External or portable Hard Drive

[dyne]

About a year ago I purchased a Seagate Free Agent GoFlex Drive to use as a backup.
It was very difficult to get it out of it's package. The backup software provided
worked so poorly that I deleted it. It copies slowly.
Today I purchased a Western Digital external hard drive which cost about $10 more.
It was easy to extract from the package and the backup software functions
very well. I believe it uses the new USB 3.0 and It copies MUCH faster than the other
hard drive mentioned above.

[zeros]

External Hard Drive

I had a Western Digital backup for a few years and it worked well. Quit working now. Will purchase another one as I was satisfied with the performance. Backed up each night.

[Super Mom]

Please forgive my ignorance, but I'm looking for something that will restore my computer completely to the last backed up state to take home with me just in case. Will these do that?

[Koss]

Backup Software

Generally, yes.

What you need to keep in mind is that most backup operations make copies of all of your files, but they do not copy your programs or applications.

So with any standard backup process, you'll have backup copies of your client tax files, and any other files, such as QuickBooks files, PDF files, MS Word files, Excel spreadsheets, photos, etc.

It is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to back up applications or software.

The key concept is this:

If your computer gets really fouled up, but you are able to recover from it, and then you discover that there are some files missing, or corrupted, your backup will give you what you need.

On the other hand, if your computer totally dies, to the point where you can't boot it up, or if your computer is stolen or destroyed in a fire or flood, you have a totally different recovery process. You would need to get a new PC, and re-install your tax software, and any other programs like MS Word, Excel, QuickBooks, and so on.

If you have the disks stored off-site, that might work, or it might not, because some disks only allow you to install the software on one computer. So you might actually have to buy the software again, or contact the software vendor for a new product key.

I'm not trying to scare you. But you need to understand that most backup processes do not back up your programs. They only back up your files.

BMK

[Super Mom]

Oh, so what about online back ups? They don't require re-installation of software do they?

[Koss]

Backup Process

Online backup and and external hard drive work the same way.

You won't need to reinstall software if your computer recovers from its crash or malfunction with its software intact.

If your computer collapses into a completely nonfunctional state, you'll need to reinstall software, whether you are using an external or an online backup.

The only other approach would be to have another computer, for example, a laptop, that has all the software you need. Then you should be able to plug in the external hard drive, or download the online backup files, and you're up and running on the other computer, even if your "original" computer has been stolen.

If your practice is large enough, maybe you already have a second computer in the office that already has all the same software on it. That would work, too, assuming that only one computer fails. A second computer in the office won't help you if your office is subjected to something like a fire or flood.

BMK

[Maribeth]

Please forgive my ignorance, but I'm looking for something that will restore my computer completely to the last backed up state to take home with me just in case. Will these do that?

We backup every night. Once a week we create a complete backup of the entire system using Norton Ghost. It copies everything, applications, data, etc.

Using Ghost is NOT a backup; it is a complete copy of your drive and you can only restore it as such. Thank heavens we have never had to use the restore function (knock on wood).

Maribeth

[Gretel]

I use Acronis as a mirror copy of my harddrive. Once I had to do the restore - instead of reinstalling my operating system - and was very delighted how well it worked. If one just want to restore files one can test it, but I didn't see a way of testing the mirror backup.

While it is not very likely that one ever needs to restore from a mirror backup (and also one can only do this on the very same harddrive or an identical one in the same computer) it sure saved me tons of time when I needed it.

[Super Mom]

We backup every night. Once a week we create a complete backup of the entire system using Norton Ghost. It copies everything, applications, data, etc.

Using Ghost is NOT a backup; it is a complete copy of your drive and you can only restore it as such. Thank heavens we have never had to use the restore function (knock on wood).

Maribeth

Am I right in assuming that a copy of the hard drive is different than a back up, and would restore my computer?

[Koss]

Yes

In order to have a TOTAL backup of EVERYTHING, including all your software, you need a full-fledged backup application, such as Acronis or Norton Ghost. These programs are generally not sold together with an external drive. You have to buy the program on its own. Then you can use it to perform a complete and total backup to an external drive, or you can use to mirror your C:/ drive to another partition within your PC.

Generally speaking, any backup program that comes included with an external hard drive is only going to back up your files. It will not back up your entire computer.

To back up your entire computer, you need an application that is powerful and expensive enough that it doesn't get "bundled" into an external hard drive.

BMK

[Super Mom]

In order to have a TOTAL backup of EVERYTHING, including all your software, you need a full-fledged backup application, such as Acronis or Norton Ghost. These programs are generally not sold together with an external drive. You have to buy the program on its own. Then you can use it to perform a complete and total backup to an external drive, or you can use to mirror your C:/ drive to another partition within your PC.

Generally speaking, any backup program that comes included with an external hard drive is only going to back up your files. It will not back up your entire computer.

To back up your entire computer, you need an application that is powerful and expensive enough that it doesn't get "bundled" into an external hard drive.

BMK

Ok, I'm checking out the software now, do I also need to buy an externel hard drive, or a back up stick thing or what to put the info on?

[Koss]

Yes

Yes. If your objective is to store a backup image off-site, meaning you take it home at night in case your office burns down or something, then, yes, you either need an external drive, or an online backup service that does a complete image of your drive (including your programs).

This link is a good starting point:

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/#overview

BMK

[dtlee]

Am I right in assuming that a copy of the hard drive is different than a back up, and would restore my computer?

"Backing up" is a very generic term for making an archival copy of data for later recovery in event of a media failure or other data loss. When we discuss "backing up" our drives or data, it can have several different, though similar, meanings common to the drive and media recovery industry. To muddy this up a bit, many applications (like our tax software) have "Backup" utilities which are very specific to those tools (generally storing key configuration files and client data). A true backup solution probably involves more than one of these solutions. I am going to discuss these individually to try to differentiate the method, purpose, and benefits of each below. I am not sure how successful this will be and I want to clearly state that I am not an expert in this area.

Application backup utilities. These are generally application specific routines which use proprietary knowledge of how the software stores key application data. This can be used to "port" the data from one machine to another (without re-entering firm, preparer, or client data manually) or to save the data in the event of a system malfunction. Often, applications will store this data to another location on the same hard drive by default so this does not provide a very robust recovery option since this data may not be accessible in the event of a system or hard drive failure. However, using this feature to backup the same data to another medium would likely be a worthwhile part of an overall backup strategy.

Disk Imaging Software is another alternative that should be considered for saving data for recovery purposes. Sadly, this terminology is not used consistently in the industry. I will leave out some of the more complex details in discussing this, but the most complete "image" would likely be considered a full disk image which would be able to be used to create an exact copy of the original drive. Many software vendors offer this option, but few recommend its use, in favor of a more efficient imaging technique which reads the source drive and copies only the sectors of the drive actually in-use. Such software would also usually not copy transient data like the system pagefile or hibernation file. Both types of disk imaages could likely be used to completely restore your operating system environment to working condition on a new drive if necessary. However, vendorse will likely store the data in a proprietary format which can only be read by that vendor's software. Thus, if you use the backup software that comes with one external drive, you will not necessarily be able to read that with the restore software that comes with windows or with another drive.

While generally, the individual files in a backup "image" are not accessible, many backup programs include software that allows you to access these files as if they were on another drive on your system. Thus, if you are looking for a particular Word document that you accidentally deleted, you may be able to locate it in the backup image and restore it without having to restore the entire drive. Without that feature, your only option would be to restore the entire backup, which would replace the contents of your current hard drive (and thereby eliminate any recent data you recently added to it).

To reduce the learning curve and standardize the tools you use, it may be preferable to purchase a single backup/recovery tool to use regardless of which external drive you purchase. I have also seen situations where installing multiple backup software applications on the same machine can cripple the performance or reliability of the backup programs themselves; obviously not a good thing if you are relying on these for recovery. Some commercial software allows the creation of bootable CDs to use to backup or restore the data. Obviously, in a disk failure where you would not be able to access applications on your main drive, this kind of feature can be a significant benefit. Likewise, with some external drives, they can also boot into their restore software to recover your data. As Burton cautions, I would check very carefully before relying on the software that comes with an external drive as being this complete. Some definitely are, but I do not use any of them.

Generally Disk Imaging software can either work on the entire drive or a single partition on the drive. Many commercially available computers store a recovery partition on their drives separate from the partition you normally access which will enable you to restore that vendor's original software and operating system in the event of an operating system failure. If you have backed up only the partition you are working with and do not back up the recovery partition, some recovery options will be unavailable when you restore your backup to the replacement drive.

Drive cloning is another backup option which basically will copy one drive to another in such a way that both drives are identical. Some of these tools allow the target drive to be a different size. For many of us, the benefit that this provides is that it will create a bootable drive that can simply replace the original drive without having to run any recovery software. Frequently these tools allow for the drives to be of different sizes so that the replacement drive does not have to be the same size as the original drive. As with Disk Imaging, the option to clone a single partition of the drive is often an option and the same caveats would apply as with Disk Imaging software if you were to only clone the normal working partition to a new drive.

Synching or mirroring are additional options for maintaining a second copy of your drive or your data, but these are generally part of a more complex backup scheme. For example, when a mirrored drive fails, the system will generally continue to run on the mirrored drive which did not fail until you are able to replace the failed drive. Mirroring generally works best with identical drives, so your preferred option would be to replace both drives (which were likely equally old as well) when one mirrored drive fails. Setting up mirrored drives and replacing them requires some technical knowledge, so it is not for the faint of heart. Synching of files or folders allows files to be stored and used from multiple places without having to remember to copy them from one machine to another or to back them up to another device since it does this automatically. The frequently mentioned DropBox is an example of a tool which automatically synchs data to all machines using the same dropbox. Some of the more robust synchronization tools have a dizzying number of configuration options.

Without saying that this is is the only way (nor even a correct way), here is how I use the above tools.

I use the application backup tools to copy key files to Dropbox or to an external thumb drive so that application files are synchronized across machines. At the end of the season, I use this to copy all of my application files from my main machine (the one I use for e-filing and printing) to my other machines so that all of them have the details on what was e-filed for each client and the most up-to-date client files.

I use a third party disk management tool for all of my computers which offers me the ability to back up or clone my hard drives. It runs from within Windows or from one of two different types of recovery CDs that it can create. When I back up my hard drives, it is sometimes to an external drive and sometimes to DVDs. I perform full disk images of the drives when backing them up.

On each of my desktop machines, I have twin drives in removable drawers. The backup drive is generally disconnected but just sitting in the drawer waiting. Periodically, I connect it and fully clone my main drive to the backup drive. The backup drive becomes a "hot spare" which simply is inserted into the other drawer in a failure scenario. I avoid mirroring for two reasons. One, mirroring is generally more complicated to set up. Two, it means that that backup drive is constantly in use. In my backup scenario, when I switch to the backup drive, I am assured that I am using a drive that has gone no more than a few hundred hours into its expected life. It also remains immune from surges/spikes while disconnected from power and just waiting for the next time I decide to perform a backup.

I use a file synchronization tool to automatically review equivalent folders on my two desktop machines and copy the latest information from one to the other. The synchronization (which takes a few seconds) occurs every 15 to 20 minutes, so I am generally sure that any information I entered into one will be available on the other by the time I need it. This works with my backup drive scenario as well since in the event of a drive failure where I have replaced my main drive with the backup, this utility will automatically re-synch the data in those key folders to what is current on the other machine.

Many of the tools mentioned above are complex to fully use. There are many features I have not even attempted to learn. However, we all need to have some rudimentary recovery scheme in place in the event of a drive or system failure.

[Super Mom]

thank you so much all of the help is awesome, one more question, if I go with the Acronis software and buy an external hardrive (like seagate or something) is it difficult to use that device with this software instead of their bundled automatic stuff?

[dtlee]

thank you so much all of the help is awesome, one more question, if I go with the Acronis software and buy an external hardrive (like seagate or something) is it difficult to use that device with this software instead of their bundled automatic stuff?

Since Acronis True Image has significantly more features than the bundled products (some of which may actually be watered down versions of the True Image software), the full product will not be as simple to use as a one-button backup solution.

Many backup drives feature this simplified software so that you can create a valid backup without the complicated decisions that might normally be involved (such as deciding if you want to check the validity of the backup after making it). They simply make some default decisions and for the end user it is "press a button."

However, despite its power and complexity, most of the people who use Acronis True Image are happy with its default settings and do not sweat too much in using it. It was my standard backup tool until recently.



Now, I would like to ask a question for the folks who tout one backup tool as being better than another. Of those of you who are recommending software or backup solutions (especially when speed is considered one of the more important criteria), I am wondering how you verified how reliable your solution is at recovering your drive in the event of a failure.

I know how I test restoring a drive from a backup using a particular backup solution (since I have multiple drives on drawers, I can always attempt to restore to one of them and then plug it in to see if it boots).

When recommending your solutions, are any of you actually testing the ability to reliably restore the drive you backed up or are you just trusting the product to be able to work as advertised when the time comes?