computer back-up

[Thomas Alan]

I have a problem with my PC back-up that I don't know how to solve.

I have an appx 8 year old Dell. It has two 107g hard drives. One is drive C (59g free) the other is D and used for back ups. I use Norton 360 for virus protection and it does auto back ups to D.

About 3 months ago Norton reported that D did not have enough space for a back up. When my computer was new it had Norton Ghost. I stop using ghost when I installed 360 about 3 years ago. At the time of this message I deleted the remnants of ghost back ups on D. Back ups went ok until yesterday.

360 is again saying there is not enough space on D for a back-up. Looking a D again there are a few pieces of ghost still there but not enough to make a difference.

These are the options I thought of. Replace drive D maybe $100. Get an external hard drive about the same cost. The externals require 3.0 USB ports and mine aren't even 2.0.

Or subscribe to an online data storage. I haven't any experience with these. Looking at ratings MyPC back up seems reasonable cost and the ratings are good. Carbonite is the big player but apparently has some issues. Does the PC have to be on all the time for the services to work? I turn my off at bedtime and when I go to work.

Thanks

Mac

 

[Palinurus]

Hi Mac,

From what you wrote I gather you just pile up the Norton 360 backups and have never deleted any of the old ones. Now your D space of 107 Gig is full.
I further take it that you have only one physical hard drive of approx. 214 Gig which is partitioned into two equal halves of 107 Gig each. So you will not be able to replace only the D section without removing the C section as well.

The simplest solution would be to skim through the list of Norton 360 backups on your D space (they do have dates, I presume) and delete all but the last two or three. Then there will be plenty of space again to continue as usual.
Notice: this is only possible when Norton 360 makes independent separate backups each time in stead of incremental ones -- i.e. cumulative, adding only recent changes and saving all the rest 'as is'. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_backup

In the case of an incremental backup system, there's only one complete backup with numerous additions and nothing else.
In that case a stand alone hard drive of some sort, maybe an older model to be compatible with your USB ports, would do the trick very nicely. Be sure to buy adequate space for future use. These are reasonably cheap, nowadays.
You will have to change the backup address in the Norton program from D to E before proceeding. Don't forget that.
The D space will be available for other use once you have backups on your separate harddisk, not before!

I've no personal experience with online data storage so I won't advise on that.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Mikey]

When you back up data from one hard drive to another hard drive on the same computer, you are not really protecting your data as good as you could. For example, there is a lightning strike and your computer and all of your drives are damaged; or there is fire; or your computer could be stolen. So, for the best backup possible, regularly store your data on an external drive that you keep disconnected from electricity most of the time, and ideally at a different location than your main computer.

Also, test and make sure that you can restore your data from whatever backup format you choose.

I do my backups on an external USB hard drive with plain file copy, so that the restoration doesn't depend on any third party software.

 

[maxim.m]

Or subscribe to an online data storage. I haven't any experience with these. Looking at ratings MyPC back up seems reasonable cost and the ratings are good. Carbonite is the big player but apparently has some issues. Does the PC have to be on all the time for the services to work? I turn my off at bedtime and when I go to work.

Thanks

Mac

I use Google Disk, SugarSync for backups and for synchronization between few PC.
Both have 5Gb free space plan.
Sync procedure works when pc turn on or changes made in files in shared catalogs.
Both also have version control system so there are last and few older version of documents.

 

[pstott]

Are you continually backing up so many files that you need an automated backup system?

If you are backing up to an archive that is contained within your computer, what use will it be if your computer is lost or destroyed?

I do my backups manually and use a removable 64GB USB key to periodically backup the files that I need to save - you can create encrypted partitions on it so that if you lose it nobody can access the data.

My wife uses an external backup drive that holds 500GB. It sits under her desk and is connected via a USB port.

Either of these methods provides an external data repository that is independent of your computer, but keeps the data readily available.

 

[Gonzo]

I'm glad to hear you at least back up your system.

What we used to do with older systems like yours, was to install removable hard drives. This involved installing a carrier rack (usually older systems had extra room for a CD player, etc.) and the hard drive would get installed in a case which would easily slide in and out of the carrier rack. Then, the system would get configure to ghost the main hard drive to the removable one at a specific time each day. This way, the client could rotate through two or three different hard drives, storing the backups off site in the evening.

An example: _http://www.circotech.com/removable-hard-drive-kit-sata.html

With a system like this, you could buy a couple of kits and a couple of decent sized, used hard drives, install the rack and rotate through the hard drives as backup devices.

Since your system is old but you want to continue using it, this might be your least costly method (even cheaper would be to merely replace the hard drive with a newer compatible one). If you don't have sufficient computer hardware knowledge, it shouldn't cost much to have a store install the new one for you.

While online backups make sense, they do have their down sides. For example, sending that much data across your Internet connection might result in overage charges of you don't have unlimited access. Also, the first backup can take a long time, depending on the Internet access (dial-up versus high speed). Subsequent backups only send changed or new files. As well, since your operating system would be in use while transferring the backup, there's a chance it wouldn't back up any system files in use.

Another option is getting a dvd burner and backing up to DVDs.

Finally, they did make external hard drives for the older USB standard. You might be able to find a compatible one on the Internet. The older USB versions are considerably slower but did the trick nonetheless.

Gonzo

 

[Thomas Alan]

I bought an external drive. I seems to work ok but very slow, probably because my USB is inadequate. It's been running for 1 1/2 hours now and is not quite half way done. When I pug a device to the USB a message pops up "this device run faster with a HI speed 2.0 USB port".

Would installing a USB board with a port help?

Mac

 

[Gonzo]

Yep. There's a huge difference in speed between USB versions. You might want to ensure your motherboard is compatible with the upgrade.

Gonzo

 

[Thomas Alan]

Yep. There's a huge difference in speed between USB versions. You might want to ensure your motherboard is compatible with the upgrade.

Gonzo

Thanks for the tip, Gonzo: One thing leads to another. Dell customer service is less than stellar as I found out when I bought this system. I tried to call them about the parts needed, got transferred, then cut off.

I just had a message pop up that says that the back up has failed. "please check device and connection then try again." Well, back to square one. Maybe a new PC? Gad!

Mac

 

[dantem]

Yep. There's a huge difference in speed between USB versions. You might want to ensure your motherboard is compatible with the upgrade.

Gonzo

Thanks for the tip, Gonzo: One thing leads to another. Dell customer service is less than stellar as I found out when I bought this system. I tried to call them about the parts needed, got transferred, then cut off.

I just had a message pop up that says that the back up has failed. "please check device and connection then try again." Well, back to square one. Maybe a new PC? Gad!

Mac

Gosh Mac! If your Dell hasn't even a hi-speed USB 2.0 port it means that the PC is quite old

You may try to connect the external USB drive on another USB port on the PC before dumping it, USB ports aren't all the same even if they look so externally. Make sure you got your backup done anyway!

Regarding the ext. USB drive you just bought... can you read the label and see if it's USB 2.0 or USB 3.0?

Take care.

 

[Thomas Alan]

Yep. There's a huge difference in speed between USB versions. You might want to ensure your motherboard is compatible with the upgrade.

Gonzo

Thanks for the tip, Gonzo: One thing leads to another. Dell customer service is less than stellar as I found out when I bought this system. I tried to call them about the parts needed, got transferred, then cut off.

I just had a message pop up that says that the back up has failed. "please check device and connection then try again." Well, back to square one. Maybe a new PC? Gad!

Mac

Gosh Mac! If your Dell hasn't even a hi-speed USB 2.0 port it means that the PC is quite old

You may try to connect the external USB drive on another USB port on the PC before dumping it, USB ports aren't all the same even if they look so externally. Make sure you got your backup done anyway!

Regarding the ext. USB drive you just bought... can you read the label and see if it's USB 2.0 or USB 3.0?

Take care.

Yesterday, after first telling me that the back up didn't complete with the external drive 360 later said that it did. I looked on the drive, the back up is there. Took 3 hours though.

I asked on Dell chat about it. They directed me to a $30.00 board that they said would give 3.0. Of course, they said that I would need their technicians help to install it, for a fee. I've added/changed boards before, it's no big deal. So I might try it.

I wonder, though, if I should use 360 for back ups. With a previous system I had a tape drive. Every week I ran a back up with it. When did have a problem I was unable to restore from the tape. I haven't had the need to restore from 360 as yet, but the thought that if their restore fails I might not be able to access my files because of the way 360 codes when it copies the files to the disk.

Is there a way to back up my files, in an automated way, as the files themselves so that restore would be a simple copy/paste procedure?

Mac

 

[dantem]

Is there a way to back up my files, in an automated way, as the files themselves so that restore would be a simple copy/paste procedure?

Mac

Mmm... very often an external drive has its own backup system, it's a software inside the drive itself. Can you check the specs of that new drive?

An alternative would be to find another program for your backups. There's a miriad of programs online. An example:
_http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-backup-program

Or this one

_http://www.documentbackup.com/

where it says that it has a function like this:

"Restore Data Wizard will allow you to restore only the files you select."

I really can't tell you which is the best one though!! :) The Norton 360 itself had a feature like that, but I can't tell for sure has they change so many things at every new release of this software.

If your new ext. drive has enough space, you can do both things, run a backup program like 360 and periodically move your sensitive files in there in a new folder.

I usually create a new folder on an external drive, call it 'Backup', create a shortcut on my Desktop 'Backup Shortcut', and simply move the more sensitive files there and they'll go directly in the external drive.

Then I use a backup program like Norton 360, Norton Ghost, or the Win7 embedded backup, to make an image of the whole C: drive and so have a sort of 'time machine' backup to restore the Operating System + Programs + Files all at once. Useful when the whole PC hangs and you are in a hurry :)

Hope it helps!