Do it Yourself: Re: [DIY] Computer Crash:

19 November 2014

Re: [DIY] Computer Crash:

I do the same. I use Acronis and just have the scheduler running on my and my wifes computers that backs up the systems to an external drive every Saturday morning. She doesn't even know it.

You're right though. There's no guarantee that a backup will work when it's needed. That's why it's a good idea

to test your backups. Do a full (image) backup to an external device then do a restore from your primary backup

set. That way if your drive gets wiped in prep for the restore and the restore fails, you'll still be able to to get back

to where you started. I used to set up my system in a RAID array (RAID 1) but that's only practical if you have a cpu case that can hold two drives and has a RAID controller. Not realistic for a laptop.

On an earlier comment about using thumbdrives for backup storage, I, personally wouldn't recommend it. Not because

they're not reliable or that they are even slow (usb 3.0 drives are MUCH faster than their 2.0 counterparts), but because

they use non-volatile memory. They can easily be wiped clean by static electricity or not properly dismounting the device before removing it from the usb port. They're primarily designed for file storage from one device to another or temporary

storage of non-critical files. I'd never use it for long term storage just because it doesn't take much to wipe it out.

-aki

On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 4:11 PM, Bob Davis bob@wrobertdavis.com [DoIt_Yourself] <DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

That's why a backup should be totally automatic - no human intervention required. I trained my wife to backup her computer with one mouse click. I constantly found that she had not backed up for months. Now it happens without requiring any action from her or me.

Bob

On Nov 18, 2014, at 9:36 AM, Dale S dalu@hbcomm.net [DoIt_Yourself] <DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

The easier it is the less likely we are to do it. :-)