Backup folders?

[Gene E. Bloch]

Yes, but if you leave the drive plugged in, it has almost exactly the
same disadvantages as backing up to an internal drive. I strongly
recommend that you do *not* leave it plugged in. If the software
prompts you to plug it in, and you have to do that manually, it's
hardly a significant amount of trouble.

OK, then I'll have her stop backing up

No backup software I've seen prompts you to plug in a drive.

 

[kreed]

"Char Jackson" wrote in message

I don't agree. It's a good thing to get, even if you get it solely for
its backup capability. You can put together a computer to run it
(with no monitor, keyboard, or mouse) for just $200-300. You need
nothing more than a case, an inexpensive motherboard, a slow CPU,
512MB of RAM, a big hard drive and a DVD drive.

You don't agree about what? That so few people have it? I don't
understand what you're disagreeing about.

OK, I've never used either, and my knowledge about Carbonite is all
second-hand. If you say SOS Online Backup is better, I'll believe you.
However I see that it's more expensive than Carbonite--at least $79.95
a year, and more likely $99.95.

Not that many people have just one computer in the house these days,
at least around my area. Carbonite is $59.99 per year per computer,
while SOS is $79.99 per year for up to 5 computers. If cost is the
deciding factor, the choice is easy, and note that significant
discounts are available for multi-year subscriptions.

--

Char Jackson

************************************************************

WHS one off cost - NO annual fees - can connect up to 10 computers (PCs and
Macs)

K

 

[Ken Blake]

I fully agree, yet I see from personal experience that it doesn't get
done reliably. The only conclusion I can draw is that it's somewhat
more than zero trouble, and apparently enough that some won't bother.
Those are the people I get to deal with on a regular basis.

Keep in mind that I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone
who gets to recover data from crashed systems almost daily. I only see
the bad side of things, after something has gone seriously wrong, so I
may be a bit jaded.

OK, understood.

 

[Ken Blake]

OK, then I'll have her stop backing up

No backup software I've seen prompts you to plug in a drive.

Then run the backup software from a scheduled batch file that also
prompts you to plug in the drive.

Or simply remember that when the backup software runs, you need to
plug in the drive.

It's no big deal either way.

 

[Ken Blake]

Thanks for that, Ken. I feel the same way about you and your posts,
and I think occasional disagreement is good for the overall group.

You're welcome, Char. No two people agree on everything, and I agree
with you that people reading posts here should see both sides of an
issue.

 

[Ken Blake]

You don't agree about what? That so few people have it? I don't
understand what you're disagreeing about.

Sorry. I was disagreeing that it's irrelevant.

Not that many people have just one computer in the house these days,
at least around my area. Carbonite is $59.99 per year per computer,
while SOS is $79.99 per year for up to 5 computers. If cost is the
deciding factor, the choice is easy, and note that significant
discounts are available for multi-year subscriptions.

Ahh! Thanks for the clarification. I hadn't noticed that when I
checked the web site.

 

[Char Jackson]

OK, then I'll have her stop backing up

No backup software I've seen prompts you to plug in a drive.

Strictly speaking, neither have I, but Acronis True Image will put an
icon with an exclamation mark in the Notification Area if it can't
find the specified backup path. That's the closest I've seen to a
prompt. Other backup programs might do it better/differently.

 

[Ken Blake]

As good as that advice is, and as general as it is, I can't think of a
single one of my customers to whom it would apply WRT WHS. To them,
it's going to be another computer, with all of its associated costs
including acquisition,

As I said, $200-300. It's not nothing, but it's not a fortune either.
And it also does multiple computers. I have it doing three here.

power consumption,

Tiny. Just a few dollars a year.

and system administration.

Next to nothing. You set it to do backups and you hardly ever have to
look at it again, unless you need to do a restore from it.

It's a hard sell, which brings us back around to the question of why
so few people use it.

So few people use it for several reasons:

1. Most people don't even know it exists.

2. The people who know it exists know next to nothing about its
capabilities, and how easy it is to use.

3. Very few people know that it can completely automate the backup
process, for very few dollars, and with very little effort on their
part.

4. Many people have very little to backup and what they do have to
backup gets changed so little that it seldom needs to be backed up.
For such people, automatic backup every night would be overkill. For
example, I have a friend who backs up everything she needs to by
simply copying it to a thumb drive once a month. For her usage, that's
fine.

5. And with respect to your calling it a "hard sell," I suspect that
you don't do a good-enough job of trying to sell it--perhaps because
you don't use it yourself, and don't know enough about it. Start out
by saying "how would you like to have a completely automated way to
back up everything on all your computers every night for a one-time
cost of only $300" and you might get a very different response.

And by the way, unlike what kreed says above, I don't think it is
"definitely the best option" for everyone with more than one computer.
People have different needs, and what's best for one person isn't best
for everyone (see, for example, my point number 4, above). But I do
think it's a good choice for many people, and we should all do a
better job of telling people about it and having them consider it as a
choice.

 

[Char Jackson]

As I said, $200-300. It's not nothing, but it's not a fortune either.
And it also does multiple computers. I have it doing three here.




Tiny. Just a few dollars a year.




Next to nothing. You set it to do backups and you hardly ever have to
look at it again, unless you need to do a restore from it.




So few people use it for several reasons:

1. Most people don't even know it exists.

2. The people who know it exists know next to nothing about its
capabilities, and how easy it is to use.

3. Very few people know that it can completely automate the backup
process, for very few dollars, and with very little effort on their
part.

4. Many people have very little to backup and what they do have to
backup gets changed so little that it seldom needs to be backed up.
For such people, automatic backup every night would be overkill. For
example, I have a friend who backs up everything she needs to by
simply copying it to a thumb drive once a month. For her usage, that's
fine.

5. And with respect to your calling it a "hard sell," I suspect that
you don't do a good-enough job of trying to sell it--perhaps because
you don't use it yourself, and don't know enough about it. Start out
by saying "how would you like to have a completely automated way to
back up everything on all your computers every night for a one-time
cost of only $300" and you might get a very different response.

And by the way, unlike what kreed says above, I don't think it is
"definitely the best option" for everyone with more than one computer.
People have different needs, and what's best for one person isn't best
for everyone (see, for example, my point number 4, above). But I do
think it's a good choice for many people, and we should all do a
better job of telling people about it and having them consider it as a
choice.

Thanks for that very reasonable response. I'll try to find
opportunities in the future to spread the word.

This has been a good discussion, thanks.

 

[Ken Blake]

Thanks for that very reasonable response. I'll try to find
opportunities in the future to spread the word.

This has been a good discussion, thanks.

Same to you.

 

[kreed]

"Ken Blake" wrote


4. Many people have very little to backup and what they do have to
backup gets changed so little that it seldom needs to be backed up.
For such people, automatic backup every night would be overkill. For
example, I have a friend who backs up everything she needs to by
simply copying it to a thumb drive once a month. For her usage, that's
fine.

And by the way, unlike what kreed says above, I don't think it is
"definitely the best option" for everyone with more than one computer.
People have different needs, and what's best for one person isn't best
for everyone (see, for example, my point number 4, above). But I do
think it's a good choice for many people, and we should all do a
better job of telling people about it and having them consider it as a
choice.

***************************************************************

A growing number of people these day have a rapidly expanding collection of
Digital Photos that change on a daily/weekly basis, these are irreplaceable.
Many also have expensive collection of music tracks.
But not only does WHS backup your data it also backups your whole system -
OS and Apps including all of your recent updates.
By sticking a new/bigger hard drive in your PC and booting from a CD you can
restore your whole system in a couple of hours.
As well of course being able a access any individual files.
K

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Strictly speaking, neither have I, but Acronis True Image will put an
icon with an exclamation mark in the Notification Area if it can't
find the specified backup path. That's the closest I've seen to a
prompt. Other backup programs might do it better/differently.

For both you and Ken -

1. This is not for me, so I'd be in the position of reminding someone
who doesn't wish to deal that way.

2. I didn't know about Acronis's notification (which is obvious from
what I said above). I don't use Acronis.

3. The reminder would have to be done in the middle of the night (i.e.,
sleep time) for the set-up I described somewhere upthread. That might be
OK, when I'm feeling sadistic

4. Given more friendly circumstances, adding a reminder to a script is
definitely the way to go.

5. For myself, none of the above is currently an issue. I just plug in a
drive and start a backup wizard when it's time (which I've been doing
much more frequently lately).

I hope you've enjoyed this bit of raining on your parades

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

You're welcome, Char. No two people agree on everything, and I agree
with you that people reading posts here should see both sides of an
issue.

One thing that I haven't seen so far in this thread is using NAS
(Network Attached Storage) for backing up the computers on a home
network.

This is analogous to the WHS method, and maybe a bit simpler for the
user, or so it seems to me.

I chose to put my reply here because I couldn't figure out a better
place for it in the thread. I hope that's tolerable.

 

[Roy Smith]

And it is a bit of an effort to read some of the tosh you write.

I don't think that Char is complaining so much about what you write,
but more so about your choice of news reader and it's inability to
properly mark quoted text in your reply. Also WLM doesn't strip out a
signature in quoted text, so any replies to yours would lose what
you've written because it's below a signature delimiter which is two
dashes and a space (-- ). News readers that do comply with Usenet
standards remove any text after the delimiter by default when replying
to a message.

Text that you have quoted isn't marked with a quote marker which is
usually the greater than symbol (>). This distinguishes it as quoted
text and by not having it marked it gives the appearance of the text
you've quoted as what you've written yourself.

If you like Windows Live Mail, then at least downgrade to the previous
version which it's quoting capabilities aren't as badly broken as they
are in the current version. Better yet, why not try a different news
reader instead?

 

[kreed]

Cheers Roy. I agree about WLM as a newsreader, but I wasn't really planning
on doing a lot of posting.
K

 

[Char Jackson]

One thing that I haven't seen so far in this thread is using NAS
(Network Attached Storage) for backing up the computers on a home
network.

This is analogous to the WHS method, and maybe a bit simpler for the
user, or so it seems to me.

I chose to put my reply here because I couldn't figure out a better
place for it in the thread. I hope that's tolerable.

I mentioned network backup earlier and had both backing up to a NAS as
well as backing up to a full blown server in mind at the time. I sort
of lumped both together. I'm not opposed to any kind of network
backup, but most of my customers are about as unsophisticated as they
can be* when it comes to computers and networking, so for them I stay
away from network backup because I don't trust their ability to
establish a working LAN and keeping it working reliably. If the
network fails, the backup fails. For my personal computers, I used to
back up to a NAS but now I back up to the Win 7 server.

*Please don't take that as any kind of insult. They are plenty
sophisticated in other ways and just want their computers to work.

 

[Char Jackson]

On Tue, 4 Oct 2011 15:03:11 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"

5. For myself, none of the above is currently an issue. I just plug in a
drive and start a backup wizard when it's time (which I've been doing
much more frequently lately).

I hope you've enjoyed this bit of raining on your parades

I know I did.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

...


I mentioned network backup earlier and had both backing up to a NAS as
well as backing up to a full blown server in mind at the time. I sort
of lumped both together. I'm not opposed to any kind of network
backup, but most of my customers are about as unsophisticated as they
can be* when it comes to computers and networking, so for them I stay
away from network backup because I don't trust their ability to
establish a working LAN and keeping it working reliably. If the
network fails, the backup fails. For my personal computers, I used to
back up to a NAS but now I back up to the Win 7 server.

Sorry I missed that implication, but it's good to hear your further
thinking.

*Please don't take that as any kind of insult. They are plenty
sophisticated in other ways and just want their computers to work.

For sure.

 

[DGDevin]

"Char Jackson" wrote in message

Network backup has its own set of
issues, so backing up to a second internal drive, if available, is the
best and most realistic alternative.

I use an external backup drive but I've been thinking of putting in another
internal drive and using it to mirror the C: drive. How do you set that up,
can Win 7 handle that or is there a software product you recommend?

 

[Ken Blake]

I use an external backup drive but I've been thinking of putting in another
internal drive and using it to mirror the C: drive. How do you set that up,
can Win 7 handle that or is there a software product you recommend?

I don't recommend backup to a second non-removable hard drive because
it leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and
backup to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches,
nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.

In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept
in the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the
life of your business depends on your data) you should have multiple
generations of backup, and at least one of those generations should be
stored off-site.