Backups to the cloud

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Stephen

I do a differential backup to one of my own web sites. The first time
it took about 2 hours but now it only take about five minutes to
backup the changes. I have three web sites hosted in the US and one in
the UK. There is no encryption as I've nothing to hide!

Steve

Have you worked out how long it would take you to do a restore? If all
your backups since the original have been differential/incremental, then
I presume it would take the original two hours plus however many five
minutes you have done since - potentially a Very Long Time. (Plus,
though this depends on how your incremental system works, you might end
up having restored a lot of files you've created and deleted along the
way.)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

"Backing up to the cloud" is like keeping your furniture at the storage
while living home without it. If one can buy computer - surly one
could buy an extra volume of HDD and do the backup on own PC.
The rest of the problem and its implications are academic...-

[...]

I backup my home PC to external USB HDs, but it is a chore and in case
of a house fire, the backups would also be destroyed. Taking an

It is a good idea to read what the original poster says before firing
off a reflex reply (-:
[]
(And one of those who followed up to Forte didn't read what _he_ said
either - he said buy an extra volume of HDD, which I can only interpret
as meaning a physical second drive, not making another partition on the
existing one.)

OK, have I offended everyone yet (-:?

My own take on the original post: it's horses for courses. If your data
is critical to your business, rather than just personal, then off-site
backup is a wise precaution; how much you trust the provider, and/or the
encryption if any you use, is something only you can decide. However, I
realise that doesn't help, since you were in effect asking for
recommendations.

One possibility is to agree/arrange with a friend/relation to do backups
to his system, rather than use a third party; depends how much you trust
him. Even if you are a company, you might find another local - but not
in the same building - company with whom you could come to some such
arrangement. In both cases (friend or business), the arrangement could
be mutual, i. e. you offer to do the same for him/them (and maybe to buy
the necessary extra drives, and possibly encryption software). Come to
think of it, I'm surprised such arrangements between small companies
aren't common - or maybe they are but just not talked about much.

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

In message <[email protected]>, Stephen

Have you worked out how long it would take you to do a restore? If all
your backups since the original have been differential/incremental, then
I presume it would take the original two hours plus however many five
minutes you have done since - potentially a Very Long Time. (Plus,
though this depends on how your incremental system works, you might end
up having restored a lot of files you've created and deleted along the
way.)

There is no point in restoring to anything earlier than the latest
backup copy. Two hours at most.

Steve

--
Neural network software applications, help and support.

Neural Network Software. www.npsl1.com
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com

 

[Char Jackson]

There is no point in restoring to anything earlier than the latest
backup copy. Two hours at most.

If your "latest backup copy" is an incremental backup, good luck using
it to restore anything. The whole idea with incrementals is that you
have to start with your last full backup and move forward from there,
and thus potentially a Very Long Time. That's why people who use
incremental backups also do a full backup on a regular basis, not just
one time. (Maybe you're already doing this but simply failed to
mention it.)

 

[Char Jackson]

One possibility is to agree/arrange with a friend/relation to do backups
to his system, rather than use a third party; depends how much you trust
him. Even if you are a company, you might find another local - but not
in the same building - company with whom you could come to some such
arrangement. In both cases (friend or business), the arrangement could
be mutual, i. e. you offer to do the same for him/them (and maybe to buy
the necessary extra drives, and possibly encryption software). Come to
think of it, I'm surprised such arrangements between small companies
aren't common - or maybe they are but just not talked about much.

I run a small business and that idea doesn't sound good to me in the
slightest. There are so many other, better, options available.

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

In message <[email protected]>, Stephen
[]
I do a differential backup to one of my own web sites. The first time
it took about 2 hours but now it only take about five minutes to
backup the changes. I have three web sites hosted in the US and one in
the UK. There is no encryption as I've nothing to hide!

Steve

Have you worked out how long it would take you to do a restore? If all
your backups since the original have been differential/incremental, then
I presume it would take the original two hours plus however many five
minutes you have done since - potentially a Very Long Time. (Plus,
though this depends on how your incremental system works, you might end
up having restored a lot of files you've created and deleted along the
way.)

There is no point in restoring to anything earlier than the latest
backup copy. Two hours at most.

If your "latest backup copy" is an incremental backup, good luck using
it to restore anything. The whole idea with incrementals is that you
have to start with your last full backup and move forward from there,
and thus potentially a Very Long Time. That's why people who use
incremental backups also do a full backup on a regular basis, not just
one time. (Maybe you're already doing this but simply failed to
mention it.)

It doesn't work like that as there is only one full backup. That's the
base line. After that the full backup is changed using a comparison
method as they occur. It's not additive. Consider a full backup of
items a, b, c & d. If c changes then that is the only part of the
backup that is copied.

I've just run a backup of my news and application source code data.
389 changes took 34 seconds from the commands:-

"C:\Installers\WNH stuff\DIRSCO32.exe" -mpsr1 "C:\Documents and
Settings\Steve\Application Data\Forte\Agent" D:\Forte\Agent

"C:\Installers\WNH stuff\DIRSCO32.exe" -mpsr1 c:\easynn d:\easynn

Steve

--
Neural network software applications, help and support.

Neural Network Software. www.npsl1.com
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. www.justnn.com

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

In message <[email protected]>, Stephen
[]
I do a differential backup to one of my own web sites. The first time
it took about 2 hours but now it only take about five minutes to
backup the changes. I have three web sites hosted in the US and one in
the UK. There is no encryption as I've nothing to hide!

Steve

Have you worked out how long it would take you to do a restore? If all
your backups since the original have been differential/incremental, then
I presume it would take the original two hours plus however many five
minutes you have done since - potentially a Very Long Time. (Plus,
though this depends on how your incremental system works, you might end
up having restored a lot of files you've created and deleted along the
way.)

There is no point in restoring to anything earlier than the latest
backup copy. Two hours at most.

If your "latest backup copy" is an incremental backup, good luck using
it to restore anything. The whole idea with incrementals is that you
have to start with your last full backup and move forward from there,
and thus potentially a Very Long Time. That's why people who use
incremental backups also do a full backup on a regular basis, not just
one time. (Maybe you're already doing this but simply failed to
mention it.)

I think you are describing differential backups here. A well-designed
incremental backup system restores the chosen backup in one operation by
logically combining the whole megillah into the proper single image.

When I mount a given Macrium incremental backup, I see a full image as
it existed at the time of the incremental backup I choose. If I have
five incrementals (plus the base BU), I can see six different images
corresponding to six different states of the drive.

It doesn't help that both terms have been used in this thread, with a
hint of interchangeability...

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

OK, have I offended everyone yet (-:?

No, but please keep trying.

 

[XS11E]

Automatic backups to a cloud server is a seemingly attractive
solution but one I've avoided to-date because of its possible
security risks and loss of control of the data.

Am I being overly paranoid?
No.

Does encryption of the data before cloud backup really solve the
security risks?

No, it makes it more difficult but doesn't solve the risks.

If so, which are the best recommended services for secure
encrypted cloud backups?

You want one that can guarantee it'll never go bankrupt and have to
dispose of your data to who-knows(?), one that can guarantee they'll
NEVER have a disk failure or other disaster that will lose all your
data, one that can guarantee they'll never have a dishonest employee
who will sell your data and one that can guarantee your data will be
safe and secure for the next x many years.

In other words, cloud backup = total disaster waiting to happen (and
probably not waiting very long!)

I wouldn't touch it under ANY circumstances.

 

[Ed Cryer]

No, but please keep trying.

I'm working on my insulting skills. I'm taking lessons from Big Steel
and Hot Totty.


Ed

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I'm working on my insulting skills. I'm taking lessons from Big Steel
and Hot Totty.


Ed

I see you have the good sense to apprentice yourself to the masters.

 

[Char Jackson]

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 08:13:37 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message <[email protected]>, Stephen
[]
I do a differential backup to one of my own web sites. The first time
it took about 2 hours but now it only take about five minutes to
backup the changes. I have three web sites hosted in the US and one in
the UK. There is no encryption as I've nothing to hide!

Steve

Have you worked out how long it would take you to do a restore? If all
your backups since the original have been differential/incremental, then
I presume it would take the original two hours plus however many five
minutes you have done since - potentially a Very Long Time. (Plus,
though this depends on how your incremental system works, you might end
up having restored a lot of files you've created and deleted along the
way.)

There is no point in restoring to anything earlier than the latest
backup copy. Two hours at most.

If your "latest backup copy" is an incremental backup, good luck using
it to restore anything. The whole idea with incrementals is that you
have to start with your last full backup and move forward from there,
and thus potentially a Very Long Time. That's why people who use
incremental backups also do a full backup on a regular basis, not just
one time. (Maybe you're already doing this but simply failed to
mention it.)

I think you are describing differential backups here. A well-designed
incremental backup system restores the chosen backup in one operation by
logically combining the whole megillah into the proper single image.

Could be, I'm easily confused when it comes to incremental versus
differential backups, so I reference Wikipedia, which says:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_backup>

Incremental
The most basic form of incremental backup involves only those files
that have changed since the last backup. Since changes are typically
low, incremental backups are much smaller and quicker than full
backups. For instance, following a full backup on Friday, a Monday
backup will contain only those files that changed since Friday. A
Tuesday backup contains only those files that changed since Monday,
and so on. A full restoration of data will naturally be slower, since
all increments must be restored. Should any one of the copies created
fail, including the first (full), restoration will be incomplete.

Differential
A cumulative backup of all changes made since the last full or normal
backup, i.e., the differences since the last full backup. The
advantage to this is the quicker recovery time, requiring only a full
backup and the last differential backup to restore the system. The
disadvantage is that for each day elapsed since the last full backup,
more data needs to be backed up, especially if a significant
proportion of the data has changed.

The way I read it, incremental backups are a chain that starts with a
full backup and includes EVERY incremental backup (in sequential
order) created since that full backup. If the full backup or any of
the incremental backups has errors or is missing, the whole backup is
lost.

With a differential backup, OTOH, only the full backup and the latest
differential backup are needed to do a restore. The intermediate
differential backups are not used and don't have to be intact or even
present.

When I mount a given Macrium incremental backup, I see a full image as
it existed at the time of the incremental backup I choose. If I have
five incrementals (plus the base BU), I can see six different images
corresponding to six different states of the drive.

I assume Macrium is playing games behind the scenes in order to
provide a simpler interface to the user, but I'd bet the fact remains
that each of the incremental backups (and of course the full backup
that they're based on) all need to be present and intact before a
restore is possible. Thus, my comment about needing some wicked good
luck to do a restore with just an incremental backup and not it's
predecessors and it's full backup. It can't be done, and even if all
the pieces are present and intact, it still takes a lot of patience
because the full backup and each of the incrementals have to be
processed in order.

It doesn't help that both terms have been used in this thread, with a
hint of interchangeability...

Yup, it doesn't help me at all, seeing as how I'm so easily confused
when it comes to backups. Personally, I only do full backups each and
every time and skip all of the incremental/differential nonsense.

 

[Char Jackson]

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 08:13:37 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message <[email protected]>, Stephen
[]
I do a differential backup to one of my own web sites. The first time
it took about 2 hours but now it only take about five minutes to
backup the changes. I have three web sites hosted in the US and one in
the UK. There is no encryption as I've nothing to hide!

Steve

Have you worked out how long it would take you to do a restore? If all
your backups since the original have been differential/incremental, then
I presume it would take the original two hours plus however many five
minutes you have done since - potentially a Very Long Time. (Plus,
though this depends on how your incremental system works, you might end
up having restored a lot of files you've created and deleted along the
way.)

There is no point in restoring to anything earlier than the latest
backup copy. Two hours at most.

If your "latest backup copy" is an incremental backup, good luck using
it to restore anything. The whole idea with incrementals is that you
have to start with your last full backup and move forward from there,
and thus potentially a Very Long Time. That's why people who use
incremental backups also do a full backup on a regular basis, not just
one time. (Maybe you're already doing this but simply failed to
mention it.)

It doesn't work like that as there is only one full backup. That's the
base line. After that the full backup is changed using a comparison
method as they occur. It's not additive. Consider a full backup of
items a, b, c & d. If c changes then that is the only part of the
backup that is copied.

My mistake. You're describing a differential backup but as Gene
pointed out, both 'differential' and 'incremental' have been tossed
around in this thread and somehow I assumed you were doing incremental
backups. I see now that you're using differential backups.

I've just run a backup of my news and application source code data.
389 changes took 34 seconds from the commands:-

"C:\Installers\WNH stuff\DIRSCO32.exe" -mpsr1 "C:\Documents and
Settings\Steve\Application Data\Forte\Agent" D:\Forte\Agent

"C:\Installers\WNH stuff\DIRSCO32.exe" -mpsr1 c:\easynn d:\easynn

It's not the backups that take a Very Long Time, it's the restore
(when incremental backups are used and the chain is allowed to grow
out of control).

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

On Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:51:12 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme

On Fri, 9 Sep 2011 08:13:37 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

In message <[email protected]>, Stephen
[]

I think you are describing differential backups here. A well-designed
incremental backup system restores the chosen backup in one operation by
logically combining the whole megillah into the proper single image.

Could be, I'm easily confused when it comes to incremental versus
differential backups, so I reference Wikipedia, which says:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_backup>

The way I read it, incremental backups are a chain that starts with a
full backup and includes EVERY incremental backup (in sequential
order) created since that full backup. If the full backup or any of
the incremental backups has errors or is missing, the whole backup is
lost.

With a differential backup, OTOH, only the full backup and the latest
differential backup are needed to do a restore. The intermediate
differential backups are not used and don't have to be intact or even
present.


I assume Macrium is playing games behind the scenes in order to
provide a simpler interface to the user, but I'd bet the fact remains
that each of the incremental backups (and of course the full backup
that they're based on) all need to be present and intact before a
restore is possible. Thus, my comment about needing some wicked good
luck to do a restore with just an incremental backup and not it's
predecessors and it's full backup. It can't be done, and even if all
the pieces are present and intact, it still takes a lot of patience
because the full backup and each of the incrementals have to be
processed in order.

I could (might even) try an experiment - rename an intermediate
incremental and see what happens

I would expect (simple logic dictates) that everything up to (but of
course not including) the altered one would be OK and everything from
that point on would be corrupted. This should be true both for mounting
and for backing up. So in some sense, you don't need *all* the chapters
of the backup to be OK - but that implies accepting some loss :-(

What I really meant to imply (which I didn't express well) in earlier
posts was that backup software for normal people should normally rebuild
the desired version automatically without requiring any user
intervention to incorporate the correct data. The mounting software
*seems* to support this idea...

Yup, it doesn't help me at all, seeing as how I'm so easily confused
when it comes to backups. Personally, I only do full backups each and
every time and skip all of the incremental/differential nonsense.

Same here about the confusion. That's why I was sensitive to the problem


As for the risks, etc, I do alternate backups. I make two full backups
and I do incrementals on them more or less alternately. But not often
enough...

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I could (might even) try an experiment - rename an intermediate
incremental and see what happens

As expected.

I had a base image and three incremental images in one folder, so I
changed the second incremental image's extension.

I could then mount the base image and the first incremental image as
separate drives with different contents, matching the dates on the image
files.

When I restored the extension that I had changed, I could see all four
virtual drives with evidence of four different dates of last use.

 

[Char Jackson]

As expected.

I had a base image and three incremental images in one folder, so I
changed the second incremental image's extension.

I could then mount the base image and the first incremental image as
separate drives with different contents, matching the dates on the image
files.

When I restored the extension that I had changed, I could see all four
virtual drives with evidence of four different dates of last use.

As you say, "as expected." Thanks for confirming.

 

[Char Jackson]

As for the risks, etc, I do alternate backups. I make two full backups
and I do incrementals on them more or less alternately. But not often
enough...

I use the scheduler built into Acronis True Image to make a full
backup every other week, with a second task that makes a full backup
every week in between the first task. The result is that I get a new
full backup every week. I have to automate it or it won't get done.

 

[Char Jackson]

As expected.

I had a base image and three incremental images in one folder, so I
changed the second incremental image's extension.

I could then mount the base image and the first incremental image as
separate drives with different contents, matching the dates on the image
files.

When I restored the extension that I had changed, I could see all four
virtual drives with evidence of four different dates of last use.

By the way, here's a nice graphic that explains/describes the three
main types of backups and gives some pros/cons of each.

<http://kb.acronis.com/sites/default/files/content/2006/05/1536/types_of_backup.png>

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

By the way, here's a nice graphic that explains/describes the three
main types of backups and gives some pros/cons of each.

<http://kb.acronis.com/sites/default/files/content/2006/05/1536/types_of_backup.png>

Pretty - and pretty clear. Thanks!

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I use the scheduler built into Acronis True Image to make a full
backup every other week, with a second task that makes a full backup
every week in between the first task. The result is that I get a new
full backup every week. I have to automate it or it won't get done.

I don't automate mine, and yet they do get done - almost every single
year.

OK, that's an exaggeration