Another bite into the dust

[Sam Ceccola]

For those of you whom have been following my post over the past week, I wanted to let you know, last night expensive, decision making thoughts were done.

This PC crashed again last night and, for the 2nd time within a week, I needed to reload windows.

This PC is approximately 4 years old and is on 24/7. When the system was built, I tried to save a couple bucks by using this part or that part from the previous PC. NO-MORE! A new PC is in the process of mentally being put together and defined before going into the production stage. I have already talked to one of OUR PC hardware guru's(Rich-M).

One of the areas I am stressing in the new system is proper hardware to assure proper backup philosophies. Naturally, I do have a budget but this is a time for YOU to say "I wish I had that".

Remember, my use of a PC is NOT major corporate networking. I primarily use a PC for Application and Web development as well as all of the other common uses.

If you have any suggestions or thoughts on "what a PC should have", please post them here. I have never been a hardware or OS guru. Again, my specialty is software (application development).
Again, thanks for the patience with many of my frustration questions posted.
Sam

[PeteF]

If you have any suggestions or thoughts on "what a PC should have", please post them here. I have never been a hardware or OS guru.


Hi Sam,
For the sake of reliable backups using Acronis, I suggest getting away from
external USB hard drives and use internal instead. Backing up to another
computer over an ethernet connection also seems reliable with Acronis so
I suggest you do both if you plan on having a second PC available.

With all that in mind, order 2 of the removable hard drive trays.
Your drive C: can be installed normally but the back up drive should be
in a removable tray. Then you can alternately have 2 hard drives in the
removable tray. Keep one removable hard drive offsite or in a firesafe and
the other removable drive in the computer. Every six months you can
switch them. Now you are protected from fire, theft, or any other disaster.

Kingwin KF-91 Beige Aluminum SATA Mobile Rack Tray (Tray Only)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1286808&CatId=285


If you plan on also backing up to another computer over an ethernet
connection then order a super fast network card for each PC.
Example.. Intel Pro Desktop 10/100/1000 Gigabit PCI Network Adapter
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1275962&CatId=1175


I'm sure Rich will recommend a good quality PSU with short circuit
protection. Go with his suggestion and don't hesitate to over size it.
By having 25% to to 50% more PSU than you actually need will
ensure it runs cooler and lasts longer.

Get a good quality case with at least 2 fans in addition to
the fans in the PSU. I personally like to oversize the case
too with plenty of drive bays. It allows me to space out the
drive components for cooler operation. Keeping things cool
is so important to keep electronics components running
reliably for many years of service.

Insure your investment by protecting all your computers with a good
quality UPS with power conditioning. I recommend APC or BEST brands.
Again, go with as big a unit as you can afford by having 25% to to 50%
more UPS than your hardware demands.

---pete---

[Sam Ceccola]

PeteF:

Thanks for the many suggestions.
order 2 of the removable hard drive trays
I like this idea. I have 3 trays sitting off to the side and I have the "removable" track in this current system. Each time I do a full backup (at least once a month), I can switch the tray.

Question: Is it better to do it that way or backup to another PC?
good quality case with at least 2 fans
Rich and I talked about this a little last night. The space where I have the system unit is confined. A good air flow is pertinent.

[PeteF]

I like this idea. I have 3 trays sitting off to the side and I have the "removable" track in this current system. Each time I do a full backup (at least once a month), I can switch the tray.

Question: Is it better to do it that way or backup to another PC?


Internal drives are the fastest & most reliable method but there
is some minimal risk in that the entire computer can be destroyed
or stolen. Hence the solution of the 2nd removable drive kept
off site.

Backing up to another computer can be beneficial because 2
computers are less likely to be destroyed or stolen simultaniously.
If you have 3 PCs or more it starts to make more sense to backup
to one common network PC. For example.. 1 Laptop, 1 desktop
and an older PC setup mainly for backups.

---pete---

[dbarrow]

Im sure Rich will steer you to a reliable CPU, mobo, PSU, and vid card that can meet your needs. What Pete said is also valuable, get an APC power conditioner standby power unit.

The question of your backup plan depends on many factors.

How much drive space is occupied by your "web work" ?
How much drive space is occupied by absolutely "critical" files you can't afford to lose?

I would seriously look at partitioning these items seperate from the OS and any other files to create smaller backup jobs for them, and only them.

You may want to subscribe to my philosophy, keep the OS on a partition by itself. 99% of crashes are within the OS and if you can recover a working OS, everything else is usually intact, whereas, if you have to restore the OS and everything else is on the same image, should the backup fail for any reason ... there goes the whole thing.

You already have an external drive.
I would set up Acronis to:
weekly, backup OS to 2nd internal hd
daily, run an incremental of the OS to the internal set
weekly, as in mid-week staggered from the internal set, run a backup of OS to external
weekly, run a backup on your critical work files to internal
daily, run incremental on critical work files to internal
weekly, run staggered backup of critical files to external.
If files are time critical, daily incremental to external.

Now, depending how time critical those work files are...
Look at Acronis WORKSTATION version.
This has additional features including ability to do specific files and folders, backup to FTP, and (I believe) real time file change backup.
I have not had chance to try and test this version yet but intend to.

If you need a simple and cheap solution to the real time backup issue...
Search back to my post on SMART BACKUP.
The program is <$30 and does what it says.
I have tried it out and it works as advertised.
You can set specific files/folders to monitor and upon a file change or addition, it will automatically send a backup copy to internal, external, network, or FTP storage.
This can be real time, scheduled at intervals, or whatever meets your needs.
Backups can overwrite existing archive or keep existing copies.
Having it running in the background does not drag the system.

I originally set this up on daughter's machine for transcription files to my FTP and it worked like a charm.
Now that she is back home and local, I set it up to go to network and external drives. Point being, you just can't lose the file you spent all day working on as there will be multiple copies in multiple locations the second you save it and, you can go back to previous versions of the files.

I am waiting on Stephen Lawton to compare the Acronis version against Smartbackup as I believe the workstation version will offer the same functions from what I am reading.

If you require absolute secure backup, there are stand alone externals with ethernet connections you can stash away in a safe in the basement.

It's a matter of how much space you need dedicated to backup functions. I like an almost 2:1 ratio of backup capacity as even with compression, multiple versions of things eat a lot of space and I like multiple backup sets spanning at least a week or so date range.

All of these choices have automated and SCHEDULED backups. You should not have to remember to do a manual backup other than when you make a major change and desire a fresh copy. Remember that manual backups are the "job never done" and the one time you have to rely on it, surely it will be way out of date because you forgot to do it! Schedule and automate your backup jobs and forget about it. Just check now and then to make sure they are running as planned.

And, don't forget... one of the FIRST things you do with the new machine is create and restore successfully from each backup device and program both from a functional OS and from a Rescue Boot CD !!!

[mylanta]

I think the addition of the tray idea is just another dinosaur like tape backup, cumbersome and unnecessary. I like the idea and always have of using the backup drive for image files, email store, and file and data backup store and then apply KISS principle. The more you add such as trays, partitons for programs to me just makes the job of backup cumbersome, tedious and then starts the user taking short cuts, which wind up to be how Sam got into trouble.
He left me with Drive Image, and Datakeeper which unfortunately are gone and a plan. The file and data backup went out the window at some point and he somehow began making 1 image file a week, but having it eliminate prior backups so if he struck a corrupted file, he was wiped out.
Use a hard drive, support the email backup and image files and backups on another and then you wind up making one image file a week, and you know what it is when you look at it. I would have a great deal of difficulty as most people do scheduling something, which you would have to do with other partitions to make backups, because in 9 years of computing I have never found when to run something by schedule that doesn't wind up pissing me off when it starts up. Use one partition, back it up once a week and do it manually when the time is right. I did all the other suggestions other than the tray drives...and everyone I have ever seen use those things has sooner or later crashed and burned. Why make it so complicated? Because a friend of mine wanted to play some games on his pc that XP would not allow, he made so many different partitons with 98 and then got into more problems trashing the entire system because he could not get happy with the boot agent. He finally went to trays, one for Linux, and another for 98. I cannot tell you what eventually happened because he lost control of the whole mess by mismarking the trays one time and wiped all 3 OS some how in an afternoon. Needless to say the trays went into the trash where I personally believe they belonged in the first place.
If the usb or 1394 isn't the most reliable, don't move to trays to avoid that, they are more complicated; instead use the external as a secondary backup where you store some image files. Leave the drive off when not using it, or even put it away some where if you are that paranoid.

[dbarrow]

As I said... the maunal backup is often the "job that never gets done" ....

The Acronis Scheduler is EASY and FLAWLESS!
Just create your backup task and set the schedule, then forget about it!
You can open the Acronis GUI and check the "task list" to see when it last ran successfully and, if I recall correctly, it pops a baloon warning if it failed, or, just check the dates of your backups on the hd.

My daily E: OS partition incremental runs at 10:00am for about 5 minutes max. Even if I am on the machine, it slows down a little but does not interrupt me noticably.
On a 24/7 machine, set up everything to run at night while you sleep and it will never bother you in the least.

I still maintain that one big image is one big disaster waiting to happen.
At the least, seperate the OS from everything else.
99% of the time the crash originated in the OS and if you can get that back ... the rest will still be there.

For critical files, correctly sized partition backups run fast and incrementals run fast. Keeping multiple versions in different locations is an easy task(s) to set up.

As I said previously, should my machine go up in smoke today ... I can re-create it totally intact on new hardware in a matter of hours from 'alternative' backups stored outside of the machine.
( In case of fire, flood, tornado .. rescue the old white
machine as it contains the sum total of all 4 machines on it)

Oh! I think I mentioned before about the "USB problem" that has been cropping up where plugging in and unplugging USB devices has been frying boards....
I don't think I posted the one I read the other day about flash drives ... you should "safely remove device ... as this is being found to randomly destroy USB sticks ...
Daughter ran across this in discussion of USB footpedal for transcription she is using and further research indicates it is a major problem.

I am leaving all USB devices plugged in unless the machine is powered off and I have need to remove them.