked. Still need to decide on FreeNAS or Openfiler

Got the spare hardware, and drives just laying around with random bits of data on it... just need time and . . . time

[kgfalby]

Maximum PC - October 2008 has an article / instructional on pages 72 - 74 on building your on NAS box using an old PC and FreeNAS OS.

[TriniXaeno]

Well the PC Gods have found favour with my humble hd. Stuck it in an external SATA housing and was able to access the data after much fuss.

It wasn't accessible by various other means (secondary HD on a working PC, boot up with recovery disk, xp recovery console, etc..etc...) but for some reason it came up with the SATA housing.

Not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. Copy data no jutsu!

FreeNas immc after that for making sure this shit doesn't happen again.

Anyone with a couple 500gb drives looking to donate to a good cause??

[Crixx_Creww]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832200004&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-32-200-004-_-Homepage


    Cons: Acronis Home V11 has not been updated in months. It worked before the July-August Windows updates but now locks up my computer requiring a reboot. This version is now useless.
    Other Thoughts: Some forums claim that Acronis has abandoned this product and is no longer working to update it to keep it compatible with the latest Windows updates. The only good - Acronis has agreed to refund my purchase price of $54.

[TriniXaeno]

Also from NewEgg:

Check out recently updates

    Reviewed By: Ish on 9/16/2008
    Rating + 5Rating + 5Rating + 5Rating + 5Rating + 5
    Tech Level: high - Ownership: more than 1 year
    This user purchased this item from Newegg

    Pros: Check out their support area. They recently updated this product.

The upgrade will hopefully work with the updated windows xp.

[Nephilim]

he prob getting that issue with the Cd-rom drivers using acronis boot manager...for whatever reason it slows the F@#$ down to a crawl when that option is enabled on some machines

i using it for a short time, never tried it on XP (vista)

works fine for me

[daniboy79]

i had a scare this morning when i booted up my PC and it wouldn't recognise my Docs drive, fortunately i do once a week backups, but after fiddling with the SATA connectors, and restarting, it recognized the drive again and in the words of  NGW; "Copy data no jutsu!" lol ...i ran a backup again, and decided to strip down and clean out the PC as it's 4 month strip & clean has run about 8 months overdue. if you see dust!!

...so i too will be looking into this NAS backup solution we be talkin about on this thread!