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Simple Windows Backup to CD/DVD?
Meri051846 asks: "I am looking for a simple backup for my own use. Ideally, this backup would be able to span from one CD to the next for 'overflow'. Right now I am just using 'Easy CD Creator' and choosing what I want backed up and saving it so that I can backup most every day or so. One problem I am having is that my backup material is growing and won't fit on one CD. Also, when I add new items to 'My Documents', for example, I have to go into my program and make sure that new document will be included in the backup. (Even when I ask 'Easy CD Creator' to update the backup, the new items are not included. It just updates the old ones.) It usually isn't, so I have to manually add it to my 'backup program'. I hope I am making myself clear. Is there any backup program that will fullfil my wishes or am I dreaming of 'things to come'?"
Are you changing 700MB of data every day? If you aren't, just try to split stuff up more, and only back up what you happen to work on that day. Unless you are working with large chunks of a pretty big data set, across the entire data set, you should be able to keep going for quite a while just by splitting things up a bit.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Are you using Win2K or WinXP? The backup program included in those versions of the OS, while somewhat clunky, is fairly full featured. You can do incremental backups and stuff like that, which should cut down on the amount of stuff you're burning every day.
The file that is generated by Windows Backup apparently isn't compressed, so you can zip it up and save a good bit of space. If that still won't fit on a CD, I'm not entirely sure what to do. Will something like WinZip span CDs the way you used to be able to span floppies with PKZip? I've honestly never had to deal with that particular problem before...
JRjr
As far as I know, doesn't Norton Ghost offer this functionality? I don't have it installed at the moment, but I think it has an option to backup to a CD/DVD.
Have you considered putting another hard disk in the computer and using RAID?
Have you considered putting another hard disk in the computer and putting daily GHOST images of your main data drive on it?
Have you considered sending daily GHOST images over the network to another computer?
The reason I ask is that backing up to optical media is a pain on such a large scale.
Mike
I'm surprised, seeing as how this is Slashdot, that nobody's mentioned a Linux solution...
It's possible to boot from a Linux CD and back up that way. You can make a disk image of your partition and back it up to multiple CD's. I think that it can even be done direct-to-CD. Mkcdrec might help you out, though I think it's targeted at Linux installations with additional partitions from other OSes, and might need a Linux distribution installed on the hard drive. Do a Google or Linux.org search for a data rescue distribution. I'm pretty sure I've heard of one or more distributions designed for affordable and easy backups of any OS.
A solution to the problem with music today
DOS and I think NT, has an archive bit, when ever a file is modified the archive bit is set.
Backup programs should clear the archive bit.
Just select files with the archive bit set. Setup WinZIP to make 700 meg zip files of all the files on your HD with the archive bit set except the dir where you store your zip files and then burn the zip files.
Also what you may want to do to start your backups is burn a knoppix CD and use it to make an image of your hd with dd. Then when you loose your hd you restore the image, boot windows and restore your zip files.
Just remember to create new images after you increase your hard drive size. as the image is only good for the size of your current drive.
I have been using NTI Backup Now for the past few months with great succes. It pretty much does exactly what you're looking for.
Set up a Linux machine as a backup master with a large hard drive, they're cheaper than most tape drives or DVD drives nowadays. A script mounts Samba shares to each of the machines on the network in turn and zips up specific folders recursively in update mode (-ru) to a file on the backup server. Set up a cron job to execute this script at midnight or whatever.
//WindowsHost/c$ to /mnt/backup (or set up custom shares on all machines), and zip up the "/My Documents" folder plus any other ones you keep stuff in.
For example, you would set up this "spider" script to crawl all your Windows machines, mount
While very low-tech, this approach has the advantage that the backup archive is a plain zip file that you can browse and extract individual files from with tons of tools on just about any platform. Plus, after the initial archive creation (which takes a while for large directory structures), updates are very quick.
Mirror the backup to two different drives if you're paranoid. Two 120GB drives run less than $200 and provide quite a bit of home-level data safety. Get a couple of hard drive sleds so you can swap the drives out at any moment, and you're set.
Perhaps you mean RAID 1? RAID 0 is disk striping--it will improve disk performance at the cost of data integrity. If either disk fails with RAID 0 then the data on both drives likely will be lost. RAID 1 (and RAID 5, if you buy an expensive enough RAID controller) specifies redundant storage so that a failure on one drive can be recovered.
--Be human.
I needed the exact same thing for my office server backups (~2-3GB) onto a DVD drive. I couldn't find anything online that fit the bill, but I recently browsed the computer store (CompUsa in this case) and got a $70 package which does exactly what you want, including compression and all the usual backup/restore facilities you want to be used to. I have it set up with 5 DVD-RWs, one for each weekday, and I do a full backup to each since there's no need for speed or the hassle of incremental or differential backups.
Unfortunately for you, I don't recall the name of the package I'm using. Probably something like "BackupMyPC" or something like that. It had the two features I needed: Backup of network drives (some backup programs limit you so they can charge more for the 'professional' version) and backup directly to DVD - in this case a DVD+/-R/RW Firewire/USB2.0 (firewire worked, USB 2.0 didn't)
There were two different packages (same cost) that did what I needed. This one is an adaptation of, IIRC, Veritas backup software, so I chose it based on that.
Anyway, they exist. If you need to know the particular package I'm using, post a reply here to remind me, and I'll post it as a reply to this message in a day or two.
Nevermind, here it is.
-Adam
Dantz Retrospect Professional is less than $90 and will do everything you're looking for. Namely, it will allow you to backup to CD-R and will span your backups across multiple media if necessary. It keeps a catalog on your local hard drive of what files it has backed-up to which media, relieving you of having to manually specify which files have changed. (You can re-create this catalog if your HD dies by just feeding Retrospect all the media from the backup set, BTW.)
Retrospect does a full backup once, and then incremental backups from then on. This means that your incrementals happen very quickly, and your backup set will only grow as quickly as you create/change files on your computer. Retrospect also will backup the registry, so you can restore the entire system if necessary.
Lastly, Retrospect has a built-in scheduler that makes it easy to schedule nightly, unattended backups. Once you're getting a snapshot of your HD every night, you can go back to any point in time and recover a file as it existed on that particular date. Truly powerful stuff, and far, far beyond what NT Backup is capable of.
Oh, and there's a free 30-day trial version you can download from Dantz' website. Its fully-functional, and when you buy a full license you can just enter the new license key into the trial install to make it permenant. That way you don't have to re-install or copy your scripts and configurations from the trial install to the full install.
RAID isn't a backup. It isn't meant to take the place of a backup. Backups let you restore files as they existed at some point in time in the past.
rm -rf, worms, trojans, etc.. RAID does nothing for these.
Use rsync-incremental, or rdiff-backup for backing up your unix-like systems to other disks. Both are excellent backup solutions (use them in addition to RAID for full protection).
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The RAID solution only works in cases of hardware failure.
In my experience the vast majority of data recovery requirement has been due to user error. With a RAID setup, whilst you have data redundancy, it cannot substitute for backups in cases of accidental deletion and overwrite.
The use of a hard disk(s) as a backup medium, however, has been for me the cheapest and fastest method. Take the backup drives out of the system when you are not actively backing up data.
If you were (as someone already suggested) to use dd under linux to record a complete image of your live partitions to a backup drive, you can instantly be back up in the case of a hardware failure, and then buy a new backup drive as soon as possible.
Yes. This is a wonderful reason not to use RAID as a backup solution.
This also makes me wonder why anyone hasn't implemented a VAX-like versioning filesystem for Linux (maybe they have and I'm not aware of them). The idea is that when a file is saved, only the changes are saved (sort of like with CVS or something). This way any specific version of a file can be recovered. Combine this with RAID and I think you might have a fairly compelling backup solution.
Since high density tapes now cost more per GB than cheap hard drives, it seems like the backup industry would capitalize on this and start making hard-drive backup systems that provide full on-line access to backups. I know ADSM can be configured in such a manner, but I'd prefer a solution more suitable for home usage.
--Be human.
I used a relatively simple MS-DOS batch file for just this purpose for years. All you need are 24 CD-RW (for one year's worth of backups), Zip (WinZIP's command line is what I used), a CD drive that can be accessed as a drive letter (Drive Letter Access (DLA) or some other proprietary name), and basic command line ability.
Have the batch compress each folder into a temp file by the same name (in \windows\temp or something) and then copy each to CD-RW. Use Window's scheduler (all have it, I use Win95a) to run the batch every night and rotate CD-RWs for each day of the week ("child"). Each Friday, rotate one of four separate CD-RW's ("father", a child grows up), and the first Friday of every month, retire one permenantly ("grandfather", a father stops working).
I actually clean off the temp zip files each night and re-write them in entirety. There are more complex, only-changed-since-last-backup, archive bit methods, but I like this simple-minded organization and being able to have immediate access to any previous day within 7, any previous week within 4, and any previous month indefinitely. Plus the Zip files in temp are redundant with the CD, meaning every file exists three places at any time. Also, media is not re-used too often in this scheme (it retires when "old"), and there aren't multi-media dependencies which can botch the entire system if a single tape goes bad.
Of course, this was up to a few months ago when my drive crashed, I completely bailed to Linux, and re-wrote the whole thing as a Bash script. I also now have more content than will fit on a disk bzipped, but it's essentially the same process except that I have odd/even day staggering and only half the redundancy. But at least I always know what's on any given disk and know how to go back to any given time to find backups if needed. (The BackupExec our NT servers use at work, OTOH, is abysmal in reliability, setup and actually trying to restore a file in less than an hour. Probably theoretically more sound, but darned if I can see that it has more *practical* application.)
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
It does all you require...writes from network drives, writes to cd's via Roxio's DirectCD, and the price is right. :)
But, investing in a DVD-RW is the way to go when your cd's get full. http://www.mlin.net/RapidBackup.shtml
On August 4, I sent this message to Nero technical support:
To: Nero (Ahead Software) Technical Support (techsupport@nero.com)
Subject: Does Nero have the Roxio flaw?
Does Nero 6 Ultra Edition burn to DVD all the files in a directory that is included in a compilation, or just the files that were there when the compilation was made?
Roxio Easy CD Creator saves only the files that were in the original compilation, even though more files may have been added to the folder. This is, in my opinion, a big problem, since it means that a new compilation must be made every time for folders in which files are frequently added.
I got back a generic, useless answer:
Dear valued Customer,
Thank you for your email.
Nero is a powerful program it will backup all files.
If you have any further questions please do not hestitate to contact us.
best regards
Ismael
US Ahead Support Team
first
NERO=GOOD
second.
FAT32 will only do -40GB(i can't remember exactly),
third
seagate sucks for IDE get WD.
fourth, how about daily backups, should i get a new harddrive for every day?
fifth, how about "backup" data and not "archive" data. You need to back data up so that it may be restored with permissions and directoryies correctly.
sixth.
hey, if the drive CRASHES you can't really get the data off of it to use the windows "re-import all your settings
seventh
Who wants to reinstall windows and all the settings if something goes wrong if they can just restore it from backup?
eighth
"the chances of a hard drive that is unused crashing are so astronomically small, don't worry about it" - guess what? 90% of all hard drives that fail are not installed in a computer but being stored or moved.
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the answer(s)
(1)
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get a removable rack hard drive(WD - very large), partition it into equal blocks the maximum size of a FAT32 partition(use FAT32 for compatability) and put it in an external USB2.0 box.
use a command line zip utility to zip the entire drive up using the -ur options and working from the root directory to a file on the partitions of the USB drive. Name the file by the date and save it to the USB2.0 hard drive and overwrite the first file and rename it weekly.
the -u updates the file so you only change files that need changed which saves you time.
Then weekly you also make a copy of the latest backup file and name it by the week and keep those for six months. you can also burn these backup images off to cd-r or dvd-r for backup redundancy.
To restore your system, you can boot off a floppy and unzip the files from your USB2.0 drive to the disk, and hopefully you made a copy of the MBR onto the floppy so you can restore that as well. The USB2.0 drive holder should have come with a DOS floppy driver or if your luck your BIOS can recognize this drive.
some other compression utilities offer similar options to avoid re-copying files for no reason. Using the old backups will make your backup process faster after the first week because of this -u option.
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(2)
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use Nero and "burn HD backup" from the file menu
this has some limitations. First, it doesn't like backing up active file systems(like your windows OS install) but it can, just nothing else can be running or accessing the disk while the backup is happening.
secondly, it can only restore a backup completely, overwriteing the entire partition it is restoring to.
third. individual files cannot be extraced from the archive, only the WHOLE system.
also, this cannot burn to DVD yet. maybee in 6.5, but not 6.
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(3)
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get a real backup program, dedicated to this=money.
There should have been one more requirement listed in the Slashdot story: Encryption. If your backups are encrypted, then you can leave them anywhere.
I tried to recover files off CDR's I burned 5 years ago and realized that CDR's don't last forever. Turns out that they fade really quickly, and if you bought a bad batch - the entire set may be corrupted in a few years.
There's lots of research on what happens to CDR's after several years, unfortunately they haven't been around that long (in mass use).
After my latest catastrophe, I've switched to backing to a portable HD, AND making 2 annual backups to CDR (using DIFFERENT brands of CDR). Hopefully Kodak or one of the big boys is working on a true archival quality cdr - till then, DIVERSIFY to save some grief!
The new WinZip 9.0 beta has AES encryption, that is being added in the best possible way:
AES Encryption Information
AES Coding Tips for Developers
There are many new features to this upgrade. Upgrades are free to registered users.
WinZip has a spanning option: "-&[w] Span to multiple removable disks. Use the optional w suffix to wipe out all files on the removable disk." However, I've never used it, and I don't think it writes directly to DVDs or CDs. There is no way to have WinZip span to multiple zip files of specified length, apparently.
While I support encryption in a lot of applications, this is not one of them. When you need your data back, the last thing you need to worry about is where you wrote down the password. Because of course, the drive that contained that batch file that was doing the encryption is now destroyed.
Go to the bike store and get a big lock. Make sure the spindle hole of a CD will fit over the locking bar. Then simply impale your backup set on the lock. Physically securing a key is something we're all trained at doing.
Of course, you could just write your encryption key down in a safe place and secure that physically, but sometimes a big hunk of metal is easier.
cdrecord for windows
Unxutils for windows (Includes tar, no cygwin, native)
zsh for windows (no longer maintained)
And of course, cygwin comes with bash, there are probably others...
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I use XCOPY to backup my favorite folders every couple of hours. I put one backup on each of the three drives in the system, and I keep reminding myself to also make copies to a remote drive. There's an option to only copy files with the archive bit, so the copy goes very very fast, and you can schedule it to run every hour or so as you'll receive no perceptable performance impact. Then I ZIP up a snapshot of the backup directory once a month.
Zipping up the entire directory every day (or every couple of hours) just wastes disk space (do you really need a snapshot of every day?). Winzip also has the option to only add newer files to the zip, but it won't be as quick as an XCOPY, so you can't run it while you're using your computer without taking a performance hit.
Don't forget to backup your EMAIL!
I use a program I found called "Handy Backup" It's only $30, and can backup to a local directory, an FTP, or to a CD-R(W), either copying straight data/folders, or ZIPping the files/folders to take up less space -- Backup events can be scheduled for certain times, or even when you log on/log off your workstation.
It's a pretty slick program, and I recommend it, having used it for the past year and a half on my own server.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
Have you considered putting another hard disk in the computer and using RAID?
No! RAID is not a substitute for backups! The only thing RAID protects against is disk failure. Even assuming that RAID works perfectly, which it doesn't, how many other ways are there to lose data?
- Accidental deletion. Ever needed to get a file off backup because of your mistake?
- Accidental overwrite. "Crap, I lost my original!"
- Malicious attack. Better hope your antivirus is up to date.
- Catastrophe. Fire, flood, power surge... or just shoving the machine off the desk onto the floor.
- Corruption. Your RAM goes flaky and munges your file, which you blissfully save to disk. Thanks to RAID, you have reliable access to your bad data.
Backups go to removable media. Period. And for anything even remotely important, like financial records, you keep one offsite.
--
Dum de dum.
Freedom is not the license to do what we like, it is the power to do what we ought.