FYI on Backup and Cloning

[russelltw]

A week ago, I had the wonderful experience of having a new shiny solid state hard drive crash. I could not get it back up and running at all. I was saved by my online back up service which I highly recommend (sos online backup - hipaa compliant).

I was able to download my data back to my new hard drive, but still had to piece it together so I could get back up and running. That took about a week to do. I was not happy with my plan I set up.

What I have learned now and wish to share is that backing up files are one thing, but cloning a drive is another important step to include. Cloning a hard drive to an external back up hard drive basically makes an exact copy of the primary hard drive. So if your primary hard drive crashes, you can copy the external one to your new hard drive, plug it in your machine and be up and running again as if nothing happened.

Just using a backup saves the files (which is important), but you have to install all the programs again, download all the files, make sure they are all in the correct folder, make sure the crm is working correctly, email companies to reset your software licenses, etc. Which is a very time consuming process.

So make sure you use a backup service or external hard drive, but also clone the drive. It will save you a lot of time.

 

[DataHold]

Yikes! Would you mind sharing the brand and model of the SSD that crashed? I realize it is anecdotal evidence, not a scientific sample, but I like to keep track of these things ;-) And are you using the built in Windows tool or a 3rd party app?

FWIW to anyone else with this problem or concern: folks using Windows, particularly Windows 7 & 8, have built in tools for creating a system repair disc [CD or DVD] and a system image [which can be as complete of a copy of your system and files as you want]. In Windows 8 -> Control Panel -> Windows 7 File Recovery. There are some ins and outs there, and not as easy/intuitive as other 3rd party, purpose built solutions, but it's built in and "free". If you haven't yet, take the time to do this ASAP - or buy a 3rd party app. More info here www (dot) arstechnica (dot) com/information-technology/2012/12/using-windows-8s-hidden-backup-to-clone-and-recover-your-whole-pc/

If you want to explore / learn more about imaging vs. cloning your drive as quick and quicker ways respectively to recover from drive failure like the one Russell experienced, Lincoln Spector does a good job of breaking it down on PCWorld www (dot) pcworld (dot) com/article/2029832/backing-up-your-entire-drive-cloning-vs-imaging.html

One last thing, cloud backup is highly recommended for protecting your files, but if you're like many people you may have several GBs of data or more that you need to backup. This takes a long time on most internet connections to upload, and to download. Some services will allow you to send a drive to them to get that initial backup on their system - but keep in mind it can take what seems like an eternity to download all that data back to your repaired or new machine!

Having that local backup on hand in addition to cloud backup is a major time saver [btw for business backup, make sure your backup provider meets whatever level of compliance and/or security your require]. So for speed's sake - if you can swing it, and have one or more USB 3 ports on your computer, I urge you to get a nice big [2+ TB] USB 3 external hard drive.

I am glad to answer questions and offer recommendations on 3rd party imaging and/or cloning software as well as USB 3 external drives and hubs, affordable NAS with RAID, and cloud backup service to anyone who is researching their next backup solution!

 

[russelltw]

I purchased the product from Crucial. They were great at replacing it, but when it came to retrieving the data, they only offered one solution. When it did not work, I turned to the internet and found some software, whose demo product was able to recover most of the data.

I purchased Macrium's image/cloning software. I use the imaging software to back up my local harddrive and can now run a master image and incremental images for any smaller changes that have taken place sense the first image was taken. It saves time as compared to running a new master. However, in order to restore a hard drive that failed like mine, you must have the master image and incremental images to restore to that point.

 

[RayNY]

I've had good experience with the Crucial SSD's, but they've always been run in RAID just in case. I have a stack of HDD's you wouldn't believe...

We do off-site Iron Mountain backups of important data, on-site backups to local (redundant, disk based) servers, and periodic disk clones via Norton Ghost for important systems (I personally prefer Clonezilla, but few people are comfortable with linux-based command prompt style utilities when it comes to something so vital).

IMO, if it's an important machine or server, do it the right way and run RAID