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Re: [LUG] Daughter's laptop part 2

 
On 19/11/2019 12:41, Neil wrote:
Thanks for all the help about getting my daughter's laptop replaced. I am in the process of getting a machine built, which should be here soon.

Meanwhile, one of the problems I had was retrieving her old files. I have managed that, so fine. But, of course, the problem was a lack of backups. I am wondering what would be for the best here. I need a program which will run automatically. But would storing in the cloud be best, or on to an external HD? )The files she was most worried about were her photos and videos.)

There must be a lot of experience on the list, so if anyone has any recommendations I will be very grateful.

Thanks,

Neil

Hi Neil,

I use rsync* on a weekly basis for my system and data backups to an external HDD. After the first pass incremental backups are always much quicker. My main data is all stored on my NAS in RAID 1; conventional wisdom is that RAID is not a backup, presumably because both HDDs are in the same box and identical in content, however for my own data purposes I feel this gives me two automatic copies, ergo one is a backup. The NAS is backed up weekly in one of the rsync jobs to an external USB HDD. I also have a friend visit every week so theoretically I could even give him the USB HDDs so my backups are not even in my house for disaster recovery purposes.

I don't like 'the cloud', to be honest for /any/ data storage much less personal data backup;

  • Control; I want to be in full control of /my/ data.
  • Security; Their server will be a much bigger hacker target, and I never know who of their employees can access my data.
  • Access; The big one. What happens if/when I need access to my backups and either their or my network connection is down? This happened recently to my brother at a major UK university - their network was down for an entire day. I have also had outages on my ISP - Virginmedia - which would have prevented me from accessing the data.

For all the above reasons I would advocate a local backup.

Kind regards,

Julian

* One of the backup program Timeshift's options is RSYNC with a choice of how often the schedule them and how many copies to keep, of course the backup HDD would need to be permanently accessible for this to work.

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