morgandawn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
morgandawn) wrote2023-05-12 12:50 am
morgandawn) wrote2023-05-12 12:50 am
Backup Learnings
My backup learnings
1. I have been diligent backing up all files from one external drive to another. But the backup software settings (FBackup) for the vid files were set to 'default" which means when they backed up the DVD video files they overlooked the .info and .bup files that are necessary to make the DVDs playable. There are also some older non-std video files that they failed to backup. So pay attention to the backup software settings. I use WinMerge, a free Windows software to do file by file bit (byte??) comparisons of the first initial backup to validate will check once a month
1. I have been diligent backing up all files from one external drive to another. But the backup software settings (FBackup) for the vid files were set to 'default" which means when they backed up the DVD video files they overlooked the .info and .bup files that are necessary to make the DVDs playable. There are also some older non-std video files that they failed to backup. So pay attention to the backup software settings. I use WinMerge, a free Windows software to do file by file bit (byte??) comparisons of the first initial backup to validate will check once a month
2. Off-site backup is key. Luckily for the video files and fanzines I already did a manual backup of these files to the cloud (incrementally adding new files along the way). This turned out to be important because around 10% of the video files on the external drives were corrupted . And because the backup software failed to capture some of the older files/non-std files, the uploaded versions were key to restoring the files.
3. For my personal files I am testing a 2 TB upload to Backblaze- I am hoping it will take less than the 1 month the upload calculators are saying it. Once uploaded it will go faster because it will be incremental. Backblaze seems affordable and they also offer an option to mail you an external drive with all your files should you have a complete hard drive failure (ca $200). I am using a description key-phrase to encrypt the files
4. And finally - invest in an image restore program. This saved me when the hard drive failed. I have so many custom software programs, profiles and plugins re-installing them all would be crippling. I used a software called Macrium Reflect and it was amazing. It is no longer free but there are other image programs. But once I had a new SSD hard drive installed, loaded with Windows I was able to conect an external drive to the computer, change the boot order and launch Macrium Restore and it did the rest. I now plan to do a weekly image file backup to a portable external drive. (I had been doing monthly)