On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:00:51 -0700, Ken Blake <>
wrote:
>On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:45:42 -0500, Char Jackson <>
>wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:30:18 -0700, Ken Blake <>
>> wrote:
>>
>
>> >I don't recommend backup to a second non-removable hard drive because
>> >it leaves you susceptible to simultaneous loss of the original and
>> >backup to many of the most common dangers: severe power glitches,
>> >nearby lightning strikes, virus attacks, even theft of the computer.
>>
>> I agree that those are the most common things to watch for, but being
>> realistic for a minute, as a group they are extremely uncommon,
>
>
>True, some things are much more common than others, but they are all
>things that happen. To take a single example, I know two people who
>recently lost all their hard drives to a nearby lightning strike.
Come on, I didn't say they are things that don't happen. I said they
are things that are extremely unlikely.
>> except
>> perhaps the theft issue where a laptop is involved, but most laptops
>> don't have a second drive so you're probably referring to desktop
>> systems, in which case uncommon isn't a strong enough word. Bottom
>> line, a recent backup to a second internal drive is far better than
>> most alternatives because everything else is much less convenient and
>> therefore much more unlikely to happen on any kind of decent schedule.
>
>
>I strongly disagree. Here are two much safer and extremely convenient
>scheduled kinds of backup:
>
>1. Carbonite
>
>2. Windows Home Server.
WHS, seriously? I can count the number of my friends, relatives,
coworkers, neighbors, and customers who have WHS on one finger. As for
Carbonite, they are one of the "backup to the cloud" solutions that I
mentioned earlier, but within that genre Carbonite doesn't get very
good reviews. SOS Online Backup tends to come out ahead and is what I
recommend to a customer who wants online backup.
>And even if you have do unscheduled manual backups to external drives,
>yes, it's less convenient, but if your files are really important to
>do, it's *much* safer than backup to internal drives.
Safer, but definitely not *much* safer. Couple that with the increased
hassle and it becomes a task that just doesn't get done reliably.
People have the best intentions, but when the backup program fires up
on schedule and prompts them to connect the target drive, they are
much more likely to click Cancel. Maybe my pool of steady customers is
unusual, but I doubt it.
>
>The choice is more convenience vs. more safety. Each person has to
>make up his own mind about that, but I know what my choice is.
You're very clearly overstating the risks of backing up to an internal
drive and understating the convenience factor that ensures the task
gets done on schedule, so I guess we'll have to agree to strongly
disagree. YMMV, but I know that for me I'd much rather have a customer
who has regular and recent backups than a customer who says, "Oh, I
meant to, but forgot."
>> >In my view, secure backup needs to be on removable media, and not kept
>> >in the computer. For really secure backup (needed, for example, if the
>> >life of your business depends on your data) you should have multiple
>> >generations of backup, and at least one of those generations should be
>> >stored off-site.
>>
>> We're in agreement on the business scenario. Not so much with the
>> other scenarios. To me, the most important thing is to get people to
>> make backups on a regular basis, and that usually entails backing up
>> to a second internal drive and sometimes (horrors!) backing up to a
>> second partition on the first drive. Only after that is accomplished
>> on a regular basis do I offer some of the alternatives you mention.
>
>
>I someone has to choose between backup to a second internal drive and
>no regular backup at all, I agree with you. But I don't agree that
>nobody can do regular manual backups. Plugging in a USB external drive
>and starting a backup manually isn't that hard.
I'm not sure I said nobody can do regular manual backups, (I didn't,
in fact), but the majority of the people I know certainly fall in that
category. When a customers does bring in a USB drive containing
backups, in nearly 100% of the cases I see very large and very
irregular gaps between the backups. That tells me that they do backups
not on the schedule that I've set up for them, but on a schedule that
is convenient to them. It's not all that surprising.
>> For example, many of my customers, after experiencing severe data loss
>> (usually due to user error rather than hardware failure), ask me to
>> set up automatic backups for them. Well, configuring their backup
>> program to run periodically is easy enough, but I can't automate the
>> physical connection of an external drive and I can't stuff blank DVD's
>> into their drive, and I know I can't rely on them to do it, so I have
>> to do something that 'just happens'. Network backup has its own set of
>> issues,
>
>
>WHS backup is very easy.
Irrelevant when so few people have it.
>> so backing up to a second internal drive, if available, is the
>> best and most realistic alternative.
>
>
>For some. Not for everybody and not what I recommend. I would
>recommend it only to someone who won't take the easy step of doing it
>to an external drive.
It's ok with me if we disagree. My recommendation is different from
yours.
>> A few have asked for a 'backup to
>> the cloud' solution and I'm happy to set that up, but those aren't
>> free and they rely on a working Internet connection.
>
>
>No, they're not free , but Carbonite is easy and works very well. For
>home users, it costs $59 a year. That may be too much money for some
>people, but it's hardly a fortune.
If you like Carbonite, you'll probably love SOS Online Backup. When it
comes to online backups, though, I'm not a big fan. There are way too
many cons.
--
Char Jackson
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