Data Backup: The 3-2-1 Rule
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- Explaining the “3-2-1” rule as a gentle reminder to take appropriate backups! :)
You may also be interested in my video on encypting USB and other drives with Veracrypt: • VeraCrypt Encrypted US...
More videos on computing-related topics can be found at: / explainingcomputers
You may also like my ExplainingTheFuture channel at: / explainingthefuture
One can never truly appreciate backups until they lose irreplaceable data.
So true.
I didn't really care about my data until I lost my art....
I lost a ton of video backups and pictures when my HDD bay suffered a power failure and wiped the partition table on all my external HDDs.
The projects can be rewritten but the photos can't be retaken: people no longer alive.
@@encycl07pedia- If the partition was intact. Data recovery would have been simple. I am rusty, it could have been recovered. Did you try taking it to professionals.
"Two is one, one is none." -sootch00
This is a survival quote but I believe that it also applies here.
Yes, a very good quote that certainly applies here.
Sootch was also quoting someone, but still good advice.
@@ExplainingComputers comment too the 3.2.1 backup strategy video,
do you think that its ok when i have my data stored on my laptop and on external harddisk or should i get another external HDD that i would have if the first external HDD fails? So that i would have two backup copies on two diferent hard drives + one allways kept in the notebook that has SSD?
im not understanding why people are downvoting this guys videos.. he seems pretty reasonable, knowledgeable and easy to understand. whats to not like??
I think he’s fantastic. Very knowledgeable and a good way of departing it.
Ortiz 805
Because there are muppets everywhere, they wouldn't know quality Information if it bit them in the backside.
@@michaelhawthorne8696 Precisely. It is a shame, but there will always be haters. Christopher is excellent and his videos are always entertaining and informative. Some people just can't appreciate the hard work he does to make them.
The video has 30 downvotes from 80k views...people who got recommmended this video and wasnt interesed downvoted it,completely normal at youtube
@@gs-nq6mw questo è semplicemente demenziale, ma non dubito che tu possa aver ragione. E' un mondo di pazzi.....
My old WD HDD failed yesterday, All my data dating back to 2006 was lost. Fortunately I practice backing up data to a secondary drive on a weekly basis and that saved my life.
Can't stress it enough people. BACK UP YOUR DATA.
Glad you had a backup. They always are worth it in the end!
"All storage medias fail" what about engraving the 1s and 0s on pieces of rock? Don't think that's gonna fail too quickly.
You've discovered M-Disc. lol
Also water beats rock.
I just write a very large 1 or 0 onto a large sheet of metal, then do that billions of times to store my backup. I also label which one it is on the back, in case the massive stack falls over and I need to reorganize them.
it sure does take a while to create a backup though...
A laborious and heavy way to save one's photos? 😂😂😂
@@bluesillybeard wonder how long it would take your grandchildren to finish loading gta 5 lol
It's called M-Disc.
I have been keeping 1 primary and 2 Backups all these years. But it's an uphill battle these days with ever bloating file sizes.
found this channel by complete randomness.i enjoy it because you get right too the point.no bs intros or long "filler" junk that no one cares about.
I like the way he explain the topics, very easy to understand and he keeps posting new information ... thanks Christopher
Love the videos. Keep up the great work. Always a pleasure! Looking forward to the M-Disk video.
I keep at least 8 copies of everything on Hard Drives, 3 of which are off site, 2 of those being in different countries at opposite ends of the globe. I also have copies on flash memory, standard CD, standard DVD, M-Disc DVD, M-Disc Blu-ray, floppy, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and MediaFire.
OSFirstTimer NZ - What?? You don’t have back ups on cassette and vinyl?? What a noob
LOL, so which cloud service do you use?
You’ve minimized the risk of losing your data at the cost of it no longer being yours, and with tremendous financial and time costs.
Here is another tip, probably one of the most important ones of all: Surf the Internet using something OTHER than your main computer, preferably a Chromebook as those don't get computer ransomware viruses. Most people surf the Net using their computer that they use for photos and other important documents. They surf over to some site on the Net and accidentally pick up a piece of ransomware virus onto their computer. That virus works behind the scenes for a few weeks, quietly encrypting all of your photos and documents. Then one day the thing activates and you are stuck; everything you have is now encrypted. The best way to avoid this risk is to use a cheaper Chromebook computer to do as much of your online surfing (and even Banking and purchases online) with a safe and trouble-free Chromebook as those things simply don't pick up any viruses or malware of any type. That dramatically reduces the risk of your precious files being messed up by malware/viruses.
Good tip. :) I tend to surf on an Android tablet. :)
Or you can just use another login that is restricted. Or if you are using a modern laptop or even old desktop. Boot into another drive. There are consumer laptops that allow for two to four drives.
1. Chromebooks are spyware.
2. If you have good browsing habits and instincts you will never get a virus.
3. You can use an antivirus, and browser protections to minimize unsafe browsing.
4. The point of backups is not to directly protect data, but to allow copies of that data to be destroyed or become inaccessible without losing access.
I learned the hard way to have redundant back ups of everything. Several external drives, CD, DVD, Flash Drives, several machines containing the exact same data as well! The main computer works all the time, if it fails, the back up takes over.
Good explainer, thanks Chris!
It can look kinda daunting at first, but you'll thank yourself if the worst happens.... :P
The 3 2 1 method is the very basics of backup strategy, anything bellow it is subject to catastrophic data loss.
Let me just say that I wasn't following the rule properly, even though I had all my data on a NAS (RAID 1), most of my important stuff on my Desktop, and a copy of that distributed in different cloud storage services.
What happened was that an OS update for the NAS drive caused a massive failure on both drives that were on RAID 1. It wasn't a complete disaster because like I said, most of my important data was backuped everywhere... but a part of it was on the NAS alone.
Spent a good part of a couple of months finding a way to restore those drives. Luckly, I managed to do it, not before a whole lot of stress and panic, plus spending money on NAS data recovery software, but I was lucky this time.
"If an airplane crashes"
*notices upload date*
...oh
I am sorry about this, not intended.
Yeahhhh
Well that's a coincidence that I was not expecting after reading your comment.
I find that the key is to separate out what I really need instead of backing up gigabytes of stuff that can be reproduced from a install dvd, for example. The ratio of data to stuff you really need is 10 or 30. So if 10% 30% of the data is really important, it's not as hard to follow the multiple-media, multiple-locations guideline.
I had this very revelation today! I’m backing up so much crap I don’t even want but that’s just because I was too lazy to prune it. This weekend I am sitting down to delete everyone don’t need of of my primary SSD. Heck I even found 50g of iso files!
@@OShackHennessy I have ISO files :)
.... but not thoroughly backed up, just on redundant media
$ du -shc /R/library/operating-systems/* /R/os-files/mirror/*
1.2G /R/library/operating-systems/boot-discs
2.5G /R/library/operating-systems/bsd
93G /R/library/operating-systems/linux
163M /R/library/operating-systems/other
1.9G /R/library/operating-systems/_setup_gentoo
97G /R/library/operating-systems/windows
1.7G /R/os-files/mirror/cygwin
169G /R/os-files/mirror/gentoo
0 /R/os-files/mirror/lost+found
364G total
Depending on the DVD, it might also need a backup. For example, software you can't replace because it is no longer available.
And I've been in the habit of making VMs with licensed software titles because licensing methods and operations systems change over the years, compatibility etc. Another reason you back up DVDs is that you may have a day where you don't have a DVD drive. That is my condition.
One reason I was watching this video again is that higher capacity drives have a mission time that is shorter than lower capacity drives.
Can't believe this channel is nearly at 100k subs been subbed since the beginning
We have been on a long journey together! :)
Agreed
its a channel that catches on because its full of great information
A channel that I called, "Direct to the Point" tutorial.
Thank you Sir Barnatt.
And we will be here until the end!
Didn't bother much about backups until my daughters were born, and no way I'm losing any pictures or videos of them. I have their first steps in several different places.
Drives fail. You should be rotating the technology. They should not all be on your property.
Drives are getting cheaper and cheaper. Portable platter drives are way cheaper than SSDs. SSDs are coming down in price.
In my life a drive has failed on me. An average of every 5 to 7 years. Hence when it comes to backups. I tend to buy a new backup drive then. I intend to have a few platter drives. That I will use just to dump data on. Anything even remotely important.
SSDs have more shock resistance.
maybe on other thing to note is that you should keep one backup offline from the internet or anyone else who has access to it. I have one drive sitting in a fireproof safe in my home and the other drive in a safe in my other house. If you have your backups online there is a small chance you get hacked and the chance of that data getting wiped is pretty big then.
So, don't keep all your backups connected to the internet :P
For the common user. The threat is minimal. If you encrypt well enough. Your data is secure. This is why you support open source projects like VeraCrypt. The successor to TrueCrypt. Having layers of encryption and hash variants. Allows for more defense against advancements in encryption deciphering. As well as advancement in processing power.
For many people cloud is essential for workflow.
I know one person who insist on not using the cloud for backups. I asked them a question. "How many backups do you have off site? Or in a fire proof safe?" They do not. All their backups are local.
So you traded one threat for another. You do not encrypt backup locally. You do not have your data off site. So I guess they are prepared for all that data collected to be lost.
And I would recommend being very careful which online backup service you actually use as a backup - if you go that route. Try to pick one that has the longest record of stability according to user reviews. Trust me, although these data centers use a RAID array to keep their servers backed up, you can still lose stuff.
I think I might want to donate to this guy's channel. Excellent advice as usual!
Very nice video. Looking forward to the next one!
Excellent. I was hoping M-Disk would get a mention.
How serendipitously relevant. I've been considering building a NAS server and using a RAID configuration.
Haven't got round to it, but considering how often my father loses files, I think it'd be a sound investment. Trying to get him in the habit of using multiple copies on multiple storage.
Yeah, a NAS would be a really useful thing to have
I'd always be weary of raid. If your using a raid controller, that can take all of your data in one go. If your using raid 0 or 5, one drive in the stack can corrupt all of them. This also does not protect them from fire, or even a lightning strike.
This is a very good explanation on back- up of computer data.
Good advise. The off line copy is probably the most important one and should be done once every week or so depending on how much date you transfer.
Everything I backed up is on separate external hard drives because one external hard drive is not big enough lol
Thank you for this info and tips. It's just what I need. Short and to the point. Subscribed!
Thanks for the sub -- welcome aboard! :)
I once had a computer in 2003. I removed all the components and nailed it to the wall. It ran that way for months. then, one day it fell 4 ft. mobo, HDD, etc. I left it on the floor held up by a chicken mcnugget box from then on. later, I spilled a drink completely on the bare mobo/CPU when it was on. it buzzed loudly and shut off. when it dried out, it worked fine. that computer was abused beyond any reason and was invincible. and then ive had brand new hard drives fail. hardware is very weird.
Great story! :)
I thought I was the only one nailing computers to the wall.. :)
I recently extended my RAM. It turned out the module was dead on arrival.
Hardware failures are often caused by defects from the manufacturing process, and not physical damage caused after purchase. All hard drives have bad sectors, and all flash-based storage has bad blocks as well. Further more, all flash media that is used has bad blocks due to wear-leveling.
Yea, those were the days.
I keep Terabytes of movies, music and TV shows on a RAID 0 with no backup.
I like to live dangerously
but technically those are backed up to the peer to peer cloud :^)
Yea those files are easily* replaceable and I personally don't include those in my backups.
*But downloading all of those again...
Backing up my 10TB-15TB is just too expensive..... ;(
TheBertjeT you can always try tapebackups. there are company's that give you the ability to make like a time capsule for digital data for a one time big payment and then very low costs until you want to recall that data for a big payment again.
Too much hassle, too expensive, not enough privacy, too dependent. Also, hate the way they do it. They basically hold your data hostage. Thanks for the advice though ;)
Comment: Wow, this video really got me thinking about the importance of having a reliable backup power source, especially when it comes to family camping trips. The Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series seems like a fantastic option with its massive capacity, fast recharging, and waterproof technology. Definitely something to consider for anyone who values quality family time in the great outdoors.
Reply: Wow, I completely agree! Having a reliable backup power source is crucial, especially during family camping trips. The Segway Portable PowerStation Cube Series is definitely worth considering with its massive capacity, fast recharging, and waterproof technology. It would be perfect for keeping all our devices and appliances running smoothly in the great outdoors. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
very good advice and very well put!
I cant not stress this enough
backup all your data
I lost a 1gb MySQL database yesterday due to a hard drive which died, had a copy of everything but the database
Now this is a sad story. :(
This happened to me last week too, but my database was (are) almost 60GB.
I have automysqlbackup running every night, and also replicating the backups to two 2nd site servers.
ouch... that hurts just reading this
after 9/11 (NYC) there was a shortage of tape drive readers.. we learned the hard way that the "2" and 1 rules were important.. I fortunately had drives I could pull and even a few CD's I burned.. The backups were stored next-door (too close) and most tapes were lost.. thank goodness the hard disks survived, and the CDs were in an undamaged cabinet plus I had a copy at home
"if a plane hits the building" quite an example but some could probably see it as offensive considering today's date.
Probably in the back of your head when you recorded
great video! i only have files backed up to external harddrive so I should probably that backed on to other things
This is so very true. Everything he said is spot on. I personally have a 8 drive raid 6 for my main storage auto backups to a local server. And every week or so I plug in a USB drive and run a script on the server that takes what is on the raid there and sends that to the USB drive. And the USB drive I have in a fireproof locked safety box ofc encrypted. As he says nothing is secure. And running encrypted drives is sertinly not secure. But... I have senative data så I have mirror in thst locker. Still makes it into a 3 step backup solution. But with more security.
Very relevant video, two weeks ago I lost a 2 TB drive on my main machine, through my NAS and could storage I have it all back
This is bizarre, my punch tape has never failed.
Then you haven't actually used punch tape, I have, and yes it does fail, often. Sure, physical damage could usually be repaired (up to a point) with careful application of cellophane tape, but it certainly isn't perfect. It is susceptible to fire/flood/loss/time degradation media like other methods. Also a point not often discussed is the obsolescence of the technology: no way to retrieve the data. I may even have somewhere in my garage some paper tape from the early 1980's with small programs on them....just try to go an buy a new paper tape reader!
Zeric E wooooooosssshhhhhh
Deepixel You're so funny and trendy, you just destroyed that dude
if you wanted more protection you could engrave your data on stone tablets
Guys got some serious attic space...
Why does this channel remind me of those early TV days of the open university here in the UK, all you nee now is a beard!
Great stuff, loving the format...keep it up.
My 3-2-1 rule is slightly different:
- 3 backups at each location (where each one is on different media)
- 2 locations you can access (home and an off-site safe deposit box)
- 1 online backup (Google Drive, etc.)
Nice rule! :)
I have been playing with cloud storage to develop a workflow. My annoyance is two fold. One using the desktop applications allow for syncing. So given my connection. I can pause and resume uploads. The second more annoying problem is that most of these desktop apps force your to download your 'entire' archive. It is annoying. Two that I have tried, Drop Box and One Drive. Allow you to limit this greatly. In different ways, but at least they allow easier workflow.
None of them allow for. Just upload a file. Pause and resume and that's it. The entire point of cloud storage is so I can do just that and be done with it.
Companies I do not want to upgrade and pay yearly for might get my money. Yet the ones who I want to pay for in the near future refuse.
Making it needlessly complicated.
I agree, nice rule. My only snag is that cloud storage is more expensive. Paying the monthly fee for faster internet.
Meth is one hell of a drug.
@@jamesedwards3923 No such thing as cloud storage. It's hard drive farms.
This video was super helpful, thank you so much!
Great to hear. :)
Congrats on 100K!!!!
I use SyncBack Free to make the process automated. I plug in my dedicated backup drive, set it up so that it mirrors any changes done on my PC (modified files, deleted files, new files) from select directories, and run it. So every time I plug it in, I just run SyncBack and let it do the rest.
Same case when it comes to my offsite backup.
raid 0 kills everything when it fails. But even raid 1 still can be taken out in one electrical surge.
I use the D - M - L model for data surety. That is, *D* evice, *M* edia, and *L* ocation. Basic surety is 222 _(Triple-2):_ 2 devices, 2 medias, 2 locations. Too many people fail to take in to account the location of their files and/or data.
A device is a computer, or external hard drive, memory stick, etc. A media is a hard drive, SSD drive, the memory on a USB memory stick, etc. A location is just that, a physical location. Locations are called _Here,_ and _There._
A file, data, saved to the hard drive in a laptop is 111: 1 device, the laptop; 1 media, the laptop's hard drive; And 1 location, _Here,_ where the media is. That data does not have surety. If either the device, media, or location is FaSDed (Fails, Stolen, Destroyed) lost, the data is gone forever.
If that data is also copied to an external hard drive or memory stick, that file is 221: 2 devices, 2 medias, 1 location, _Here._ It has device and media surety, but is location vulnerable.
If the memory stick is routinely taken off-site, especially when the originating device is inactive, that data now has surety of 222: 2 devices, 2 medias, 2 locations, _Here,_ and _There._
Data on 2 hard drives in 1 server is 121: 1 device, 2 media, and 1 location. That data is both device and location vulnerable.
Data saved to a synced folder, like Dropbox, automatically has 222: 2 devices, the laptop and Dropbox'; 2 medias, the laptop and Dropbox'; And 2 locations, _Here,_ and _There,_ Dropbox.
In practice, I may setup a client with his downloads saving to a Triple-1 folder, his documents to a Triple-2 folder, and business files to a Triple-3 folder (The laptop, an external backup rotated off-site, and a sync service).
Excellent advice 👍
"one of the biggest threats to data nowadays is a ransomware attack" How prophetic. Let's hope that this latest attack will shock people into backing up their files.
Yes, sometimes it is not good to be proved right! :) As you say, hopefully now more people will backup their data -- and not to devices they leave constantly connected to their computers.
Lack of OS upgrade strategy lead to WannyCry vulnerability. A backup strategy should help mitigate that, as you would likely have a slightly stale but not encrypted copy of your data, which is better than nothing. Running Windows? Keep it up-to-date. One day Linux will be a prime target for cyber attacks, but that time has yet to arrive..
EC
Yeah, I turn my backup drives off after backing up. I use Macrium and they claim there software now prevents encrypting their files. Problem is it is a little harder to delete image files. No one said life is easy.
You're pretty close to 100,000 subscribers, Chris!
Yes, getting there now . . . :)
Can't wait for the M-disc episode!
I do realize the importance of data backup.
Make backup, and backup copies. It is like: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Thank you sir.
ALost one mill subs keep up the great work!
The methods I use are:
1. Flash drive backup
2. Cloud backup
3. E-mail backup
Good idea the email one for somethings!!
Hard drives are way cheaper than cloud storage. With the advent of USB-C being the new universal standard. It is much easier to interact with a portable drive. Or a drive enclosure with any device. Some enclosures come with all matters of interface. Before USB-C it was a pain to connect my cell phone to an external drive; no matter how it was housed.
With M.2 SSD technology. You can chose your enclosure. The drives require much less energy due to fewer moving parts.
Some higher end enclosures are water and pressure resistant.
You can check out newegg.com, they have good stuff.
Emailing files to yourself leaves the data in a very exposed state. There are plenty of free cloud storage providers. If you have the income. Pay for them.
Please don't apologize for mentioning that an aircraft could hit a building because it does happen, 9/11 being the most graphic example. 3-2-1 is good advice.
I keep backups of all of my photography on a dustproof, waterproof, hardened stand alone HD unit. Haven't checked to see if it is ESD proof.
Love this video, I have 4 backups for some of my files
thanks loved this rule I'm definitely going to follow it
Great video :D
This is an awesome rule!
I have a 2-1 rule :) think i need to keep a backup off site. Thanks this was helpful :)
The thing i hate about backup is: If i change something in my working copy i need to update the backups too... which really sucks
Yes, taking backups is a pain . . .
thats why you can automate it
I just backup every month, that way at worst case it's a month old
that is, if I could actually remember to activate it...
GREAT VIDEO! I TOTALLY agree! I keep my data backed up over 5, different external drives, Each computer has at least one HDD, and one SSD. I keep one external drive in my storage building, AWAY from the house!
We are clearly like-minded individuals. So few people do adequate backup.
Yes indeed good Sir!! Absolutely spot on! I have been a victim of my own stupidity too many times.
I use an external drive (full backup) and OneDrive (for my most important stuff like pictures, documents etc.) as my Backup-Strategy. OneDrive is great because its offsite and has a feature where I can pick a point in time from yesterday to 30 days ago and it will restore the entire OneDrive to that point in time. Even if there are files that got infected by ransomware or got deleted from the trash bin, it will bring these files back no matter what. Its a great feature to have in case I need to do a disaster recovery although I hope I wont ever have to use this.
If you take photos wit a camera the first thing to do is to get large enough a memory card so it can act as the backup for the newest images. One important thing is that when something bad happens you think twice before you do anything. Lets say you have data on two flash drives and you see one not working. The worst thing you could do is to put the other drive on the same port. The port may be faulty and it might destroy the drives.
Last year, Google Drive lost some data for a significant subset of users. This made me think of your video.
Also let's not forget that Online Storage is cute and all, but access is not always guranteed.
As for Harddrive, just use Robocopy and mirror each few weeks.
showed this to my family, thanks
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
100 000 SUBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks! I was asleep when this happened! :)
Your chanel is amazing and very interesting too
Many thanks. :)
I feel like im the only one who cares when it comes to data and im the only one who know a little bit about this stuff, with anyone i have ever met so far.
Well said!
Always true. My backup is no perfect, but it saved my data. Today i'm thinking about archival solutions, like M optical disk, printing is also a long term solution.
Zfs and BTRFS are powerfull file systems that check data integrity, includes replication...
Keeping our data is a big question.
I think my only major data loss was during my teens, when my first desktop PC's HD failed shortly before I could finally transfer all my stuff to my next desktop PC (the first one was so old it was an oyster to connectivity, lol: no USB ports, no CD burning drives, no wireless transmitters; the only options I had and knew how to use were dial-up internet - but no popular cloud services yet - and floppy disks, which were taking ages and several trips to get the job done).
Fortunately I was still just starting to be a file hoarder, hehe, so there weren't so many important things left behind; anyway, I still keep that old hard drive in a drawer hoping that some day I will afford some expert to possibly bring those files from the dead.
Nowadays I've been very observant (maybe even paranoid) about the 3 and 2 - and, as the 1is still a risk I was not paying enough attention to, I'm really feeling like buying a fire/waterproof safe and an M-Disc drive to burn some permanent backups and lock them in the safe. (Am I the only one who's still in the M-Disc hype even after Milleniata itself apparently went bankrupt?)
a really important video and a must watch, i wish i saw this video in 2016 - 2017 and that i could backup our family photos and videos from my old lenovo laptop, it is had a 100gb partition of family photos and videos that i accidentally got foramted when i tried to do something in the disk managmant with the hard drive in windows, and it is happend in 2017 but sadly most of this pictures and videos are gone and overwriting but i did manage to save some when they were overwriting when that happend in 2017, but almost all of it was copys of pictures and videos that we already have in our 2 external hard drives so it is not really that big of a lose but still hurts sometimes and i still regrat it, the 3 - 2 - 1 rule is so impoprtant.
Where i find this really sad is in the back office area of a company. In the front office area, IT has backup of windows, office and other such programs. But in the back area there is specialized programs which there may be a copy, but the DATA that is used in it may be another story. I remember I made a suggestion about floor backup 20 plus years ago at a place I worked. Strange thing is 6 months later a wave solder machine computer crashed. It was windows based so a new hard and windows installed, the operational program reinstalled . Then ot oh, there was no extra files to install, i was able to help get the 'recipe" files for the boards off the old hard drive, BUT the calibration file which everything is based was in the crashed area of the drive. It cost the company 7000 dollars to re-calibrate the machine. Lucky for them i got the recipe files or who knows how much it would have cost to adjust for each board. (let's see 2- 4 hours per board min and 5000 boards)
How much room did that data take, i got the recipe files put on a single 1.44 mb floppy , it took 45 minutes to put on it, but had it for them.
I have a MyBook Duo set up on raid 1. That's my double long term back up of what's on my laptops. I also store my more valuable files in the cloud.
I once completely, physically broke a laptop computer and was able to salvage the hard-disk drive. Installed it in my desktop PC and it was working and is working ever since.
Installed Windows 7 on it to test the waters but then i decided upgrading to a newer version of Windows wasn't worth it since my motherboard is locked out of modern processors.
I have never lost data because of a drive failure. I only lost data because of my own mistakes. Still, I do not have much confidence in high-tech electronics. It amazes me that it works in the first place.
Both have happened to me more than once.
Simple question?? I have a full 24 TB NAS (sloppy management) and now a mother board failure. With 4 computers, 2 laptops and 2 desktops, I have become VERY interested in 4 "bare metal" clone backups. I have formatted and partitioned an 8 TB WD Red into 4 partitions, one for each computer. Can I clone each computer into "its" partition and then create a bootable flash drive for each one.
For the life of me, I cannot for the life of me find an answer as to whether I can clone to just a partition without erasing the entire disk. Perhaps I should just try it and stop if it wants to use 8 TB to clone 1 TB...
Thanks
3:37
Did you say that just because it's 9/11?
I had not make that link in my head at the time. This video was recorded several weeks ago. Sorry if I have offended.
ExplainingComputers No worries for me :)
But maybe some people may take offence
Love your videos by the way
What a coincidence. It's ok we now you didn't mean anything bad by it.
U gotta remember he is in UK So...
Honestly that didn't even occur to me, it just came off as a silly idea.
Oddly enough though that could happen to me because I live close to the airport and planes fly over my apartment all the time.
Lost important data about 10 years ago. Its a real bad thing when its important.
I now own a router with USB that takes drives. for a second copy of very important saves.
and i also use M Disc, as needed. shocking how few people know about that media.
Dont trust google drive/cloud drives not to fail either, know a guy who lost all his data there too.
I was performing a backup from my primary drive to backups. Some data on my main drive was corrupted. Fortunately it was old data. Not the new data. I used one of my backups to restore the older data.
3 2 1 Rule. It works.
Not even the first time something like that has happened.
You don't learn to backup until you've lost enough data.
I use the 3-2-1 Dropbox rule. 3 macs in sync, 2 SSD & cloud storage, 1 offside in the cloud.
I realize I only have backup copies of my unedited photos. Is it really necessary for my to make copies of the edited photos? I could just edit the original copy again if I somehow lose the edited version right ?😅
This is why I made two copies of myself, but they can't comment now because they are off site.
:)
I have spent days upon days trying to help people set up cloud services, recovering crappy sd cards and other kinds of faulty devices from their phones and pcs, regular users dont understand backups, and it is sad, quite a few family members and friends have lost precious memories because of this oversight. I save all my important files on two different hard drives and cloud, they are compressed and encrypted by 7zip. I think it is enough since I have nothing to hide. and my pictures are in google photos, and another cloud storage. my contacts are also saved and sorted trough google contacts and I have a backup spreadsheet I import from contacts from time to time. So... I am pretty set even if google explodes for some reason. i guess....
Dude you are an expert. I am a casual user. We both have the same problem. Most of them do not. I am pretty much done trying.
a very british sense of humor :)
Film photos make this easy. Original, Imported photo, backup copy. 2 physical copies. Then the backup copy is stored offsite.
Thanks. I like your videos very much. Recently, I was looking for something that can automate this backup task and sync all my backup copies but couldn't find in that time duration. Manual backup sucks. Please make a video on how to automate this 3,2,1 rule. May be connecting backup devices one by one and syncing them to the latest versions of the data. By the way I use Windows File History and one manual backup copy. But I fail to sync many times.
Thanks again.
Very good point about the ransomware, google backup and sync will not protect against that.
i picked up like 50 dvd-rs from goodwill for 3 bucks are they are good for backups.
It depends how important your data is, If it's data from a space probe then you really want to back up a lot. If all the data on your computer is software you downloaded free on-line then don't bother.
you are amazing
I used multiple RAID-1 arrays and daily differential backups to AWS. Of course, rule of thumb is RAID ISN'T BACKUP, but I still have the remote backup!
3:37 considering the date that this video was uploaded, it makes sense
Some advice is timeless. You can go a thousand years into the future. It will still make sense even then.
Thank you ☺️
While my method satisfies the rule, it's probably not enough. (Raid Mirror and cloud backup.) I do have some optical backups, but there's not enough space on optical media these days to store all of it anymore. Have to pick and choose what I put on them now. The cloud backup I use keeps multiple copies of all files, it stores the history of changes back a certain number of weeks. I'm considering a second cloud backup solution using ZFS, if I can find somewhere with enough storage.
Even with 25 gigabyte Bluray discs I can't save all my files to them. It would take dozens of bluray discs. The 128gig flash drive I keep in my wallet isn't enough etiher.
All I have as far as backup is that I use a file server where I store a duplicate of any files I want to keep in case of failure, or in case I want to install a new OS. Not the most sound strategy, but I do plan on eventually getting a large USB drive (2TB or more) to use as an offline archival storage. I don't have any place to store it "off-site" however, other than my car, which isn't really the safest place to store expensive electronics.
i promise you the last place you want a 2TB usb flash drive with anything important is a car, as the heat will kill the flash memory
"or an air plane crashed into a building" Not the best day to be mentioning that :)
No, my apologies. I work in advance, and this video was shot and uploaded in a block a couple of weeks ago. I would not have recorded and upload this today. :(
Ahh ok. No worries :)
Achaeos Salisbury - make sure you have at least 3 tin foil hats in case you lose one.
@Achaeos Salisbury And those people all needed off-site backups.
Now i'm paranoid, I keep terabytes of videos that I record on 2 different hard drives, but they are always in the same computer meaning that it is nearly pointless aside from a isolated hard drive crash, I have way too much data to backup online over a satellite internet connection (i live in the woods) so maybe taking the hard drive out would be a good idea at the very least.
Hard drive storage is getting cheaper and cheaper. I purchased a terabytes worth of storage for under $100. In seven more years it will be the smallest storage amount I own. I remember when I had only a few gigabytes and thought that was enough. LOL.
I have roughly, 160tb worth of external storage. I keep it all on mechanical drives, however, I have MANY, many, external drives from 6tb, 4tb, 2tb, and 1tb each. They're NOT going to fail all at once, and I keep the same data, on four, main separate drives. I have Macrium Reflect images, for over 200 different computers, all in triplicate. ALL my software, photo's etc, are treated this way.
I have a secured outbuilding, with a metal trash can, that's repurposed as a Faraday cage. I keep six, 4tb portable external drives in it, and the data is updated once a month. I keep a Lenovo T440p, and a W540, in this cage, along with lots of other computer equipment, including, mice, chargers, spare batteries, spare SSD's, Ram, etc. "Just in case".
The rest of my storage, is either in my house, or my "ManCave". Technically, I have two, offsight storage options.
Each one of my computers, have 2x1tb Samsung EVO 360 SSD's, and a 480gb MyDigital SuperBoot 2 M.2 NGFF drive, that contains the most recent Macrium Reflect image, for each machine. I have four, main computers:
2, W540 ThinkPads, and 2 T440p ThinkPads. All with the same drive configuration. I also have as many as 30 laptops of varying manufacturers, and configurations.
My C drive, contains my O/S (Windows 7Pro, Linux Mint, or Win8.1Pro, with Classic Shell), my speed critical programs, and speed critical games. I also keep it over provisioned by 60gb.
My D drive contains NON speed critical programs, data, original image, etc. Both C, and D, are the 1tb EVO drives.
My E drive, is my 480gb MyDigital "SuperBoot2 drive, contains my latest image, all my "personal" files like, Downloads, and pictures. I do not use the "Music" folder. "My Documents", remains on my C drive. I have ALL my TEMP/TMP files directed here, to keep them off of my expensive, EVO drives. This makes clean up MUCH easier, and serves to keep read/write cycles way down on my EVO drives. Under *NO* circumstances, do I use a "SwapFile". Too hard on a SSD. ALL my computers, have maxed out ram. From the 8gb, in my T400, to 32gb, in my W540.
43 years of experience has told me that necessary maintenance, is just as important now, as it was on the original PC's, and doing backups, is even MORE necessary now. I also consider RAID to not be reliable enough, to trust it with critical data.
I have NOT lost any data over the last 13 years, because of how I do things.
I find myself doubling my storage space every seven to ten years. I remember when 500GB would have been insane for the data I needed to backup them. Keep in mind I am younger than you, but I started using home computers in the 1990s. Now, my standard OS drive is 1TB and my critical backup data is half that. So I have a large 5TB platter drive for my desktop; still under construction. Which I will dump data on.
My laptop has a 1TB secondary platter drive. Which eventually will be replace with 2TB. I have not decided if it will be platter or SSD. Soon this laptop will have its initial 250GB SSD replace with a 1TB. Also it will be software encrypted. The replacement for laptop storage the same. SSDs have certain security issues. Minimal, but unnoted. Even on Wikipedia.
The 1TB drive is the max limit for all of my externals currently. In ten years I will probably exceed that.
Threat assessment of data being compromised is important. So most of my third party external drives use both hardware and software encryption. Yes we both know hardware encryption is garbage. Except in one or two cases; one of which involves military and the other Lenovo.
I my data also includes data of other people. Even their banking account information and IDs. So if the drives are ever stolen. I need to assure them that the threat is minimal. Also should some common thieves manage to break layers of encryption. I need to say in court I took every precaution. Considering the data practices of most I do business with. LOL, their data is safer with me than them.
So if my home was robbed today. Whom would typically rob my home? The common 'smash and grab' thief is not going to have the knowledge, time, or resources to break what I have setup. Especially when all upgrades are complete.
FYI, am trying to learn how to use open source PGP. But VeraCrypt helps.
@@jamesedwards3923 I used to make a living, going around teaching DOS classes, backing up data with a backup program I wrote myself. I've been working with computers for a very, long, LONG time.
Hello Christopher. At on Oct 16 2011 you had made a video about SD cards. I want to ask: If i write on 4GB card data worth 2GB and only i connect to my computer for only to copy the files when is needed it will some day damaged and i must buy new one or only afect the writing cyclies ???
A card that has rarely been written to -- as here -- should last a very long time. With minimum write cycles, you should probaby find that it is good for ten years, maybe more. So it is probably a better long-term storage option than most optical media, and probably most hard drives. You may enjoy next week's video! :)
By the way, the SD card that was frozen in a block of ice in that video is still working fine about five years on . . .
+ExplainingComputers Thanks for everything. :-0 Reeeeeeeealyyyy ?? Thanks again
If You Have A Phone, Please Get A Micro SD Card, Perferably 16gb Or Up. If Your Phone Breaks, All Your Apps, Pictures, Music And Videos Will Be Save On An SD Card. I Have A 64GB SD Card For My Phone, And It Works Great!
To not damage the Video Files and Images... Archive it in Rar, Zip, 7z, and ISO if that drive used in normal basis multiple read and writes