Best way to back up (2 TB) and restore from NAS
I have a C: drive that is 400G and a 2 T additional drive.
I back up both to a Network Storage Device (Drobo).
It dawned on me that although I'm backing up, if something happened to my drives, I dont know what I would do to get everything back to normal. I really would not look forward to re-installing everything!
What is the best way to assure that if my drives fail, I can get my information back without having to go back to the original disks and load everything?
And.. is there a way other than the cloud to protect the backup from being held ransom? I know we have ransomeware protection, but what if something happened? Would the data be safe on the NAS? (I doubt it). Would encryption work?
Thanks Steve!
Now I have even more questions!
It seems that WinPE is the way to go. I have a Windows 7(64) machine. It states that I need one of two files:
- Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK).
This component is required for creating WinPE 3.0.
- Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK).
This component is required for creating WinPE 4.0, WinPE 5.0, and WinPE 10.0.
Are these files needed before I create my disks?
Where do I find these files? or how to find if I already have it?
Seems I create the backup disk and make sure to include the drivers for my NAS. My understanding is if I create a Simple backup, Acronis decides the best type. Is there any caveats to this?
Gerald, just create a simple rescue drive and see if you can boot it. Be sure to boot the same way (UEFI vs Legace, see Steve's link). You could also try to create a Linux version if the Windows version doesn't work.
Given that you are running Windows 7, there is good likelihood that you will be successful. Doesn't hurt to just try it.
Edit... hit save too early. As for the NAS, you may need to explicitly point to the NAS in the rescue version of ATI. It probably won't find it automatically.
To elaborate of BruoC's post: You may have to use either the device name or IP address to find your NAS.
Update and a new (related) question:
As things happen, about a week ago, my 10 year old computer with Windows 7 crashed. Only able to get to system prompt. And, as typical, I only had an Acronis boot disk from 2017. That helped but not too much. I wound up ordering a new system that I will get in a couple of weeks. I can not reach the DROBO NAS, but I’m sure I will on the new system. Which brings me to the original question.
I was told by Drobo that
“A PC (or Mac) has to be on the network to access the Drobo.
When Windows (in this case) isn't loaded, there are no network drivers.
You can't access the internet, you can't map a drive to the Drobo.
If the Acronis recovery program/image is able to load network drivers then you can get to the Drobo, yes.
You would need to know its name or IP address from a command prompt and then you could map a drive.
Typically you wouldn't store an image of your Windows install on a network resource like this unless you have a way to get Networking going on the machine you need to restore.”
So I plan on using my DROBO for data for sure.
I plan on making a boot disk from Acronis.
Where would I store an image of my windows install? I don’t quite understand how much space an image takes, but since the new machine will have a 1TB SSD boot C: , It seems I need to create an image on a 1 TB external drive that can be seen (ie, a USB drive).
Does Acronis boot disk give me the network drivers I need to get to something on the network? Right now, the old 2017 boot disk only sees the connected drives.
What is the typical solution that people are doing in a similar situation such as this?
Although this isn’t the worst that could have happened (I have backups), I still have to re-install the programs. I really don’t want to be in this situation again.
Gerald,
It is possible to connect to a network share with True Image Rescue media, and if you can, then you should have no problem saving your system images to the Drobo share from within Windows and recovering from that location later with your True Image rescue media. Personally, I would recommend diversifying a little bit and doing one backup job on a schedule to your network share, and then do another (different) backup job to an external drive (use the golden backup rule of 3-2-1 to give yourself multiple recovery options on different types of media). You can pick and choose the location, schedule, frequency, cleanup rules, etc. for each backup to meet your needs. As an example, perhaps back up the main PC drive to you Drobo share on M, W, F, S and then back it up to an external drive T,Th,Sun with a different task. There's no magic calculation for how much space you need. In a "typical" OS backup (is there such a thing? - depends on what you store on that drive), you'll see about 33% compression. As an example, my OS drive is using 96GB (all my music and movies are stored elsewhere) and a full backup is roughly 59.7GB. Files that are already compressed (.mp3, .mp4, .zip, .mov, etc) will not compress anymore in backups.
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Acronis rescue media typically has network support for remote shares, NAS devices, etc. That said, the main thing is having network drivers for the local computer so that the NIC is working on it.
What type of rescue media did you create with True Image? There are 3 options... Linux, WinPE or WinRE. Linux is the older method and the base .iso you can download on your account. WinRE is built like WinPE, but is based on your recovery partition from your local computer (if it is found and/or working) and WinPE is a more generic version of WinRE with default drivers from Windows.
WinRE is the best for most people (assuming the local recovery environment works) - and especially if using Windows 10. This will have your native system drivers, based on the OS you have installed. If your OS is Windows 7, you're going to have limited driver support in WinRE though - if you're using Windows 10, you're in really good shape with WinRE.
If you are using an older OS like Windows 7, or if your system has a missing or corrupt WinRE, you can manually download and install Windows ADK (use the latest Windows 10, even on an older OS for the best driver support). It's a fairly hefty download at around 4GB, but it is super handy if you don't have WinRE or want to build rescue media based on Windows 10 with awesome native driver support).
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Assuming WinPE or WinRE.... there are a couple of ways to connect to a remote NAS (Drobo or otherwise) as long as the NIC is functioning in the rescue media. In many cases, simply typing in the Drobo path via IP will do the trick:
i.e.
\\192.168.1.100\droboshare\ <enter>
of course, change to the correct IP and the correct share path name.
Usually, once you enter the last backslash and press enter, if the path is correct, you'll be prompted to enter a username and password to authenticate to it. That's it.
Alternatively, you can close True Image and use the background command prompt to use "net use" commands to map it as a drive letter. But then you also have to use command prompt to relaunch True Image.
So.... in that regard WinPE/WinRE can be a little un-user friendly. To the rescue though is the MVP rescue media builder (see my signature or click on the MVP user tools and tutorials to the right >>>>>>) This will add in some things like a file explorer (A42 and file explorer ++) that can help you map the drive or navigate a lot easier. Personally, I always use the MVP tool to build True Image rescue media because it is a lot more robust than standard WinPE/WinRE - there's a full video tutorial in the 2019 forum in the sticky section too if you want to see how to build it and what it looks like when it's built)
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