File Backup after Experiencing USB Malfunction, Looking for Alternative

• 

  Alan6984 on 25/08/2022 - 09:22

  +4

  OneDrive and DropBox are both very safe in my experience.

  If you are running Windows / MS Office, then OneDrive is probably the easiest.

  You can choose to sync local folder(s) from your laptop to OneDrive automatically, so you don't have to think about it. I don't work online on those files - only and always locally on my laptop, so size / speed is a non-issue, and since it syncs in the background, it doesn't really matter to me how long that takes. I do leave my laptop on overnight, and do a full reboot in the morning every day, so I can be as sure as possible that everything has been sent to OneDrive. I never ever use 'sleep' or 'hibernate' (both really bad ideas in my opinion), and I don't allow Windows to use 'fast startup' as I want the internal drive to be in a 'clean' state when the laptop is shutdown.

  For me, I would still have a local backup as well (USB drive is fine), but I would always want to have three copies - the primary on my laptop, a local backup on, say, USB Drive, and offsite (OneDrive).

  Also, you only have a good backup if you have actually tested it! For me, that means using a different machine (without any reference to your primary laptop - including to get any addresses, usernames, passwords etc) and making sure I can download / copy over the backup from wherever it is, and actually test opening a sample of file. When doing the test - my assumption is that my laptop has blown up and is completely lost.

  Other things to consider:

  I also run a full image of my laptop drive every weekend (I set it off on Saturday evening, and it is done on Sunday morning - no idea how long it takes, and I don't care as long as its done by Sunday morning). It is my 'get out of jail free' card if something really bad happens.

  I wipe all my machines about once every six months and restore a base image with basic config and software installed. Keeps my machines running smoothly, and removes any accumulated cruft. I do that overnight too, so it doesn't matter how long it takes to run. When I restore, if I find that anything I am now using, or settings I have changed, are not present, I either add / update them immediately and create a new base image, or make a note (since I often don't notice immediately), and then make those changes next time I do a restore, before creating a new image. Been doing that since the nineties, and I have never, not once, in 25 years, had a machine cause any issues, and they always run pretty much as new, with the exception of one machine that had a disk failure about three days after I bought it (which was replaced by the supplier of course). That ties in with my experience of server drives generally with clients - they tend to either fail very quickly presumably due to a manufacturing defect (hours / days / maybe weeks), or last many years without any issues.

  HTH,

  Alan.

  • 

    CheapAzChips on 25/08/2022 - 11:50

    Excellent advice. Nothing new to me, but advice I know I should be following better.

• 

  Dodger-nzl on 26/08/2022 - 08:37

  +1

  If you haven't already it may be worth trying the drive in another housing or direct in a PC if it's an external drive and not just a USB stick, a lot of the time the fail can be the USB connector/controller.

  • 

    seifer on 26/08/2022 - 13:35

    I second this. USBs are actually quite hardy so there's a chance it can still work with a bit of persistence. Sometimes the OS can see the USB but it won't allocate a drive to it if there's something not right. If that's the case there are recovery apps that can still pull things off of it.

    • 

      CJ on 27/08/2022 - 18:30

      I have tried a few recovery apps and chat with app developers about flash driver recovery. Was told if windows couldn't recognize usb drive, then it's sadly end of story. Very keen to see if you do know some recovery apps that could do the job. Thanks.

• 

  CJ on 27/08/2022 - 16:03

  lucky, lucky.. my usb is still readable on another laptop. gosh.. what a fright! It does teach me another lesson and rethink how to back up in future. Thanks all for your valuable advice, much appreciated Alan.@alan6984

• 

  danvelopment on 28/08/2022 - 17:53

  +1

  If you have a spare computer, UrBackup. https://www.urbackup.org/

  It's FOSS, and the server can run on Windows or Linux, with clients for Windows, Linux and OSX. It's dead easy to set up for a basic local backup. And there's heaps of room to improve on the basic set up (internet backups, RAID arrays etc).

  Choose your backup locations and your computer can backup files or even whole drive snapshots.

  If you want to experiment with port forwarding on your router, it can also do so over the internet.

  As I'm deep in the world of self-hosting, I personally run a server that cost me $200 with 4x 10TB SAS Helium drives ($150 each on eBay) in RAID1 and let friends/family backup to it for free.

• 

  NovaAlpha on 26/04/2023 - 22:37

  Set up a proper NAS solution, or have a proper RAID setup and always have backups or your backups and you'll never run into issues like this again.

  If you're lazy, just get a WD My Cloud and use it as your NAS. You can also plug in an external SSD via USB to the My Cloud and it'll just backup your backups to the external SSD.

  Otherwise, just get OneDrive. It does support offline files even when you don't have internet. As for upload/download, I don't see how that's a problem considering standard UFB gives you 300Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload these days, which is plenty. It's not like you need to upload 100GB every night, do you? It only uploads the deltas.

  If you're not tech-savvy (which sounds like you're not, no offense), then just go with OneDrive. Pay the monthly subscription and you get Microsoft 365 with it as well, easy done and forget. Otherwise, there are plenty of solutions out there that are free.

• 

  Everettpsycho on 23/05/2023 - 19:56

  How much data are you actually talking here is the first question? Cloud backups are useful but can run expensive if you're wanting terrabytes if data backed up. For most users the free plan is probably enough though, or if you have office 365 subscription you'll have more one drive space anyway.

  One suggestion for your USB backup if you don't want to rely on software that could be doing other things is to google robocopy and .bat files. It's not super complex to run the robocopy command and then paste it in to a bat files to run it by clicking on a file and it will run a comparison between your computer and drive and only update what changed.

  Best practice is have two backups, one local for quick restoration and one off-site for disaster recovery if your house gets wiped out. In modern times I'd suggest cloud for essential documents too as it's just simple and means you always have ready access to those no matter where you are even on your phone from another country.

• 

  NovaAlpha on 08/11/2023 - 01:30

  Have tried this and it actually works. Got 5TB and no issues so far.
  https://forum.atlasos.net/d/61-office365-with-5tb-to-25tb-of…

  • 

    CJ on 09/11/2023 - 14:01

    will def give it a try. great work.

  • 

    NovaAlpha on 16/01/2024 - 17:25

    Just want to add to this:

    I recommend using GoodSync instead of the OneDrive client to backup your files. GoodSync can provide very granular backup / sync options, 1-way source to target or vice versa, or both ways. It can perform syncs on deletions or without deletions, as well as many other options. The logs it provide is also very useful and helps you check exactly what is backed up, or what will be backed up. Supports multi-threads and multi-job sync as well. It's a must have software. OneDrive on the other hand is a POS. It can only sync the common folders like Documents, Music, Pictures and that's about it. If you have a folder under e.g. D:\ABC\123, you can't choose it to sync.

    On Android, use FolderSync to backup your files. It works really well and offers granular backup options, even provides webhooks. I use it in combination with MacroDroid, as I do a lot of automations backing up to multiple target destinations depending on the conditions.