Backing-up Laptop Files?
Discussion
All, I got myself a new laptop for Christmas, and am nearing the end of the process of finally sorting out all my files - documents, photos, CAD files, etc, etc.
I used to use an old Buffalo backup drive, and was thinking of getting a Seagate 1TB drive to replace it.
I was also looking at cloud backup, but I'm not sure how secure it is (or how permanent - what happens if your chosen company disappears?), or if it's worth it at all for personal use? I thought Microsoft Onedrive would be the answer, but apparently it then saves all your Office files to it, and it's not really intended as a backup, more of a remote system so you can access all your files from different devices.
So what do folks use these days as a backup for thier stuff?
Cheers.
I used to use an old Buffalo backup drive, and was thinking of getting a Seagate 1TB drive to replace it.
I was also looking at cloud backup, but I'm not sure how secure it is (or how permanent - what happens if your chosen company disappears?), or if it's worth it at all for personal use? I thought Microsoft Onedrive would be the answer, but apparently it then saves all your Office files to it, and it's not really intended as a backup, more of a remote system so you can access all your files from different devices.
So what do folks use these days as a backup for thier stuff?
Cheers.
I use OneDrive. £1.99/Month for 100GB
All sorts of Files stored on there. You can choose which Folders to backup.
Got a new Laptop last Year.
Logged on and everything synched.
I also use Google Drive free version.
Either should do what you need.
Backs up and you can access from other Devices.
Edit:
With OneDrive, if you delete a File on your Machine and from the recycle Bin, it is gone.
All sorts of Files stored on there. You can choose which Folders to backup.
Got a new Laptop last Year.
Logged on and everything synched.
I also use Google Drive free version.
Either should do what you need.
Backs up and you can access from other Devices.
Edit:
With OneDrive, if you delete a File on your Machine and from the recycle Bin, it is gone.
Edited by imck on Tuesday 4th January 08:54
I use Spideroak, cloud backup but it's encrypted locally before upload, so the stuff in the cloud is not accessible to the hosting provider or anyone else, unless they compromise your endpoint (in which case they could just get the data locally anyway).
Onedrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc are all similar but data is accessible to the cloud provider themselves. That's fine for many big and secure companies (ignoring schrems for the moment) so not necessarily an issue but there are situations where that may not be desirable. Pros and cons to each approach, if you lose your SpiderOak passphrase then you can't get the data back. With the others you can more easily recover the account details to access data, relevant for example if you had a house fire that damaged all your equipment and paperwork. It's also much easier to share files with other people in the more open systems. That also opens more avenues of attack like a SIM swap or email compromise that can be used to get into your file store.
Onedrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc are all similar but data is accessible to the cloud provider themselves. That's fine for many big and secure companies (ignoring schrems for the moment) so not necessarily an issue but there are situations where that may not be desirable. Pros and cons to each approach, if you lose your SpiderOak passphrase then you can't get the data back. With the others you can more easily recover the account details to access data, relevant for example if you had a house fire that damaged all your equipment and paperwork. It's also much easier to share files with other people in the more open systems. That also opens more avenues of attack like a SIM swap or email compromise that can be used to get into your file store.
I use my laptop only for stuff I don't mind losing: emails and web browsing mostly.
Everything I consider of value is done on a desktop and backed up to one of three 1TB external drives. When I remember I back up the laptop's documents and pictures to one of the hard drives, maybe three times a year.
Yes, I know I'm a Luddite - old dog, new tricks etc. etc.
Everything I consider of value is done on a desktop and backed up to one of three 1TB external drives. When I remember I back up the laptop's documents and pictures to one of the hard drives, maybe three times a year.
Yes, I know I'm a Luddite - old dog, new tricks etc. etc.
It's an often-debated question on here. Onedrive/Dropbox etc are not backup but they are very useful off-line storage. For most people a local NAS plus OD/DB would be perfectly sufficient; you'd need your NAS to catch fire whilst it was on top of your laptop and OD/DB to lose all their data to end up with no data.
Offline copies are important in case you get ransomware but I doubt many people are sufficiently well organised to make them regularly.
Offline copies are important in case you get ransomware but I doubt many people are sufficiently well organised to make them regularly.
Someone on here lost access to his onedrive as MS thought a photo of his kid in the bath was dodgy so I would always consider online backups with a degree of caution.
However for a proper backup you really want one copy that isn't in your house, which is where online makes a lot of sense. Personally I backup my desktop and both our laptops to a NAS, and then backup the NAS occasionally to a portable hard drive which I keep at work the rest of the time. Important documents are also on Dropbox so I can access them from anywhere and are also an additional copy. Ideally I guess I should have 2 portable drives so I still have one while the other is being updated but I'm not quite that paranoid.
I keep thinking I should convince my sister or brother in law that they need a nice big Synology NAS at home and then we could each back up our NAS to the other's, but that would be an expensive solution.
However for a proper backup you really want one copy that isn't in your house, which is where online makes a lot of sense. Personally I backup my desktop and both our laptops to a NAS, and then backup the NAS occasionally to a portable hard drive which I keep at work the rest of the time. Important documents are also on Dropbox so I can access them from anywhere and are also an additional copy. Ideally I guess I should have 2 portable drives so I still have one while the other is being updated but I'm not quite that paranoid.
I keep thinking I should convince my sister or brother in law that they need a nice big Synology NAS at home and then we could each back up our NAS to the other's, but that would be an expensive solution.
Everything from our laptops is saved to the NAS and the NAS backs itself up to Backblaze B2. I also have a USB drive that contains a copy of the NAS, updated once a month (used to live in my desk in the office when I had one - it is now just another copy as it can't be offsite any more).
If you just want basic cloud backup of your laptop and any attached USB drives then maybe Backblaze Personal. $70/year for unlimited storage
If you just want basic cloud backup of your laptop and any attached USB drives then maybe Backblaze Personal. $70/year for unlimited storage
I use a NAS for all files with 2x RAID HDDs, then OneDrive as automated backup, and a physical drive stored in a cupboard at the office (remember them?!) as occasional cold offsite backup. The NAS means all laptops, PCs and smartphones are no-data-loss expendable, the RAID means I'm HDD failure resilient (had 3 x failures over recent years despite buying supposedly good quality WD Red NAS disks), the OneDrive means my whole house can burn down, and the cold backup means I can survive accidental deletion or a ransomware that is clever enough to jump to the NAS (many don't) and isn't picked up by OneDrive (they are fairly good at stopping ransomware, but not fool proof).
OneDrive you can use in the 'office files' style or you can use it just like a straight backup - I use it in both modes.
Note that with the OneDrive subscription that's around £10 a month you get 6TB of cloud storage - 1TB each for 6 family accounts. While this doesn't work well from one PC logon, the multiple OneDrive accounts are pooled using the NAS backup application (I happen to use Qnap, not the most friendly NAS to configure, but does the job). The QNAP backup application can do one way or two way syncs with OneDrive (and many other providers).
I trust Microsoft more than any of the other tier 1 tech brands, and I massively don't trust the will-they-be-here-tomorrow startups and names you've never heard of (and can't find out who their investors are or see how they can be profitable without some other undeclared revenue source).
OneDrive you can use in the 'office files' style or you can use it just like a straight backup - I use it in both modes.
Note that with the OneDrive subscription that's around £10 a month you get 6TB of cloud storage - 1TB each for 6 family accounts. While this doesn't work well from one PC logon, the multiple OneDrive accounts are pooled using the NAS backup application (I happen to use Qnap, not the most friendly NAS to configure, but does the job). The QNAP backup application can do one way or two way syncs with OneDrive (and many other providers).
I trust Microsoft more than any of the other tier 1 tech brands, and I massively don't trust the will-they-be-here-tomorrow startups and names you've never heard of (and can't find out who their investors are or see how they can be profitable without some other undeclared revenue source).
NAS + Veaam (Windows) and Timemachine (Mac) for "realtime" set and forget backups of machines. PhotoSync on the family iPhones uploads new photos taken to the NAS every time we leave and re-enter WiFi range.
NAS then gets weekly backed up to an encrypted Google Drive.
Things I'd be mortified to lose (family photos, key documents etc.) then get a copy synced manually onto an external hard drive manually once a month using FreeFileSync which then gets put back in it's home in the fireproof safe.
I'm terrible at testing my backups work though, maybe only doing as restore twice a year. That's complacent.
You'll read a lot online about 3-2-1 strategies which are sound advice. I'd add a different lens through which to think about things:
Whatever route you choose, what happens if you accidentally delete a file you later want? It's a much more likely scenario than something corrupting. Will that deletion be replicated across your backups so it is lost forever and can't be recovered?
Secondly, if ransomware gets hold of your computer, it'll encrypt anything and everything it can "see" so if your machine is connected to a NAS and the backup regime is a straightforward file copy to an SMB share mapped as a drive then it'll encrypt that too and lock you out of your files and your backups. That's why air-gapping one of your backups is important - either a cloud service (not in sync mode) or physically mostly disconnected device.
And finally, how much of your content isn't done on a device that you've incorporated into your backup processes? So much is on phones these days and a lot of Apple users are just relying that iCloud will always be there. It probably will be of course but only you can decide on your appetite to risk and how important these things are to you.
NAS then gets weekly backed up to an encrypted Google Drive.
Things I'd be mortified to lose (family photos, key documents etc.) then get a copy synced manually onto an external hard drive manually once a month using FreeFileSync which then gets put back in it's home in the fireproof safe.
I'm terrible at testing my backups work though, maybe only doing as restore twice a year. That's complacent.
You'll read a lot online about 3-2-1 strategies which are sound advice. I'd add a different lens through which to think about things:
Whatever route you choose, what happens if you accidentally delete a file you later want? It's a much more likely scenario than something corrupting. Will that deletion be replicated across your backups so it is lost forever and can't be recovered?
Secondly, if ransomware gets hold of your computer, it'll encrypt anything and everything it can "see" so if your machine is connected to a NAS and the backup regime is a straightforward file copy to an SMB share mapped as a drive then it'll encrypt that too and lock you out of your files and your backups. That's why air-gapping one of your backups is important - either a cloud service (not in sync mode) or physically mostly disconnected device.
And finally, how much of your content isn't done on a device that you've incorporated into your backup processes? So much is on phones these days and a lot of Apple users are just relying that iCloud will always be there. It probably will be of course but only you can decide on your appetite to risk and how important these things are to you.
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