Imagine this scenario, as an IT Pro of many years it is a scenario I have experienced many times 🙁
Your desktop / laptop won’t load Windows (or any other OS) and basically doesn’t do anything when you switch on the power button.
Occasionally this can sometimes be fixed by repairing the “file system” but mostly it means that the HDD (Hard Disk Drive) has failed and needs replacing. Replacing the HDD on a desktop is quite easy but on a modern Laptop it is a lot more involved.
Once the HDD is replaced, you now have a device that doesn’t have a working OS (Operating System) all I need to do now is install the OS and any “progs” (Apps) that you had previously (can you remember what you had installed?). I can probably get the OS installed, along with all the updates in a few hours. Tell me what “apps” you had installed and I’ll install them, I can add others if you think of anything else. What about your data backups? If you don’t have any, the data is lost because I’m not a magician. I might be able to retrieve some data from the failed HDD but it will likely not be complete.
Result, you have a device that boots up and is usable but may not have all the “apps” you had before and you have no access to your previous data. It’s probably going to take weeks of tweaking to get your device back to how you had it.
The scenario result could be so much different if you make regular “disk Images” and data backups. Having a recent “Disk Image” would save hours and would negate the need to install an OS from scratch. It would also mean that all of your “apps” would be there. Your “data” would be there and would only be missing anything that you have added after the “Disk Image” was created but in the main, your device would be up and running in a few hours instead of a few days.
We are all so very much reliant on computers / tablets / laptops and smartphones these days and often they hold our lives. Photos of our loved ones, documents like begging letters to the bank, bank statements, utility bills, contacts, calendar / diary dates are all the sort of stuff we save on our PCs and phones. We take them for granted because they never go wrong, do they? (you wish) Most smartphones have some sort of automated backup, which backs up your stuff to “The Cloud” so it isn’t much of a problem when your phone dies or gets lost. The biggest problem is finding out where your backup is and how to restore it to your device 🙁 Fairly easy with Google Drive for Android devices and iCloud for iPads and iPhones.
What about your PC / Laptop? I’ll deal mainly with MS Windows initially but similar options are available for Linux and Apple OS. Lets look at the options:-
Home user with only one Device (PC / Laptop) running Windows.
In the main, your only option for backups is to use an external USB Hard Disk Drive (HDD) but you may be able to use “The Cloud“. If the USB HDD is permanently connected to your PC, you can automate the backup process. If it isn’t permanently connected, you’ll have to do the backups manually and that can be a pain because you have to remember to do the backups! Below are some other options that will help you take control of your backups. See below for “backup software” options.
Note! backing up to a USB Drive only gives you one copy of the backup!
Home user or small business (SOHO) with more than one PC, running Windows.
Your options are basically the same as above but as you have more than one PC, you can create a LAN (Local Area Network) and can share documents between your devices. You could elect to use one of the devices (or a spare PC) as a sort of file server that has a permanent USB HDD attached and is powered up 24/7. You could then automate all of your backups and store them on the USB HDD of this device but you would still only have one copy of the backup.
You could install an extra (internal) HDD to store your backups and then back this up to the USB HDD!
Another option is to use NAS (Network Attached Storage), this is basically one or more HDD that are installed in a stand-alone network device. Instead of using USB (connected directly to one PC), it uses Ethernet (and sometimes WiFi) so its basically another PC – of sorts. NAS is a really good solution for backing up your stuff and can be used as a central / common device to allow you to store and share all of your documents, files, photos etc. Note! if you want to share files between your Windows Devices, make sure the NAS device supports SMB / CIFS because NFS is not supported by all versions of Windows. SMB is native to Windows, NFS is native to Linux.
Note. Look out for a NAS device that supports “mirroring“, this is basically a device that allows you to have at least 2 x HDD and one of the HDD is a Mirror (all data is copied over / replicated to the mirror HDD, in real time) so if one of the HDD fails, you still have a working HDD which contains the backups! In principle, this would give you 2 copies of any backups and has “redundancy” built-in. Using a NAS device is probably one of the easiest ways to store your backups but it isn’t a “budget” option so if your budget is tight, you might want to read on 🙂
Another option is to use an old / spare PC as a dedicated file server! This is my favourite option because generally it will cost a lot less than a NAS device. You could have a Windows Server OS (Operating System) on this “file server” but Windows Server OS are not within the budget of most households and a standard (desktop) Windows OS isn’t really ideal but can be used! If you’re sticking with Windows, it’s best to get the “Pro” version as a minimum to avoid pitfalls in network sharing.
The old / spare PC will only be used for backups so it doesn’t need to have a high spec CPU and 4GB of RAM will do fine for Windows 10.
Basically, when using say Windows 10 Pro, all you would do is remove all unnecessary “apps” and install a USB drive to store your backups on. You could install a 2nd internal HDD to store the backups and then copy these to the USB HDD to give you 2 copies!
I recommend installing a (Free) Linux OS on the spare PC and then use SAMBA to create network shares. I use CentOS7 (Server) on a spare PC, fitted with an extra HDD and all my network devices can access the SAMBA shares with no problems. This allows me to backup my Windows devices to the CentOS server and allows me to store and share files / Documents with all the other network devices. The beauty of this is that the backups can be automated and in my case the CentOS is backed up nightly to an external USB HDD. Trust me, this might sound a bit Geeky but it is not difficult! You could use the Server editions of Ubuntu, SUSE or any of the Linux distros, I’d recommend not using the “Desktop” versions because the server editions are more suited to what you want to do. You could also use something like “Free NAS” instead of CentOS but I highly recommend CentOS because it is very robust and reliable.
Links for more info on Linux Open Source (Free).
Check out CentOS here. (Much of the Internet runs on CentOS servers because it’s rock solid!
Check out SUSE here (pronounced SuuZah)
Check out Ubuntu here (Ubuntu is gaining popularity in many ways, its a good option)
SAMBA shares use the native Windows SMB / CIFS and once set up, your PC will see these shares basically as another HDD and can be assigned a Drive letter! Your (Windows) PC will usually have a drive “C” which is where Windows and your personal data is stored and you can give your SAMBA shares any dive letter that isn’t in use, say drive M or X or Y or whatever. Check it out on samba.org
Once you have a SAMBA server setup, you have got your own “Private Cloud” (sort of) 🙂
Backup software
Microsoft Windows has the built-in (free) Windows backup (MS Backup / File History) to make sure your devices are backed up automatically or you can use the built-in (free) Robocopy.
MS Backup isn’t as reliable as one might hope, sometimes it doesn’t run and you have to run it manually. However, the advantage of MS Backup is that it will “backup” your stuff on a daily basis, without overwriting the previous backup. This means you can go to a backup on a certain date to recover a file that has been deleted or corrupted etc. You can select “hourly” or “daily” backups and select the number days to keep the backup, unfortunately it seems to ignore “Keep for 30 days” and basically keeps daily backups “for ever”, which means you have to run the “File Clean up” utility to stop your backup media from running out of disk space but that’s no big deal.
Doing the backups to a NAS or Samba share (similar to a single PC with USB drive attached)
To use the Built-in Windows Backup. (on Windows 10.)
a. Go to Settings.
b.Select Update & Security.
c. Select Backup.
Just work your way the through the options, tell it where to put the backup (e.g. Network Share), tell it how long to keep the backups, tell it how often to do the backups (default is every hour). Once you have it setup, it just works, usually!
Robocopy is awesome and isn’t difficult to use. Normally you would create a “backup script” and run this as a “Scheduled task”.
The “backup script” is easy to do. Use Notepad to enter the backup details and then save the “txt” doc as a “bat” (batch) file.
E.g. save your “script” file as “photos_backup.bat”, not “photos_backup.txt”. You would run “photos_backup.bat” as scheduled task.
The script basically tells Robocopy what to backup and where to put it.
E.g, robocopy c:\photos \\192.168.1.101\data\photos /NDL /MIR /Z /W:5 /LOG:C:\Robocopy\logs\photos.log.
“c:\photos” – is the source (what you want to back up)
“\\192.168.1.101” – is the device on the LAN that will receive the backup (using the IP address is more reliable)
“\data\photos” – completes the destination path (\\192.168.1.101\data\photos)
“/NDL /MIR /Z /W:5” – are Switches (options) These are what I use to create a “mirror” backup. Lookup Robocopy switches.
“/Log:C\robocopy\logs\photos.log” – is where you want the backup log storing.
Re: Source & Destination. The source can be a “remote” device, which means you are “pulling” data from another device instead of “pushing” it to another device. The source and destination can be devices on your LAN or even on the “Internet”.
A good primer for Robocopy can be found here. It is a good overview and keeps it simple, nice one Adam 🙂
When you run a Robocopy backup it will only back up any changes so the job only take minutes instead of hours. The Linux equivalent of Robocopy is RSync. The downside to Robocopy is that it will only copy “changes” to the files so your backups are “time sensitive”.
Robocopy maybe not as easy as the built-in backup but it is more customisable and has a lot more options like error checking.
You can use Robocopy to move files around your LAN to different PCs, it’s worth getting to know.
In all situations, Your backup strategy should include creating a “Disk Image” backup on a regular basis and this is regardless of what other backups you do. A “Disk Image” is basically a snapshot of your complete HDD that has your Windows installation on it. A “Disk Image” will allow you to restore your PC, for whatever reason, to the state it was when you created the image. So if your HDD fails, you install a new one and restore the image. You are then back to what you had, no re-installing software or doing updates but any changes you made after the Disk Image was created will be lost. This would mean that if you did a weekly Disk Image and the drive failed on day 3, any changes between day 1 and day 3 would be lost but if you are doing daily backups the losses will be minimal.
I recommend, without any hesitation, using Macrium Reflect (Free) for doing regular Disk Images, you can do this from within Windows and generally it will take about 20 Mins to create a disk image. If you want to verify the Image (recommended), it will take a little longer but will give you peace of mind. The paid for version does a bit more. You might want to look at Acronis, this is quite good but I still favour Macrium (free).
You could do a daily “Disk Image” backup and amend the settings in Macrium to keep the number of backups that you want.
Note about backups!
I’m a belt and braces type guy and tend to try to cover all aspects when it comes to backing up my data. I tend to use the phrase “What Would Happen If” quite a lot! One of my first jobs in IT was for an ISP, working in the Datacentre and part of the job involved making sure customer data was being backed up and that the back ups were able to be used to restore as and when needed. Over the years I’ve come across a variety of backup strategies and all were intended to make the backup methods and strategies “bullet and in some cases bomb proof”. One method which is still popular in many businesses is to have at least one weekly backup stored “off-site” (the backups usually being stored on magnetic tape). This caters for the Fire, Flood, total wipe out situation but these days backing up to “The Cloud” is the modern equivalent.
When you backup to a USB HDD or Local server (Network share) you are only catering for such things as Hard Disk failures or Malware damage. In my case the backup / File server is not in the house so my backups are reasonably safe from problems that may affect the house e.g. fire, flood theft etc. It isn’t exactly “off-site” but from a risk assessment point of view, it’s not too bad!
What about the backup itself? (if it’s a good one that could be restored when needed). What happens if the device the backup is on fails? In my case, I backup the data on my PCs to the servers internal HDD and then backup the servers internal disk drive to an external USB HDD, in effect I have 2 sets of backups so I think I’ve got most things covered. If the servers internal HDD fails, I can grab the backup from the external HDD and vice versa. It might not be bomb proof but it’s a lot better than most people manage.
If you have a decent Internet connection and you have your own local backup server, backing up to “The Cloud” would probably cover all bases but backing up several GBs of data uses a lot of bandwidth!
Yes, I’m a geek (or nurd / nerd) and probably have more “IT” kit than most households but you don’t need to be a Geek or a Nurd to backup your data.The one thing that you need to be aware of is that your HDD WILL FAIL at some time and if you have no backup to recover your data, you will be “up Sh*t Creak without a paddle” and thats putting it politely:-)
When your HDD fails, you LOSE EVERYTHING! If you have a (recent) “Disk Image”, the loss is not as bad. If you have a Disk Image and a daily backup (of your data), your losses will be minimal and getting back to “up & running” will be more of an inconvenience; that will take maybe a few hours instead of a “major problem” that will take several days or weeks to rectify.
Backups are your friend. Doing daily backups and weekly disk images are your “peace of mind”.
The most important backup is the one you didn’t do!
When a HDD fails it can be a DISASTER, do your backups and Disk images and the Disaster will only be an inconvenience!
My Backup strategy isn’t difficult but is probably a bit OTT for most households but here it is :-
My “spare PC” is actually a “server class” PC with (headless) CentOS server OS installed. It doesn’t have a GUI / Desktop and can only be accessed using the “command line” / Terminal, this is mainly because I only access it remotely (for Admin purposes) from one of my Windows devices (using Putty, WinSCP and Webmin).
It has a “system / boot” HDD (for the OS) and has 3 x 1TB HDDs which which give a 2 TB raid 5 data array. It also has a 2 TB USB HDD.
I also have a (spare) Windows 10 Pro box with a USB HDD attached.
On a daily basis, the CentOS data array (in conjunction with SAMBA) provides “Network shares” e.g. photos, household, general etc. This allows us to use any of our “network devices” to access the data on the “network shares” and this works great.
I use MS backup to backup all of my Windows devices to the (spare) Windows 10 box and this in turn is copied to the CentOS “data array” using Robocopy. Every night the “data array” gets backed up to the USB HDD, using Rsync!
I also use Robocopy on my Windows devices to backup the “data” on my Windows devices. These are done done using using task scheduler.
I also use Robocopy to create a “mirror” of the “network shares” on to the “spare PC USB HDD”, this means I have backups available in the Windows native NTFS and Linux EFS / EXT. Yes a bit OTT for most people 🙂
If you skip all the above, the main thing you MUST do is backup your data on a regular basis.
Backups give you peace of mind.
Backups help you preserve the integrity of your data.
Disk Image backups, reduce the trauma of HDD failures or malware infections.
The most important backup is the one you didn’t do!
If you do nothing else, just buy a USB HDD and make a disk image using Macrium Reflect (Free). Ideally at least weekly and keep maybe the 3 newest.