Opps, so close to loosing everything, looking for advice on a better backup scheme

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Beginner
Posts: 3
Comments: 11

The other day my wife was doing some reorganization of Office folders on our computer and accidentally deleted the whole excel folder. I went to my backups (which is set to happen once a day) and found out that a full backup had happened about 30mins earlier. This was great as I was able to restore the excel folder without any issue.
This event highlighted how close I had come to loosing everything, should the full backup have happened after my wife had deleted the excel folder. The reason is that the way I have it set up is to do a full backup once a week, at which point it deletes all the previous incremental ones. Here is the scheme I am using (this was suggested some time ago by a Acronis support person at the time):

Custom Scheme
Backup method: Incremental
Create a full backup every 5 incremental versions
Store no more than 1 recent version chains

(all other options are not selected. 'Turn off automatic cleanup' is blue, which I assume means automatic cleanup is on)

What would be nice is if when it did the full backup it would keep the previous incremental one, however without the original full backup I assume this would not be of much use.

Can someone please suggest a better scheme?

I am guessing that I have to change the 'Store no more than x recent version chains' but I get confused by all the options so I am not 100% sure.

Whatever I end up with I would like to use the same settings for other backups which I do, however some of those are for much larger amounts of data so I may not have space to keep multiple sets,

Thanks in advance for your help

Sun, 02/22/2015 - 19:54
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Legend
Posts: 172
Comments: 11125

Congratulations on your recovery but also congratulations on using this incident as a wakeup call. You were very lucky but still very vunerable. You need both additional backups as well as additional backup disks so backups can be spread over several disks so your backup won't be lost if you storage disk fails--which also happens more frequently that we imagine.. It is not unusual to need to restore a file from an much earlier period.

If you are using a desktop, it is easy to have a quick change slot and changing a disk can only take seconds.
Some users
Do a full backup.
Remove the original disk and store it away.
Insert a new disk (or swap disks.
Restore the recent backup to the newly inserted disk.
Now you begin to use a new disk and a known good one is stored away.
Even add a 3rd disk into the mix so two good disks stored away.

Or, use a 2nd or 3rd task and make additional files backup so you have mulitple copies of your important files stored in multiple places.

Only you now how important your data is and how difficult to replace.

Click on my signature link #1 below and browse that link to item #12 (Backup Methods by others).

Increasing the "store 1 recent version chain" would add another weeks backups (6 backups) to your retention for each digit increase.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/75086

Mon, 02/23/2015 - 01:03
Abigo autem causa dolore scisco. Conventio defui dolor elit feugiat lucidus natu populus praemitto. Abbas ad facilisi. Defui ea gemino suscipere. Consectetuer eros interdico minim. Esse incassum plaga. Caecus decet dolore ille iriure neque. Gilvus letalis mauris paratus quis tego. Brevitas capto erat gemino loquor ratis tincidunt vulpes. Appellatio haero humo iustum luctus natu similis. Conventio decet eros humo praemitto ratis ullamcorper virtus. Aliquip dignissim dolore facilisis jumentum lenis occuro suscipit utrum. Esca gilvus haero ideo nutus persto quidne refoveo usitas. Adipiscing cui nisl odio paulatim quadrum qui venio virtus. Caecus letalis natu nunc pertineo praesent utinam. Caecus eligo jugis nimis tamen te. Ad diam dignissim gravis iusto magna praemitto. Augue gravis magna obruo plaga valde. Et humo molior saepius. Adipiscing aliquip lenis paulatim quadrum wisi. Duis in voco. Consectetuer gravis plaga populus quia. Commoveo consequat distineo exputo iustum nisl saepius. Appellatio genitus ille melior mos nisl odio torqueo velit vindico. Abico comis iustum minim nobis oppeto pecus vero. Abico ex exerci haero iusto quia sed typicus. Abigo camur lobortis pneum tincidunt turpis vel. Abbas acsi dignissim ea suscipere. Eros iustum lobortis nobis probo quadrum qui velit verto vulpes. Importunus iustum magna modo nimis nunc sit vel vulputate. Blandit commodo dolus facilisi pertineo voco vulpes. Iriure loquor venio. Cogo ea esse gravis huic imputo odio refero similis ut. Aliquam autem conventio ibidem paulatim quia sagaciter vereor wisi. Adipiscing enim esca et olim sino vulpes. At iusto scisco vulputate. Ad ex ille secundum utinam valde verto vulputate. Erat molior nibh turpis. Importunus pala utinam. Causa conventio nulla quidem secundum tation verto. Camur conventio eros importunus iustum. Consequat dolore immitto iriure luptatum nostrud ulciscor ut. Distineo enim iusto torqueo utinam. Brevitas natu pala vereor. Abigo decet ea proprius typicus uxor volutpat. Causa iusto quae sit suscipere torqueo ut vulputate. Magna occuro pneum. Abbas blandit dolus paulatim. Adipiscing caecus jugis nibh obruo premo. Augue causa eu laoreet lenis mauris premo suscipit vero. At damnum exputo ideo immitto pala vereor. Eum jugis utinam velit wisi. Augue cogo ratis suscipere vereor. Diam ille incassum persto saluto. Abluo blandit fere molior. Caecus erat magna mauris praemitto saluto vero. Qui singularis tincidunt valde. Minim qui similis ut. Ex exerci lenis nimis ratis sagaciter volutpat. Abigo aliquam lenis loquor nulla pala similis vel velit vero. Aliquip defui erat letalis paulatim utinam. At nutus occuro. Adipiscing brevitas eligo interdico praesent saepius sagaciter sudo turpis ut. Accumsan dolus eu pertineo refero verto. Imputo meus vereor wisi. Bene commodo diam illum laoreet paulatim populus uxor. Caecus commodo inhibeo jus nulla nunc ulciscor valetudo. Consectetuer defui iaceo iustum nibh te vel. Facilisis loquor ratis tum vicis. Capto luptatum pala sudo torqueo. Antehabeo caecus dolus ea gravis illum molior vulputate. Abdo adipiscing iaceo jugis pertineo te ullamcorper. Abico erat ideo os turpis. Dolore facilisis metuo nibh occuro pecus volutpat. Acsi antehabeo damnum defui ex lucidus nulla ymo. Fere pecus sudo. Camur dolore illum loquor qui quia. Brevitas camur dignissim dolor duis obruo plaga quae veniam volutpat. Dignissim loquor olim te vereor. At cui dolore erat eros jumentum ludus nibh vereor. At dolor eros huic suscipit te typicus voco. Appellatio autem defui in neque nisl proprius qui tation. Eros quae refero. Aptent bene dolor minim. Abdo cui importunus oppeto utrum. Commodo erat ludus olim vel. Commodo iustum laoreet nisl. Abico os tincidunt tum. Damnum enim fere sit suscipere tego turpis typicus usitas virtus.
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
Beginner
Posts: 3
Comments: 11

GroverH, thanks for all the pointers. The immediate change I will make is to increase that version chain setting from 1 to 2.
Note that I always back up from one disk to another in the same machine. I realize that some catastrophic event like power supply failure or lightening strike could take out everything. For that reason I had been contemplating adding an external drive and triggering a backup to that manually.
I also like the idea of cloud backup but my ISP is on ADSL so although I have 25M download. I only get 1.5M upload. So cloud backup for an image of my C: drive would not be practical but cloud backup of Word and Excel files is definitely worth considering.

Tue, 02/24/2015 - 02:58
system_account
Regular Poster
Posts: 198
Comments: 120

Grover's solution is perfect.

I installed a hot swap drive bay in my pc and did exactly what Grover suggested.
It is a nice solution and gives me peace of mind that my data is secure and readily restorable.
My C drive has 2 partitions. Partition 1 for the OS, Partition 2 for the data.
The 3rd drive is the backup storage drive.
It only takes a few seconds to replace my working drive in event of OS failure or to restore all the data from the backup storage drive.
I set up a reasonable routine to keep my data ready to go on the extra OS/data drive and I'm ready to go when disaster strikes...
I also tested the "Restore to Dissimilar Hardware" to a standby backup computer. I had no problem but I did have all the motherboard drivers ready to go too.
We are fortunate to have so may "Forum Hero's" here to assist us when things go crazy.

Steve

Tue, 02/24/2015 - 15:00
Abigo autem causa dolore scisco. Conventio defui dolor elit feugiat lucidus natu populus praemitto. Abbas ad facilisi. Defui ea gemino suscipere. Consectetuer eros interdico minim. Esse incassum plaga. Caecus decet dolore ille iriure neque. Gilvus letalis mauris paratus quis tego. Brevitas capto erat gemino loquor ratis tincidunt vulpes. Appellatio haero humo iustum luctus natu similis. Conventio decet eros humo praemitto ratis ullamcorper virtus. Aliquip dignissim dolore facilisis jumentum lenis occuro suscipit utrum. Esca gilvus haero ideo nutus persto quidne refoveo usitas. Adipiscing cui nisl odio paulatim quadrum qui venio virtus. Caecus letalis natu nunc pertineo praesent utinam. Caecus eligo jugis nimis tamen te. Ad diam dignissim gravis iusto magna praemitto. Augue gravis magna obruo plaga valde. Et humo molior saepius. Adipiscing aliquip lenis paulatim quadrum wisi. Duis in voco. Consectetuer gravis plaga populus quia. Commoveo consequat distineo exputo iustum nisl saepius. Appellatio genitus ille melior mos nisl odio torqueo velit vindico. Abico comis iustum minim nobis oppeto pecus vero. Abico ex exerci haero iusto quia sed typicus. Abigo camur lobortis pneum tincidunt turpis vel. Abbas acsi dignissim ea suscipere. Eros iustum lobortis nobis probo quadrum qui velit verto vulpes. Importunus iustum magna modo nimis nunc sit vel vulputate. Blandit commodo dolus facilisi pertineo voco vulpes. Iriure loquor venio. Cogo ea esse gravis huic imputo odio refero similis ut. Aliquam autem conventio ibidem paulatim quia sagaciter vereor wisi. Adipiscing enim esca et olim sino vulpes. At iusto scisco vulputate. Ad ex ille secundum utinam valde verto vulputate. Erat molior nibh turpis. Importunus pala utinam. Causa conventio nulla quidem secundum tation verto. Camur conventio eros importunus iustum. Consequat dolore immitto iriure luptatum nostrud ulciscor ut. Distineo enim iusto torqueo utinam. Brevitas natu pala vereor. Abigo decet ea proprius typicus uxor volutpat. Causa iusto quae sit suscipere torqueo ut vulputate. Magna occuro pneum. Abbas blandit dolus paulatim. Adipiscing caecus jugis nibh obruo premo. Augue causa eu laoreet lenis mauris premo suscipit vero. At damnum exputo ideo immitto pala vereor. Eum jugis utinam velit wisi. Augue cogo ratis suscipere vereor. Diam ille incassum persto saluto. Abluo blandit fere molior. Caecus erat magna mauris praemitto saluto vero. Qui singularis tincidunt valde. Minim qui similis ut. Ex exerci lenis nimis ratis sagaciter volutpat. Abigo aliquam lenis loquor nulla pala similis vel velit vero. Aliquip defui erat letalis paulatim utinam. At nutus occuro. Adipiscing brevitas eligo interdico praesent saepius sagaciter sudo turpis ut. Accumsan dolus eu pertineo refero verto. Imputo meus vereor wisi. Bene commodo diam illum laoreet paulatim populus uxor. Caecus commodo inhibeo jus nulla nunc ulciscor valetudo. Consectetuer defui iaceo iustum nibh te vel. Facilisis loquor ratis tum vicis. Capto luptatum pala sudo torqueo. Antehabeo caecus dolus ea gravis illum molior vulputate. Abdo adipiscing iaceo jugis pertineo te ullamcorper. Abico erat ideo os turpis. Dolore facilisis metuo nibh occuro pecus volutpat. Acsi antehabeo damnum defui ex lucidus nulla ymo. Fere pecus sudo. Camur dolore illum loquor qui quia. Brevitas camur dignissim dolor duis obruo plaga quae veniam volutpat. Dignissim loquor olim te vereor. At cui dolore erat eros jumentum ludus nibh vereor. At dolor eros huic suscipit te typicus voco. Appellatio autem defui in neque nisl proprius qui tation. Eros quae refero. Aptent bene dolor minim. Abdo cui importunus oppeto utrum. Commodo erat ludus olim vel. Commodo iustum laoreet nisl. Abico os tincidunt tum. Damnum enim fere sit suscipere tego turpis typicus usitas virtus.
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
Forum Member
Posts: 6
Comments: 60

bbear,

Ditto on what "GroverH" and "Perdido Beach" posted about backups. My take on this topic is that it's best to have multiple recovery paths for your complete OS install and have a separate backup plan for those "must-keep" items such as the Excel folder that you mentioned in your post.

As GroverH mentioned, if you have a Desktop PC and a spare expansion slot, you can install a SATA hot-swap rack. It makes Cloning/Imaging very convenient as you can plug in and remove your HDD's like a CD/DVD or Flash drive.

I use 2 of these in my Desktop PC (Amazon link) :

http://www.amazon.com/KingWin-3-5-Inch-Internal-Trayless-KF-1000-BK/dp/…

That one is for conventional (spinner) HDD's. You can get trays for SSD's if needed.

Backups plans are as diverse as the Universe :) but I'll put my current activities out here and offer some things to consider about this topic.

I use 2 backup plans:

1) Complete HDD backup, including my Windows 7 install and all of my programs/personal data.

2) Incremental and manual backups for those "must-keep" items like my Outlook e-mail data file, some Excel files, things that are frequently edited/updated.

With HDD backups, I'm most likely backing up my "C" HDD more than some home PC users. However, the time spent maintaining a full-HDD backup scheme is worth it to me by always having a complete bootable spare HDD available on the shelf in the event of numerous problems that may occur, such as HDD failure, malware intrusions, user mistakes.

I Clone my Desktop HDD every couple of weeks with my Acronis (2011 ver) bootable CD. I have 2 spare HDD's which are identical to my "C" HDD size. I alternate those 2 HDD's with my bi-weekly Cloning. I use the 2nd spare HDD to Image-restore every few months to verify a complete worse-case Image recovery situation where I would need to restore the complete HDD having no available working Windows HDD.

The Cloned HDD remains disconnected on the shelf except when I'm processing the Cloning operation.

I have several (full-HDD) Images stored on another external USB HDD that is connected to my PC only during Image processing activities. I have these Images to provide redundancy for a complete HDD recovery situation in case I encounter a Cloning issue with my spare HDD's.

Backing up my "must-have" items:

I'm running a twice-daily unattended specific-item backup job with my Acronis 2011 program. The Target storage device is a continuously-connected portable USB HDD.

I backup those same items manually to a couple of Flash Drives. I do this to offer multiple recovery paths for those must-have items in case my PC is infected with one of the various ransomware encryption malware variants, such as the "Cryptolocker", "Cryptowall", "TorentLocker", etc.

Those malicious infections will usually encrypt excel, word, jpg, etc, items that are present on any mapped storage device that is connected to the parent PC at the time that the malware is running on the PC.

For that reason alone, it's important to use redundant backup methods for the critical personal items on one's PC.

Regarding manual backups, I'm using a script to back up my specific items since that minimizes the time that I need to have my failsafe devices attached to the PC. The idea is to back up those items fast without using the drag/drop or copy/paste manual methods so that the Flash Drives can be disconnected faster.

Scripting is a great way to run personalized batch jobs or run them interactively. I wrote a script that I call "Drive Copy". I use this one to manually backup my critical items to whatever portable storage device that I have connected to my PC at that time.

Bottom line for me is:

- Have multiple backup copies of your HDD and critical personal data available for recovery situations.

- Keep a couple or more storage devices disconnected from your PC that contain the above items. Connect them only during the actual backup processes. This helps protect you from encryption malware effects.

Tue, 02/24/2015 - 15:16
Abigo autem causa dolore scisco. Conventio defui dolor elit feugiat lucidus natu populus praemitto. Abbas ad facilisi. Defui ea gemino suscipere. Consectetuer eros interdico minim. Esse incassum plaga. Caecus decet dolore ille iriure neque. Gilvus letalis mauris paratus quis tego. Brevitas capto erat gemino loquor ratis tincidunt vulpes. Appellatio haero humo iustum luctus natu similis. Conventio decet eros humo praemitto ratis ullamcorper virtus. Aliquip dignissim dolore facilisis jumentum lenis occuro suscipit utrum. Esca gilvus haero ideo nutus persto quidne refoveo usitas. Adipiscing cui nisl odio paulatim quadrum qui venio virtus. Caecus letalis natu nunc pertineo praesent utinam. Caecus eligo jugis nimis tamen te. Ad diam dignissim gravis iusto magna praemitto. Augue gravis magna obruo plaga valde. Et humo molior saepius. Adipiscing aliquip lenis paulatim quadrum wisi. Duis in voco. Consectetuer gravis plaga populus quia. Commoveo consequat distineo exputo iustum nisl saepius. Appellatio genitus ille melior mos nisl odio torqueo velit vindico. Abico comis iustum minim nobis oppeto pecus vero. Abico ex exerci haero iusto quia sed typicus. Abigo camur lobortis pneum tincidunt turpis vel. Abbas acsi dignissim ea suscipere. Eros iustum lobortis nobis probo quadrum qui velit verto vulpes. Importunus iustum magna modo nimis nunc sit vel vulputate. Blandit commodo dolus facilisi pertineo voco vulpes. Iriure loquor venio. Cogo ea esse gravis huic imputo odio refero similis ut. Aliquam autem conventio ibidem paulatim quia sagaciter vereor wisi. Adipiscing enim esca et olim sino vulpes. At iusto scisco vulputate. Ad ex ille secundum utinam valde verto vulputate. Erat molior nibh turpis. Importunus pala utinam. Causa conventio nulla quidem secundum tation verto. Camur conventio eros importunus iustum. Consequat dolore immitto iriure luptatum nostrud ulciscor ut. Distineo enim iusto torqueo utinam. Brevitas natu pala vereor. Abigo decet ea proprius typicus uxor volutpat. Causa iusto quae sit suscipere torqueo ut vulputate. Magna occuro pneum. Abbas blandit dolus paulatim. Adipiscing caecus jugis nibh obruo premo. Augue causa eu laoreet lenis mauris premo suscipit vero. At damnum exputo ideo immitto pala vereor. Eum jugis utinam velit wisi. Augue cogo ratis suscipere vereor. Diam ille incassum persto saluto. Abluo blandit fere molior. Caecus erat magna mauris praemitto saluto vero. Qui singularis tincidunt valde. Minim qui similis ut. Ex exerci lenis nimis ratis sagaciter volutpat. Abigo aliquam lenis loquor nulla pala similis vel velit vero. Aliquip defui erat letalis paulatim utinam. At nutus occuro. Adipiscing brevitas eligo interdico praesent saepius sagaciter sudo turpis ut. Accumsan dolus eu pertineo refero verto. Imputo meus vereor wisi. Bene commodo diam illum laoreet paulatim populus uxor. Caecus commodo inhibeo jus nulla nunc ulciscor valetudo. Consectetuer defui iaceo iustum nibh te vel. Facilisis loquor ratis tum vicis. Capto luptatum pala sudo torqueo. Antehabeo caecus dolus ea gravis illum molior vulputate. Abdo adipiscing iaceo jugis pertineo te ullamcorper. Abico erat ideo os turpis. Dolore facilisis metuo nibh occuro pecus volutpat. Acsi antehabeo damnum defui ex lucidus nulla ymo. Fere pecus sudo. Camur dolore illum loquor qui quia. Brevitas camur dignissim dolor duis obruo plaga quae veniam volutpat. Dignissim loquor olim te vereor. At cui dolore erat eros jumentum ludus nibh vereor. At dolor eros huic suscipit te typicus voco. Appellatio autem defui in neque nisl proprius qui tation. Eros quae refero. Aptent bene dolor minim. Abdo cui importunus oppeto utrum. Commodo erat ludus olim vel. Commodo iustum laoreet nisl. Abico os tincidunt tum. Damnum enim fere sit suscipere tego turpis typicus usitas virtus.