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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sean W. Smith who wrote (1220)	6/8/1998 9:57:00 PM
From: Dave Hanson	Respond to of 14778

Tapes, HDDs, cartridges, etc. con't "Why is the OS so important? - I can install Windows 95 in 45 minutes and it will take 2 weeks to install and configure all my software. OS doesn't seem very important in that perspective. If you use traditional backup software. You have re-install the OS to restore the tape backup.... This leads you to something like Drive Image which is great for disasters but doesn't do incremental backups well. Which leads to large data sets which I used in my example." The OS _with the apps installed_ is what's important. The registry, root dir, system dirs, etc. The rest is just lots of stuff on CDs that can be easily replicated. Sorry if I was unclear here. I think we're talking about the same thing. Installing and configuring the apps on a properly installed OS is what takes the time. Thus if D: is my NT boot partition, E: my big apps and cache partition, and F: my data partition, I need backups of F: most crucially, then D:. E: is no big deal. This raises your point about backup strategies. "Have you ever had a failure and had to restore and re-install using this system?? How long did it take??" Yes. About 20 minutes, all but 5 or so unattended. "25-30M/Min with compression on a SCSI TR4. 4 Gig uncompressed." That is a big improvement. A quick glance at NECX confirms that SCSI 4/8 GB SCSI travans also start below $300, as your earlier post implied--also a big improvement. "OK, thats fair. See my point about what to backup. And you have this drive on removable rails and take it out of your machine every night???" No, I usually leave it in. But that's because I don't see the need to have the whole drive, partitions, etc. protected from the small risk of fire or theft. For the data, I save it to a laptop drive via a small fast ethernet LAN, using drive image or laplink, then store the laptop in a seperate spot. Very clean, very easy, very fast, all but unattended, and it doubles as a way for me to work away from my desk with my full data set just as easily as at my desk. But this again raises the point about one's backup hardware needing to work with one's backup strategy. It seems clear, for instance, that my situation is quite different from yours. "reliability issues are definitely overblown. (Another reason to have a larger rotation pool, 1 of anything can go bad). cross machine compatibility is excellent on these devices. Again you can get EIDE, SCSI, Parallel. All are very portable. Personally I own 3 Zips, 1 Jaz, and a Syquest 135 all Parallel port and have used them on HUNDREDS of machine with 0 problems!" Glad to hear you've had this experience. Your broader claim seems plausible too here. Do you (or anyone) know where there's some decent reliability data on these solutions? "Remember I am not psuhing for tape. Tape is only one option, removable disks, and CDR's are also excellent choices depending on your individual needs and tolerances...." Very true. The issue is, given Street Walker's, mine, Zeuspaul's, and your respective needs, which option(s) would be best? I don't rely only on another hard drive--there's my laptop, a sparq drive (which, FWIW, I haven't had reliability problems with yet either), floppies for key text and config files, and storing vital files (like my dissertation) on the university's server through a dial-up connection as easy low-megabyte off-site storage. I just think that an extra, perhaps removable hard drives can be a very constructive part of a backup system. And IMHO it does some parts of backing up FAR better than any other solution proposed. I for one would welcome a description of your own backup routine and methods. I'm sure I'd learn something (as I have already from your discussion of modern travan drives.) What media do you use? What hasn't lived up to your expectations?

To: Sean W. Smith who wrote (1220)	6/8/1998 11:43:00 PM
From: Zeuspaul	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14778

[The Proposed backup solution to SW's Trading Machine] affectionatly known as The Multimonitor Beast Remember I am not pushing tape.I would recommend almost anything over the previosuly recommended solution. I beleive very strongley about it. Have 1 backup device of any kind is not wise. True removable technology gives you an opportunity to increase those odds by a factor of N while maintaing robustness and keeping cost to a minimum. First a comment on mission critical data files. My own mission critical files, the ones I make my living with are backed up three times on two media types (CDR and 5 1/4 MO). One set is kept off site. This is a selective file backup system. Original files are written once to a final resting place (MO media). Then one copy of the original file and one copy of the MO file are made respectively to each of two CDR media. One CDR is removed from site. Minimal file transfers and overwrites will reduce the chances of a corrupted file IMO. All files are indexed and byte counts logged. I assign a higher priority to these files than I do an OS load / application configuration. Recently the OS / application configuration has become more critical. I can restore and reconfigure my DOS machines in a couple of hours and have never seen a need to back them up in any form. The OS / application configuration has become mission critical in a couple of my own applications. In these applications the DATA files are maintained as above but the configurations (the OS and applications and configurations) also need a backup solution. A hard drive crash or corrupted configuration would put me out of business. The Ideal solution would be to be up and running in five minutes. The configuration of the system remains the same over time. I use the identical set up that I used two months ago so I see no need for any type of daily backup of the configuration For the above I see no better solution than a second hard disc with a tested working configuration. I did not and do not recommend mirroring for this type of backup solution. (perhaps this is better referred to as a disaster recovery strategy) Second best for the above scenario with the tools available to me is a backup using Drive Image as indicated by Dave. It is certainly more economical than any other proposed solution. I could backup the C Drive to an existing partition (I have 9 GB drives with 4x 2 GB FAT partitions). I would then copy the file to an MO drive for transport to CDR. The total cost for a backup (excluding $50 software) would be $2. It is in this context that I made the proposed backup solution for Street Walkers Trading Machine. My recollection is that SW indicated in previous posts that he does not keep mission critical DATA on his machine. If he does I concur that the strategy needs additional components. I view Street Walkers Trading Machine as an operations machine similar to the above noted case. If he has a working configuration that does not change on a daily basis a second hard disc makes sense, at least to me. I am not recommending a compressed file. I am recommending a working configuration on a second IDE drive. The second working system should be tested ( I have not tested this "theory" myself but will in the next six months or so, I see no reason that it will not work). 1) The test procedure would be to turn off the machine. 2) Boot to bios and change the boot sequence of the two drives. 3) The "new" system should now work off the second drive. 4) The restoration process should take less than five minutes. It is faster and more definitive than any other solution I have seen to date. 5) The cost is the price of a second hard disk and Disk Copy software. The best copy procedure is still being debated. JMHO The Poster