[elky] Re: [OT] Backup: Mirror or File by File

  • From: Ray Buck <rbuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: elky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:31:47 -0600

Well, I just bought a 2nd 1 TB Firewire drive. I was backing up photos from here and there and filled my previous 1 TB drive, so now I have 2 of 'em. I've got 2.5 TB in the main workstation...Raw photo images suck up disk space...and ya never know when yer gonna need something from "back then."


I just made the attached composite image from a slide I took in 1969. I liked it so much I printed it in 8x10 format and hung it on the wall.

Anyway, there are all kinds of arguments for and against on- and off-site backups. I prefer not to trust my data to someone else...for example, a few years ago, the isp I'd been with for years just folded their tents and disappeared into the night. (Actually they were run into bankruptcy by an unscrupulous owner who'd bought the business from the founder.) People who had all their data on their servers lost everything they didn't have backed up on their own. On the other hand, If my house burned down...well, I'd not only lose the house, but all the photos, the hard copy albums...everything. So I just back stuff up manually and keep my fingers crossed.

When I lost the server, I had ALMOST everything backed up. There were some things I thought I had (and may still have here and there) and some stuff that I just plain lost....like the subscriber lists to the mailing lists. I take responsibility for that. I'd been concerned about keeping stuff on my main workstation backed up, then forgot about the data that's unique to the server. I'm still reconstructing some things.

So there's my nickle's worth.

Just an update on the salt flats thing. I'm scheduled to leave tomorrow and I've packed most of what I'm gonna take into my Burb...but starting yesterday, the winds picked up...and I mean REALLY picked up....constant 30-40 mph with gusts to the 50s and more in some places: http://www.kutv.com/weather/alertdetail.aspx?DetailID=262273 That was what caused the power outage last night. I talked with my neighbor and it was supposedly gonna be restored at 1:30 am, but came back up sooner than expected....just as I was closing my eyes to sleep in the candlelight.

However, there's now a 60 percent chance of precipitation in Wendover Friday, then decreasing later on Saturday and getting back to normal on Sunday. Kinda makes the likelihood of getting that moon shot sorta slim. Matter of fact, the hourly forecast for sunset/moonrise is for showers. Hmmm....What the hell, huh? I spose I could go out and pretend I'm a lightning rod. That Chinese curse that goes, "May you live in interesting times" seems more and more appropriate.

Film at 11.

Ray
(digital film, of course.)


At 12:59 PM 8/5/2009, you wrote:
I have ~56GB of data on the home PC.  Some of it is important, so I've
been backing up folders using Microsoft's SyncToy.  Now I'm wondering
if I should have a mirror backup (an exact copy of my hard drive)
instead of doing file by file, or maybe I should do both?  My backup
external drive is 160GB, and I've got another 250GB I'm not using.

A mirrored drive is nice since you can just plug it in and you're back
in business, at least up to the point of the last backup.  With file
by file you have more work to rebuild.

If you guys are doing mirrored backups, what software are you using?

Thanks!
Chris


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