DSF

I currently have several drives installed, SSD for OS, 3Tb HDD for data and so on.

I clone the main drive to another identical SSD and also to another HDD.

The data drive is backed up to an external drive and backed up to the cloud wherever possible.

I use Rollback Rx PC which works well...generally.

I thought I had all bases covered, not as complicated as it sounds! Until, the other day I ran my clone software and had an issues that changed a couple of drive numbers and wiped the drives. I eventually got everything back from the backups but it took a couple of days. My main OS drive wasn't affected so I wasn't overly worried.

My reason for posting, I'd very much like a much more simple and safe way to backup the whole PC in case of crashes etc. I've been thinking about setting up another PC in case but it seems such overkill. I could use an external RAID but wondered nit anyone had any advice on this please?

DVD's!

Seriously, although a bit time-consuming they beat all these external drive solutions hands down.

Recently my main pc, which had RAIDed drives, went tits up and it was only due to the expertise of my local computer shop that I managed to retrieve the data. Now, although I keep backups on external HDD's, I keep anything that I couldn't afford to lose on DVD's.

Cloud storage for templates, pics etc....
and below as well....

Have 2 main pcs identical software, drives, folders etc......but also have them both linked together,
so we can get access to the other pcs if anything new comes in and one person dont have the pic/designs
on that pc....they can go into the other pc and get it - and vice versa...One of those is very high spec machine,
other one is med spec, but still fully capable if needed to

Also have high end lappy with 16gig mem with same software on it as other 2.....but thats our total fail safe in case of power surge or something
and the other 2 go tits up:rolleyes:

Canny beat 2 identical pcs justin.....decent 2nd pc you can build for around £300 ( not incl monitor ) - dead easy to do m8

Appreciate RAID isn't a good backup. DVD's not an option, I need incremental backups and quick restore features etc.

I have been toying with building another but I think I need to simplify everything, maybe with a server, not sure.

RAID (mirrored) as your nas, with auto backup (striped) using a different file system, so if hacked by randsom ware, - they wont get both.
We also have twin removable external usb drives, so 1 is off site at any time too.

think I'll grab the missus PC she uses here and get everything working on there as well for a backup PC

All our files are saved to a 4 drive RAID NAS, this is then backed up to an Amazon cloud drive.

We did get a ransom ware attack, which took out files from all the PCs on the network, as well as the 3 NAS drives, as the NAS drives were online/mounted (can't remember the correct term) on the PCs at the time. Thankfully it seemed to take most recent files first, and I got everything off/offline quickly, we'd lost different files from each PC and NAS, which meant we could piece everything back together, and I think (will never know for sure!) that we only lost the previous day's photoshoot - if we;d lost everything I'm not sure how we'd have survived as a business.

The amount of unnecessary crap I have backed up is ridiculous. Years of stuff which have no importance any more. When you start backing up entire drives, it's harder to keep them safe because those drives tend to stay connected to the infected PC risking all your back ups too.

I just back up the essential folders which are quite small over a few different drives. Some at work, some at home in case of fire or theft.

That's a very good point, a good time for a clean up!

pisquee;127816 wrote:All our files are saved to a 4 drive RAID NAS, this is then backed up to an Amazon cloud drive.

We did get a ransom ware attack, which took out files from all the PCs on the network, as well as the 3 NAS drives, as the NAS drives were online/mounted (can't remember the correct term) on the PCs at the time. Thankfully it seemed to take most recent files first, and I got everything off/offline quickly, we'd lost different files from each PC and NAS, which meant we could piece everything back together, and I think (will never know for sure!) that we only lost the previous day's photoshoot - if we;d lost everything I'm not sure how we'd have survived as a business.

That's where DVD's would be a lifesaver. They're immune to ransomware too.