When was the last time you backed up your home or work PC?

[Jubal]

CommanderJameson said:

And, of course, in Windows, you've got no real prospect of being able to restore your entire computer from one of these backups.

Windows users who want simple backup (and a lot more besides) need to have a look at Windows Home Server as mentioned earlier. It's not the same functionality as time machine but the ability to completely restore a PC or mount a backup and drag and drop backed up files as needed is great.

[Scraggles]

only backup personal data that is kept on a seperate drive to windows and backup to DVD and now my new freecom drive, usb connection atm, but network connection when have it all sorted

[cyberface]

Leithen said:

When was the last time anyone attempted a full recovery from their backups.....

listen up - tis truth - incremental backups onsite / offsite, full disk images, block level clones, rsync scripts, whatever - are all useless as backup solutions unless you can restore from them.

I use Time Machine now all the Macs except the one main-consultancy laptop are on Leopard, but still do full CCC bootable FireWire volume clones every week as well. Testing these is refreshingly simple - just reboot holding Alt and try to boot from your backup. If it works, you have a decent backup (CCC does CRC checking for the truly paranoid - if it boots then the system is operable)

[CommanderJameson]

Leithen said:

When was the last time anyone attempted a full recovery from their backups.....

About half an hour ago.

The 10.5.2 update's been driving me batty; the WLAN keeps disconnecting.

CommanderJameson said:

that.

So I bunged in the OS X disk, booted off it, chose Tuesday night's backup off the list (it shows you the OS version, which is handy) and half an hour later, here I am.

[Strangely Brown]

CommanderJameson said:

So I bunged in the OS X disk, booted off it, chose Tuesday night's backup off the list (it shows you the OS version, which is handy) and half an hour later, here I am.

Where does it show you the OS version for each backup? That would indeed be handy.

[CommanderJameson]

Strangely Brown said:

CommanderJameson said:

So I bunged in the OS X disk, booted off it, chose Tuesday night's backup off the list (it shows you the OS version, which is handy) and half an hour later, here I am.

Where does it show you the OS version for each backup? That would indeed be handy.

When you've chosen your language in the OS X installer, choose Restore From Backup from the Utilities menu. You'll choose a volume with Time Machine backups on it. Each backup is listed by date; the version is shown on the right. The installer also filters out backups that aren't full system backups, so there's no danger of only restoring half a system.

Edited by CommanderJameson on Thursday 14th February 20:09

[Strangely Brown]

CommanderJameson said:

When you've chosen your language in the OS X installer...

Ah, OK. I was wondering why I couldn't see the OS version in the Time Machine "application". Still, it's good that the info is there prior to a full restore.

[justlivyalife]

About 20 minutes ago. Scheduled back up at 8pm daily on the PC downstairs, and I do the laptop on a twice-weekly basis.

. Have lost too much data in the past to not do it!

[condor]

I used one of those memory sticks when I upgraded computers, so all my old stuff that was stored on the old comp got transferred to the new one...still got the memory stick, but never looked at the old data....that was over a year ago!
I have very little of importance - digi photos is about it...and those little memory sticks are very cheap, so should probably invest in a few more of them.

[mph999]

Leithen said:

When was the last time anyone attempted a full recovery from their backups.....

3 days ago and it worked ...

(That said I work for a major software company that sells enterprise backup products ...)

Martin

[spants]

I use time machine for my iMac and Windows home server for the pcs. Botghe are excellent.

With WHS, for a full restore:
1) from any working machine, copy the additional drivers onto a flashdrive
2) boot the restore cd
3) it restores over the network using the nework/ide drivers from the flash drive

The problem Ive faced in the past, is how do you restore a full backup to a machine that you either have to rebuild to get windows on it to restore or if you boot from dvd - you need the drivers (where is that disk??? )

WHS also is very good on space usage - it doenst duplicate files (actually clusters) that already exist on a backup no matter which machine they have come from.

It will automatically backup a "sleeping" every night, just storing the changes.

Spants

[Zumbruk]

Leithen said:

When was the last time anyone attempted a full recovery from their backups.....

I upgraded my hardware a few months ago, and sadly had 3 hard disk failures within a few weeks. Due to a combination of RAID and full backups (on tape) I didn't lose a byte.

But then, I don't run Windows.

And everyone should read "The Tao of Backups";

http://www.taobackup.com/

Edited by Zumbruk on Friday 15th February 10:43

[fish]

I have a hidden NAS drive in a seperate outbuilding hardwired into a network at home. Everything is replicated hourly and email each night when it turns the email server off and back on. I have had HDD failures and rebuilt and with it containing all our pictures I simply cannot lose it.

Hence seperate builing so theft or fire and I won't lose it......

How anyone with a home PC and pictures can't back up is beyond me. The number of people who say yes I did it to CD 6 months ago then say they couldn't face losing any of it astounds me.

[cyberface]

fish said:

I have a hidden NAS drive in a seperate outbuilding hardwired into a network at home. Everything is replicated hourly and email each night when it turns the email server off and back on. I have had HDD failures and rebuilt and with it containing all our pictures I simply cannot lose it.

Mwuahahaaaahahahaaaaa

Who's going to one-up this one then? Who's got an old nuclear bomb shelter, packed with 100s of drives in a RAID1 array for absolute reliability, with redundant network links going via two separate routes and via the internet using two separate ISPs... with battery backups and dual redundant diesel generators, and enough diesel stored to last a year with no power... with an ultimate backup storage solution in the centre of the Sun fed by a big antenna on your house (and one on another continent, just to be sure)?



Not being rude Fish - but the 'hidden NAS drive in a separate outbuilding' sounds very clandestine and very funny

One thing though - have you got battery backup and generators in place in that outbuilding?

IME, all my hard drive failures have happened at the same time as power cuts. Every single one of them. Now maybe brownouts are the problem round here, and not enough power spins the disk and the heads hit the platters... or it could be due to power spike shorting stuff out. But it's always been a power cut that's heralded a disk failure.

As a result I've gone overboard and UPS'd everything, and have a small generator just in case.

Of course, if some world event momentous enough that the UK has no electricity for a year happens, I very much doubt that sitting down with a cup of tea and browsing Pistonheads is likely to be first on anyone's mind. I'd be out acquiring weaponry and 'acquiring' fuel by fair means or foul. For a start, my little generator needs petrol to give me power. Secondly, speed cameras aren't going to work with no electricity, and with an apocalypse mentality, I'd be up for having some severely dangerous fun in my cars...

[PulseTurbo]

Never back up on my home PC.

Nightly and Monthly at work.

[-DeaDLocK-]

Full backup of all uninstallable data to two external hard drives every month.

One stays here, one is kept at a friend's house. Used to only have one, until the prospect of a fire or similar scared me!!

[Scraggles]

reminds me to make a backup and leave off site

[Hooli]

about once a week to an external HDD. however as i never got the windows CD with my machine it could be rather useless in the event to total failure.

ETA: pics etc are just copied to the HDD so no worries there.
must buy a windows CD one day, where is cheap for XP Pro?

Edited by Hooli on Saturday 16th February 13:21

[agent006]

cyberface said:

Not being rude Fish

You are though, very.

[Santa Claws]

about 2 months ago.

i really should do it more often, but i only want to back up the most essential stuff - my music/videos and savegames. everything else can be reinstalled.

one thing i have done is to partition my hdd, and have windows + drivers + essential stuff (av etc) on the C partition. this is imaged to a bootable cd. so if it all goes a over t, i can just load the image onto drive c, overwriting any crap on there and hey presto - working system without the hours upon hours of windows install/config/update/config/update/config/update/crash/update etc