My desktop computer died last week, hard drive failure without much warning. Admittedly it had been slow to bot up for a while but I just put that down to something I wouldn`t understand, my knowledge of computers is limited to say the least.
Finally got it fixed today, local guy has a business building and fixing the damned things. He's virtually rebuilt the machine for me and (not surprisingly) it's a whole lot better. I`m mighty relieved to have recovered the hard drive data, I have a huge number of watch movement/stripdown photos stored and losing those would've hurt. Also got all my financial/investment stuff.
Moral of the story is simple: as soon as your computer starts to play up or misbehave get it fixed before it fails. Also, back up any info/data that you really don`t want to lose. Not having the computer for a few days was Not funny!
The upside of this is that it cost me far less than a new computer, and I`m now bang up to date!
Paul
"I`m mighty relieved to have recovered the hard drive data, I have a huge number of watch movement/stripdown photos stored and losing those would've hurt."Originally Posted by walkerwek1958
Given these aren't sensitive but are clearly valuable to you - why not automate their backup off-site - depending on how much you have - onedrive or Dropbox would do it.
If you don't fancy Drop Box then an RDX drive & cartridge is a good option for home/small biz use.
Backups.......
Think what would happen if you had a house-fire?
Options are:
Keep a Network drive in the garage
Use Cloud storage with incremental back-up (One-drive is a pretty good option).
Al
A recommendation I took from Tony (LTF) was Carbonite cloud based back up, they/it has saved me a couple of times now, with limitless back up for one computer for peanuts,
I have everything on there, family movies, pictures, family files and all of my business files, easy to set up, sign up, download, point it at what drives you want to back up and it does the rest, with monitoring for any new/updated files.
https://www.carbonite.com/
I`m clearly in the stone-age where computers are concerned! I`ll have a chat with my stepson and get him to drag me into 2017, he's got a Business IT degree and gets well paid for working in the IT field, but he's always too busy to sort me out.
Thanks for all the advice. My computer's now functioning, me e-mail's working and everything's pretty much as it was. New solid state hard drive is tons better, and I now have a CD/DVD drive that works so I can load my CDs onto the iPad I had bought for Christmas but have hardly used because I'm such a technophobe. Give me a watch to sort and I`ll sort it, but anything to do with computers/mobile phones has me struggling. Having very little patience doesn`t help, but I`ll spend 2 hours messing with a hairspring on an old watch!
Paul
Good call on SSD upgrade - this will always have a dramatic effect on performance.
Here's a recent comparison of online backup options ... I've used crashplan at work and at home and would recommend it.
http://uk.pcmag.com/backup-products-...rvices-of-2017
Cloud computing is your friend...
Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app
Using the Cloud is fine if you have a decent upload speed. As someone who lives in a rural area where none of the billions paid to BT/Openreach has so far reached I have an upload speed of 1 Mbps. I also have a total backup requirement (documents, photos, videos etc.) of 4.6TB; the Cloud is of limited use to me for back ups. I use an additional hard drive in my desktop computer and a NAS hidden in the house. Once a month or so I backup to a portable hard drive that I keep offsite.
I was once told hard drives are in one of two states, dead or dying. That is, they will all fail eventually. So if your data is critical, back it up!
Spookily I backed up my SSD after the NHS crash a week or so ago, then four days later an unsuccessful update to my Tomtom corrupted my laptop.
I had a nervous 24 hours while I got it back together but it worked a treat, and I'm so relieved.
I used Macrium Reflect Free and a big shout out for it. I stored the image on my NAS and used the recovery CD macrium also made, to reinstall it.
I wouldn't dream of backing up any sensitive data to the cloud., I just don't trust that no one will ever get in and steal info.
Photos, music etc yes. Emails, financial, personal info, get it on a removable drive or 2, just in case.
Good call,
I don't trust the cloud if China can hack the FBI, a few servers in California could be should not pose a problem.
Get a couple of hard drives and back up............
Simple question: what is the cloud that people refer to?
Paul
Simply encrypt the data prior to back up, there are a few players in the zero knowledge cloud backup space.
That's an idea but I still wouldn't trust it, encrypted data still isn't 100% secure.
Saying that any sensitive data on my laptop is minimal in storage terms so a few flash drives work for me and photos/music (large GBs worth) to the cloud.
Wouldn't it be easier to copy across your My Documents Files to an SD memory card? I thought I had a lot of info on my computer but when transferring to a new pc recently it was under 14 gigs of data.
I wouldn't trust the cloud with all my personal data.
Obviously MS is not a risk, but my concern would be given these companies are competing on the lowest cost per GB and it is currently a "growth" industry that one or more will go bust at some point and you will lose access to your data. Also the down rate can be slow/expensive although this may or may not be a worry.
For personal/small business user RDX/NAS/HDD makes good sense and Iperius backup is good & free (or 29 USD if want to licence which allows it to back up open files). I favour RDX for this as it is easy to store away from the PC and keep off the network when not in use to minimise disaster risk and crypto locking of the network drives.
Having set up the Disaster Recovery system for a high street bank I am acutely aware of the need for adequate and multiple backups; a single backup is simply not adequate. I am also aware of the need to test those backups on a regular basis and not simply rely on their 'being there' as being good enough.
Principal rules -
1. You need a minimum of 3 backups: -
a) Local on-line backup for rapid recovery of damaged or deleted files, this should be undertaken 'live' as data is written to the main storage it should be written to the on-line backup.
b) Off-site backup 1. A daily/weekly/monthly, (dependant on your usage), incremental backup of your data.
c) Off-site backup 2. A weekly/monthly, (dependant on your usage), full backup.
May sound like overkill, but if your data is important...............
I have a Seagate USB hard drive attached to my desktop computer to provide 1a) A networked Western Digital 'My Cloud' NAS drive in an external room using the supplied WD Smartware software to automatically provide 1b), and a Western Digital 'My Passport' portable USB hard drive for 1c).
The WD My Cloud has the added advantage of being accessible remotely if I'm out with a laptop and need a file I haven't got with me.
I also periodically restore important files from each of my backups to one or both of my laptop computers just to make sure my backups are good.
A very cheap solution, particularly considering the cost, (to me), of losing that data; though YMMV as the Americans say.
Oh, and I don't use remote 'cloud based' storage for backup, but I do use DropBox to share files with others.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
So you don't want your emails in the cloud? How do you think they get delivered?
The cloud is just a relatively new term for using someone else's computer by power through the Internet. So it could be software, infrastructure or storage space that you are using through the Internet, but the key is that it's hosted on someone else's computer.
On the basis that the cloud service providers are generally better and more up to date at cyber security than most companies, it's usually a good idea ad long as you do your due diligence and get the right deal in place.
Agreed and given their tiny charges per GB it does make a lot of sense. That said the recovery times/cost need to be considered as part of the "due dilligence" as whilst an incremental back up of changed files may be very quick, pulling the entire contents a HDD down will be slow.
I would still recommend local backup via a fast interface for the system and a copy of the files, with a 3rd copy of just the data files held off site/in cloud for additional security. But even one copy is better than many will have.
Good point.
How do they get delivered?
Do all emails get stored forever?
It's it any less secure than listening in to a phone call?
The more I think about it the more I'm confused
This is some of the best advise on backups and something I've been saying on here for a while.
We have three mac's in our home network, each has their own NAS to provide time machine backups. We also use spideroak to provide one offsite backup and sync key data between the mac's, which is encrypted before transfer and the key is held only by me.
The mac's are in two homes so at any given time our key data exists in 7 instances.
I still fear fire, flood, theft and pestilence for many reasons but data security is not one of them.
They go through a series of servers (relays) owned by your ISP, other ISPs, commercial companies and others. The servers are connected together using networks owned by those companies and others as well, using equipment built and sometimes maintained by yet more companies - one of the largest, Huawei, is Chinese.Good point.
How do they get delivered?
Do all emails get stored forever?
It's it any less secure than listening in to a phone call?
The more I think about it the more I'm confused
At any point someone could choose to read your email unless it is encrypted.
Messaging systems like Whatsapp are encrypted which is why people like the Home Secretary are bothered by them.
To be honest in my view your data is reasonably safe with a mainstream provider as long as you keep your passwords safe and change them fairly regularly. Just my view though.
Cheers for the info. Appreciated.
Far too many words for a simple guy like me to read........I'll stick to using a memory stick to good effect.
That keeps the backup and control of the info in my hands, the 'Cloud' doesn't tick that box convincingly enough for me.
Paul
If using a mainstay email provider without encryption, at least set up two factor authentication, ideally not by text message.
WTF?....... If this was written in Egyptian Hyroglyphics it would make just as much sense to me.
If I do this,what problem am I solving?
Paul
If someone gets hold of your password, this stops them getting into your system (email, bank etc.). 'Two factor' means you need both of 2 different ways of proving who you are, to be allowed access.
Normally something like a password and maybe a little gadget that generates a special one-time code number. Even if someone finds out your password they still need your unique gadget. Or if you lose the gadget, they still have to guess your password.
Hmmm... everyone does know that "the cloud" isn't actually a cloud, right?
I use Time Machine to back up to a local drive, and Crash Plan for a cloud-based back up. (I had been using Carbonite for years, but it has problems interfacing with the Mac OS so I had to switch.) Both are automated so I dont actually have to do anything.
Don't wait until disaster strikes - back in 2006 I was burgled shortly after setting up my own business. I had no back up routine at the time, and lost absolutely everything.
An (unencrypted) email is a bit like sending a postcard.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
I have decent bandwidth, but I follow your strategy.
Devices to NAS to Portable Drive that sits in drawer at work.
Also worth adding I dumped all my old outlook email (from multiple devices and accounts) into a single gmail account. Using the IMAP account means that it syncs with all your devices. The email is backed up and you have local copies for speed.
Precisely; that's exactly the analogy that I always use.
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