Backup for Home Computers

[davemayo]

I'm looking to backup up what's on our two home computers. I was thinking of buying another external hard drive (say a 1TB), and use that solely for backup.

Does XP have a built-in backup utility? Does it work well?

Or is it better to use a third-party backup utility? If so, any recommendations?

Thanks.

[netconcepts]

I'm looking to backup up what's on our two home computers. I was thinking of buying another external hard drive (say a 1TB), and use that solely for backup.

Does XP have a built-in backup utility? Does it work well?

Or is it better to use a third-party backup utility? If so, any recommendations?

Thanks.

An External HDD is a good option, I suggest a RAID-5 array, they are not too expensive and some are even expandable and wireless. You get three drives for redundancy. A single 1 TB drive is still a single point of failure.

The built in Backup is just fine, you can even schedule it to run automatically, just have all of your applications shut down when it runs. It cannot open files that another program has in use, like e-mail.

Good luck.

[Steve H]

Has anyone tried the online backup services such as carbonite.com? I'm thinking about going that route.

[EXTACAMO]

I use Norton Ghost 12 with an external USB HD. Ghost has worked well for me. It has a set it and forget it feature where you can let the program manage your backups or if you are more computer savy you can take more control of how the program runs. You can make a bootable CD to access your stored HD images in case of a HD crash. It also comes in handy if you just want to upgrade your HD without doing a complete re-install of Window$. But like most Norton products its alittle pricey.

[Stuart Sweet]

I use EMC Retrospect Express and an external HDD. It's pretty idiotproof. Yes a RAID would be an even better bet but it just wasn't in the budget.

[dmspen]

If you are using XP Pro, you can write a backup batch file to execute at logoff. I did this and backed up my XP Pro machine (now dead) to a flash drive at every logoff. I suppose you could have it run at logon as well.

I just copied the My Docs folder to the flash drive. I had set switches to overwrite older files so the latest copy would be backed up. Worked great.

[smiddy]

I am looking at a RAID setup for Media Sharing and PC backups. From what I understand MS Home Server is a perfect option for an external storage OS, and it has a built in Backup application that is seemless, so they say. I won't be doing this until May time frame however.

[Pinion413]

Back before I had Vista Ultimate running on this machine, I swore by Acronis True Image for years for backups, drive ghosting, and whatnot.

I still will use it now if I need to clone a drive over to its newer replacement (including drives with OSes installed, it clones everything perfectly).

For system backups though, I've grown quite fond of the backup utility built into Vista Ultimate.

I'm also more comfortable with backing up to an external drive versus trusting RAID. I'm sure RAID works quite well, but for me I'd rather back up files to the 2 external drives I have.

[funhouse69]

I would second Retrospect, I've been dealing with it since before EMC owned it and it is very easy and very reliable. A single drive is fine but as mentioned you have to realize that is a single point of failure but you are only using it to back up information in case of a failure. The other thing you have to keep in mind with online backup solutions is data loss due to corruption or an infection of some kind.

Form what I have been reading I think that a Windows Home Server is perfect for a central backup but this is still online storage and can get pretty expensive once RAID 5 is added and the amount of storage is increased.

Online services are interesting but you have to consider a few different things. My biggest concern is privacy seriously if credit card companies can't protect their data than how can I depend on an online backup service to do that. What about data integrity, how do I know that my data was uploaded properly and is staying intact on their servers or whatever they use for storage. The other is the amount of data that needs to be backed up. Even with the fastest home Internet connections like my FIOS 20/20 it would take upwards of 2 hours to backup a single DVD's worth of data which today isn't much.

I have almost 10TB of storage on my network and while all critical data is on two different RAID 5's I don't have much of that data backed up. When you start to get in to that amount of data is becomes very, very expensive to backup reliably.

[chuckyHDDTV]

I am currently running a DIY Windows Home Server box on my network and totally satisfied with it. I elected not to purchase the HP WHS box because the CPUs installed are not fast enough to handle heavy usage. WHS boxes are totally plug and leave. Just plug in the power cord and LAN cable and power up. Nothing else required. I have 3 teenage kids that have downloaded hunreds of music and video files and having the WHS makes it simple to centralize everything. You don't have to configure WHS much if at all. After the initial setup (user name and password stuff), it is really on it's own. WHS will automaticly backup all of your computers daily. You can add as much storage as you want. I currently have 6 HD installed totalling 4 TB (2 IDE 500 GB, 4 SATA 750 GB). You can connect USB HDs as well. As you add storage, the server adds up together. It will also mirror itself in case of a HD failure. My HR20 recognizes my WHS as a windows connect device and has no problems playing music, videos, or pictures. You cannot use Tversity on WHS. Overall, if you are looking for a network storage solution and don't know much about servers, I recommend you try WHS.

[davemayo]

I am currently running a DIY Windows Home Server box on my network and totally satisfied with it. I elected not to purchase the HP WHS box because the CPUs installed are not fast enough to handle heavy usage. WHS boxes are totally plug and leave. Just plug in the power cord and LAN cable and power up. Nothing else required. I have 3 teenage kids that have downloaded hunreds of music and video files and having the WHS makes it simple to centralize everything. You don't have to configure WHS much if at all. After the initial setup (user name and password stuff), it is really on it's own. WHS will automaticly backup all of your computers daily. You can add as much storage as you want. I currently have 6 HD installed totalling 4 TB (2 IDE 500 GB, 4 SATA 750 GB). You can connect USB HDs as well. As you add storage, the server adds up together. It will also mirror itself in case of a HD failure. My HR20 recognizes my WHS as a windows connect device and has no problems playing music, videos, or pictures. You cannot use Tversity on WHS. Overall, if you are looking for a network storage solution and don't know much about servers, I recommend you try WHS.

Sounds like what I need. How easy is restoring? How much does it cost?

[4DThinker]

Whatever you decide on, remember that any backup that you keep locally is just as likely to get destroyed in the same fire or other disaster that your main PC will be destroyed in. So on online backup is a great idea. A better idea is to do both.

Many terabyte drives come wth their own backup application.

[heaphus]

Sounds like what I need. How easy is restoring? How much does it cost?
Pop the restore cd in the PC you want to restore, it boots, finds the server, shows you a list of backups, you pick one and it does the rest. You can also restore individual files and folders only if needed. There are also add-ins that work with online storage services which, as mentioned by others, is always a good idea, as well as add-ins for a host of other functions. And, a whole lot of other stuff!

[djlong]

Don't forget that you can access all your files via the net with WHS. You get a domain name of "thenameyouwant.homeserver.com" and when you configure it with your username and password (up to 10 remote accounts) you can get at your files from anywhere.

I built a WHS box and love it.

[funhouse69]

You can pick up Window Home Server Edition OEM from places like NewEgg.com for about $169 which isn't too bad. Make sure you keep up with the patches as there was an issues with the file system corrupting certain types of data that it backed up. That has been resolved with patches.

Also when it comes to online backups like Carbonite if you are comfortable with your data being placed online then it is certainly worth a try. Carbonite is offering "Unlimited" backup for $49 a year per PC. If you would combine this with something like Windows Home Media Server then you would only have to backup a single system. Keep in mind that it "Seems" like they are limiting the amount of bandwidth that can be uploaded to about 500Kb/Sec which when you have a fast connection like my FIOS 20/20Mb is pretty disappointing.

I am giving them a try to see how it works for some of my data that doesn't contain any personal information. It sure is simple to use I can say that much. You load a very lightweight application that loads as a service then you pick the folder(s) you want to backup and it does its thing and will backup any differences after the initial backup.

[davemayo]

Thanks everyone for the helpful suggestions. :)

[leww37334]

I use EMC Retrospect Express and an external HDD. It's pretty idiotproof. Yes a RAID would be an even better bet but it just wasn't in the budget.
Also second on EMC retrospect, I am really pleased with it. Also if you want free, Cobian Backup is probably the best.

[Sirshagg]

I really like Drive Snapshot. Not as fancy or as polished UI as many of the others but it just works.

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/

[pschmidt64]

Also second on EMC retrospect, I am really pleased with it. Also if you want free, Cobian Backup is probably the best.

I'll 3rd (or 4th?) Retrospect. I've used many different backup programs before Retrospect and it is by far my favorite. Works very well, reliable, and easy to setup multiple computers.

[JM Anthony]

Just for the hell of it, I bought myself an HP Media Smart Server to help give me more real estate for my home theater PC as well as backup capacity for our laptops and desktop units. Not the cheapest solution, but works well.

John

[John in Georgia]

Back before I had Vista Ultimate running on this machine, I swore by Acronis True Image for years for backups, drive ghosting, and whatnot.

I still will use it now if I need to clone a drive over to its newer replacement (including drives with OSes installed, it clones everything perfectly).

For system backups though, I've grown quite fond of the backup utility built into Vista Ultimate.

I'm also more comfortable with backing up to an external drive versus trusting RAID. I'm sure RAID works quite well, but for me I'd rather back up files to the 2 external drives I have.

Good luck reaching ACRONIS if you have a problem with their software. Adding this company to my Comcast list.