Here are some excellent questions from Tanya Feddern-Bekcan. I thought I should share my responses with the list.
On Jun 10, 2010, at 10:39 AM, Feddern-Bekcan, Tanya wrote:
Hi, Bill. Thanks so much for posting this! I've got a couple of questions. I have Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Version 2002, Service Pack 3. My computer is an Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU, T7300 @ 2.00GHz, 2.00 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM. I see that Acronis offers backup on external hard drive and online. What size hard drive do you recommend? Also, did you do the online backup option? What do you think about it? How much is it? Could one safely forego hard-drive backup and do online backup instead? Lastly, is this product only for one computer or can I back up a couple of computers on it?
Thank you,
Tanya
Tanya Feddern-Bekcan, MLIS, AHIP, MOT, OTR/L
(http://www.reocities.com/nqiya/libraryarticles.html) formerly Tanya Feddern
305.243.3999 - tfeddern@med.miami.edu<mailto:tfeddern@med.miami.edu> - 305.325.9670 (fax)
EBM Theme Director, Head of Education, & Occupational Therapist
Department of Health Informatics, Louis Calder Memorial Library at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
"A library without a librarian is a reading room."-- Jenny Garcia of the University of Wyoming, MLS, AHIP
Tanya,
You may have to contact Acronis on some of your questions, or at least check their web site. Here are my quick responses.
1. To create backups that you can do use for a full restore, my recommendation is to get an external HD that is AT LEAST three times larger than the disk space you are currently using on your internal HD. If you plan on dramatically increasing your storage on your internal, use that number as the base of the calculation. Today you can get 1 TB external drives for around $100. That is 1,000 GB. Usually that is a good starting point for me.
2. I don't use online backup. It takes too long to backup the entire disk, and restoring can take days if you need everything. If you just want to backup your Documents folder, that can be useful. Depending on how much space you use in your Documents folder, the free Dropbox service might meet your need. You get 2 GB free and for $99 per year you can get 50 GB of online storage. You would just start putting everything directly into your Dropbox folder rather than the Document folder. The backup would be automatic. I don't have any FERPA data or anything, so I haven't looked into the security issues with this. If you have University material that is confidential, you might want to be more diligent than I am.
3. I believe the license is for one computer, but I haven't checked it for sure. I think they also have some other licenses for multiple computers, say in a small company.
Here are some other thoughts on backing up computers. These are all my thoughts. Others have their own opinions. If it is your data, it is your decision. If you have all your pictures on your hard drive, how painful would it be to lose them? That is the kind of risk analysis that you need to make when creating a backup plan.
A minimal backup plan keeps a backup on an external hard drive. That can at least help if (WHEN!) something happens to the hard drive on your computer. But it doesn't reduce all the risks. If your a lightning strike sends a surge through the electrical lines, both the computer and the hard drive may be fried. If someone breaks in and steals the computer, they may steal the hard drive, too. A fire or flood would destroy both items. So this is a minimal backup.
A "best practices" backup plan uses the 3-2-1 Rule. It states you should have 3 copies of any important file (the primary and two backups); the file should be on two different media types to protect against different types of hazards; 1 copy should be stored away from the computer or at least off-line. To read more about this, see http://dpbestflow.org/node/262#321 for some great information.
At the present time on my Mac, my primary computer, I use two portable USB drives and Time Machine, to create the apply the 3-2-1 rule. The system backs up every night to the attached USB drive. At some point during the week I take that drive home and bring in the other drive. I use it for a week. So I have all my important files (more than a week old) on three different devices (my computer and two different USB drives), One of the drives is not connected to power or any computer, so that counts as a separate media type. And that same drive is off-site. Files less than a week old are usually in my Dropbox folder, since I am using them, and I keep all current files there. So in that case I still have three copies of the files (my computer, my current USB drive, and my Dropbox file in the cloud), using two different media (one being the hard drives at my desk and the other being the system in the cloud), and one of the copies is off-site. If this seems like overkill to you, take a look at the list of threats to your data in the http://dpbestflow.org/node/262#threats list and see how this deals with each of them.
Bill Vilberg, bill.vilberg@miami.edu<mailto:bill.vilberg@miami.edu>, 786-250-2255
-----Original Message-----
From: UM Educational Technology List [mailto:ED-TECH@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU] On Behalf Of Vilberg, William R.
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 10:01 AM
To: ED-TECH@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU<mailto:ED-TECH@LISTSERV.MIAMI.EDU>
Subject: [ED-TECH]
Ed-Tech list members,
I use Acronis Home Backup to keep my Windows computers backed up. It is fairly inexpensive, works well, and allows you to create a complete backup so you can restore EVERYTHING to a new HD if you need to. I create a new backup every month and then do incremental backups during the month. That lets me restore anything that I need to. I have amazed customer support people on the phone when I call with a computer problem and say at I ha a complete backup. I know that it is only a matter of time until hardware breaks, and i don't have time to restore everything from scratch.
Today and tomorrow Bits du Jour has a special deal on Acronis Home Backup. Only $24.99 for the base system and the add-on that lets you do a COMPLETE restore to any hard drive, even one of a different size than the original. This deal is scheduled to end at midnight on Friday. If you already have a backup system, use it. If you don't, this is the one that I use.
http://bitsdujour.com/
Bill Vilberg - bill.vilberg@miami.edu, 786-250-2255
