Non-stop backup and hardware efficiency
I have an external raid 0 on my desktop which hold network shared files. About 1 TB worth. I have a 2 TB backup device for it.
The files don't change extremely often. Both devices are on eSATA connected to the same PCI card.
Using an incremental backup strategy, it is saying it will take about 12 hours.
I have two questions:
- What is the most efficient way to protect this drive. Twice a week backup incremental or differential vs. non-stop backup which I have not used before.
- How much would I gain by adding a second PCI eSATA card and ensuring the the source and the backup drives are connected to different devices.
Thanx for any input on this.
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If you need to keep versions of the changes in your files, I recommend an incremental backup, with a new full backup at a frequency such that you would be OK to go back to the last full if you had to (you would have to in the worst case of incremental chain failure: the first incremental after the full becomes corrupted).
If your files are essentially compressed files (photos, videos, PDF), I would recommend you use a file replication/backup software like SyncBack. This would allow to create a copy of all files, and keep, for example, the last 3 versions of each file. I don't personally like to have content files prisoners of a proprietary file format. If the big container becomes corrupted, you lose the entire backup. You can also encrypted files individually, or put confidential files in an encrypted container if you wish to do so.
I currently use GenieTimelinePro which behaves like Acronis NSB, but doesn't create a single container. Just like NSB though, GenieTimeline doesn't purge automatically old deleted files or old version. Everything accumulates until the backup disk is full. The other benefit of GenieTimeline is that it doesn't backup the entire Outlook PST files only because one email came in: it archives them on per bloc basis.
I wouldn't be concerned about running the backup drives on the same I/O card. The hardware reliability of this type of component is much higher thant the reliability of the disks.
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Thanx for the advice. I got so accustomed to using Acronis, the idea of mirroring didn't even occur to me. I like that idea, in part because such a large portion of this space is already compressed and I don't need to maintain any version copies. A single mirror will do just fine.
My I/O card question was not about reliability. It was about performance. Since my mother board actually has an eSATA port that is jMicron separate from the main boards SATA ports, I think I have managed to see that all the sources are on different I/O connections from the backup devices. (The MB is an ASUS P5N-SLI)
I looked at GenieTimelinePro, SynBack, AllWay, and PureSync. I think I am going to use PureSync because it will handle locked files and send me an email upon completion for about $20. AllWay (which has an x64 native version) won't send an email, and the other two are more expensive for features I don't think I need. I will still back up my virtual machines and the OS with TIH 2011.
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Steven,
Makes sense. Note that SyncBack has a very deep feature set. In fact, I am in the process of moving from GenieTimeline Pro to SyncBack as I don't use Outlook any longer at home.
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I did notice that. I think AllWay works really well also, but the lack of an email notification was a deal breaker (you can configure it by command line but you have to install 2 additional apps).
The only thing that I wanted which AllWay does not provide was notification. SyncBack looks like it wants to be a complete backup solution and I think I'm sticking with Acronis for that, so to get notification, it was PureSync for ~$20 or SyncBack for ~$50 (If I buy it I would buy pro though SE will get me what I want for ~$35).
The jury isn't out yet though. I'm running PureSync as an evaluation first.
I wish consolidation did not take so damn long. That is my biggest issue. I understand your feelings about proprietary containers, but my experience with Acronis for many years has been bullet proof reliability. I have always used consolidation because I have found it more predictable for disk space, but I think I may experiment with the differential scheme to avoid consolidation log jams.
If anyone from Aconis reads this, HERE IS A FEATURE REQUEST:
Include a consolidation/cleanup scheme that lets me set when (time) to make a full backup rather than by the number of differentials. If I could say make differentials all week and make a new full backup on Saturday, and keep two complete sets, that would be perfect. Even if I calculate it so that full backups would occur on Saturday, one manual backup and the plan is screwed.
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You should post this suggestion in the Wish List forum sticky discussion
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