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Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System

 
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Darren Harris
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:41 am    Post subject: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
I'm going to attempt to put together a system that will use a
mirroring application for backing up.

The system will have three drives of equal size in the main case.(And
if I go SCSI, three more in an external case will be used for less
important data storage). The main three will all start out as
identical, with the operating system and the needed software
installed.

From there, the "E" drive will remain untouched for the most part
except on those rare occasions where a new app will need be installed,
but only after it has been used for a while on my main working "C"
drive.

However, the "C" drive will be mirrored to the "D" drive on a weekly
basis.

So, basically, all my work will be done on the "C" drive, with
occasional back-ups to the "D" drive. And "E" will only be used to to
bring the "C" drive back to it's original state in case anything goes
seriously wrong.

Question #1: Whether on or off the internet, will Windows normally
write to drives "D" and "E", even though I'm doing all my work on "C"?

Question #2: If so, can this be stopped? Will it require having the
ability to power down drives "D" and "E", even when the system is on?
And is this possible if all drives are in the same case?

Question 3: Can I get recommendations on which mirroring app is best
for what I want to do? I've narrowed it down to "Drive Image", and
"True Image", but are there any programs like these that can be run
from a floppy or CD, without having to install anything?

P.S.: I have some RAID hardware, but I realized that complexity makes
RAID a non-option. So since I already have SCSI hardware, I just may
stick with that.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
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Lefty
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:23 am    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
Darren Harris wrote:
Quote:
I'm going to attempt to put together a system that will use a
mirroring application for backing up.

[...]

i've done work with a couple different kind of redundancy (to choose a term
more general than mirroring) ... before you focus on details of mirroring,
have you considered the wider range of solutions? there are many, and which
one to use will vary with how you allocate resources to address: capacity,
speed, fault tollerance, recovery time, etc.

fwiw, if you only want to sync up infrequently, why not use usb drives and
plug them in only when you back-up?

fwiw2, i think mirroring as a term best applies when data is going to
multiple drives in real-time (or nearly so).
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Darren Harris
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 11:46 am    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
Quote:
i've done work with a couple different kind of redundancy (to choose a term
more general than mirroring) ... before you focus on details of mirroring,
have you considered the wider range of solutions? there are many, and which
one to use will vary with how you allocate resources to address: capacity,
speed, fault tollerance, recovery time, etc.

Yes, I've considered the wider range of solutions, and things are just
too complex to bother with. My goals are simplicity and reliability of
data back-up. Speed, fault tolerance, and recovery time are not an
issue. This is a home system I am building.

Quote:
fwiw, if you only want to sync up infrequently, why not use usb drives and
plug them in only when you back-up?

They are relatively expensive, come in limited size selections, and
I'm attempting to keep things simple with a closed "in-system" back-up
option.

Quote:
fwiw2, i think mirroring as a term best applies when data is going to
multiple drives in real-time (or nearly so).

The industry hasn't made "real-time" back-up plausible or practical
for the home user, so I am forced to stick with some form of manual
back-up. :-(

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York
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Tony A.
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 4:54 pm    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
"Darren Harris" <Searcher7@mail.con2.com> wrote in message
news:9437a27c.0312171341.2bf0b105@posting.google.com...
[...]
Quote:
Question #1: Whether on or off the internet, will Windows normally
write to drives "D" and "E", even though I'm doing all my work on "C"?

No, but viruses etc might.


Quote:
Question #2: If so, can this be stopped? Will it require having the
ability to power down drives "D" and "E", even when the system is on?
And is this possible if all drives are in the same case?

You could disable the drives in your BIOS except when performing a backup.

Then they will be utterly invisible to Windows, and to any viruses, trojans
and hackers that may access your system. A bit paranoid, but then so is
having two backup disks in the first place ;-).

Quote:
Question 3: Can I get recommendations on which mirroring app is best
for what I want to do? I've narrowed it down to "Drive Image", and
"True Image", but are there any programs like these that can be run
from a floppy or CD, without having to install anything?

Use DriveCopy (or similar) rather than DriveImage, this can be run from

floppy and it's sole purpose is to create an identical image of your drive
on another disk. You can instruct it to make the copy "hidden" as well. Some
alternatives - Norton Ghost, DrvImagerXP (freeware).

Quote:
P.S.: I have some RAID hardware, but I realized that complexity makes
RAID a non-option. So since I already have SCSI hardware, I just may
stick with that.

??? I've never used SCSI RAID, but IDE RAID 1 can be very simple. I used

Arco Duplidisk cards in a couple of machines at my previous job, see
http://www.arcoide.com. Looking at their site, their new EzMirror one button
mirroring sounds ideal for you.

Tony
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Lefty
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 9:44 pm    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
Darren Harris wrote:

Quote:
Yes, I've considered the wider range of solutions, and things are just
too complex to bother with. My goals are simplicity and reliability of
data back-up. Speed, fault tolerance, and recovery time are not an
issue. This is a home system I am building.

as someone alluded to, data back-up can imply protection against hw or sw
corruption. the advantage of the full disconnect is the (sure fire)
prevention of sw corruption across all mounted drives.

Quote:
fwiw, if you only want to sync up infrequently, why not use usb
drives and plug them in only when you back-up?

They are relatively expensive, come in limited size selections, and
I'm attempting to keep things simple with a closed "in-system" back-up
option.


perhaps you could find sw support to use drive caddies with your scsi drives
and plug them in for back-up, to achieve the same thing. i'm not a windows
expert so i can't say (in unix i'd leave caddy drives unmounted at boot, and
make scripts or whatever to do it exclusively).

Quote:
fwiw2, i think mirroring as a term best applies when data is going to
multiple drives in real-time (or nearly so).

The industry hasn't made "real-time" back-up plausible or practical
for the home user, so I am forced to stick with some form of manual
back-up. :-(

i'm not a windows guy, but i'd think someone would have made a mirroring
driver (esp for scsi) available. but if not, i'd go with drive copy or
drive image sw ... if it stores the image in a conensed (not live) format
tht should bring in some protection from sw corruption.

(i've had surgery on left wrist and have to hunt n peck with the remaining
hand ... hope brief answers help)
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Darren Harris
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
"Tony A." <you.dont@need.to.know> wrote in message news:<yKfEb.5665$FN.5489@newsfep4-winn.server.ntli.net>...
Quote:
"Darren Harris" <Searcher7@mail.con2.com> wrote in message
news:9437a27c.0312171341.2bf0b105@posting.google.com...
[...]
Question #1: Whether on or off the internet, will Windows normally
write to drives "D" and "E", even though I'm doing all my work on "C"?

No, but viruses etc might.

That's why I will have to scan the "C" drive before copyiung it to the
"D" drive.

Quote:
Question #2: If so, can this be stopped? Will it require having the
ability to power down drives "D" and "E", even when the system is on?
And is this possible if all drives are in the same case?

You could disable the drives in your BIOS except when performing a backup.
Then they will be utterly invisible to Windows, and to any viruses, trojans
and hackers that may access your system. A bit paranoid, but then so is
having two backup disks in the first place ;-).

:-) I'm paranoid because when I purchased my first system in '98 it
was a high end SCSI pc with two drives + one in an external case, and
a Jaz drive. I naively that backing up would be simple, only to have
every plan go intop the toilet, costing me hundreds of hours and
irretrievable data. Disabling and enabling in the BIOS is not an
option, mostly because it is a pain and messes up the flow of what I'm
attempting to do. I'd have to shut down, re-boot, and go through a
series of prompts to do this.(A real pain).

Quote:
Question 3: Can I get recommendations on which mirroring app is best
for what I want to do? I've narrowed it down to "Drive Image", and
"True Image", but are there any programs like these that can be run
from a floppy or CD, without having to install anything?

Use DriveCopy (or similar) rather than DriveImage, this can be run from
floppy and it's sole purpose is to create an identical image of your drive
on another disk. You can instruct it to make the copy "hidden" as well. Some
alternatives - Norton Ghost, DrvImagerXP (freeware).

I will be using Windows 98, and I intend never to use anything by
Symantec, so I'll look into DriveCopy.

Quote:
P.S.: I have some RAID hardware, but I realized that complexity makes
RAID a non-option. So since I already have SCSI hardware, I just may
stick with that.

??? I've never used SCSI RAID, but IDE RAID 1 can be very simple. I used
Arco Duplidisk cards in a couple of machines at my previous job, see
http://www.arcoide.com. Looking at their site, their new EzMirror one button
mirroring sounds ideal for you.

I have a SCSI RAID Micropolis Radion case with three drive bays and a
couple of RAID cards(HP Netraid D4943-69002 3 channel controller, and
a COMPAQ 194754-001 Smart 2/P Raid Array Controller PCI). But I'm
RAID-ignorant and really don't know if any of this hardware fits in
with my plan. I do have a couple of Compaq systems, but it is really
difficult figuring out upgrade options for PCs from major
manufacturers.

I checked out the ARCO site, and was only thrown deeper into a state
of confusion. They appear to specialize in some sort of RAID solution,
but I don't know exactly what card you were referring to, and how it
changes what hardware I can use in my system.

Since hot-swapping options are too expensive, I need another way to
*easily* "quarantine" my drives from each other until I copy between
them.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
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Lefty
Guest
PostPosted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 10:22 pm    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
Darren Harris wrote:
Quote:
Since hot-swapping options are too expensive, I need another way to
*easily* "quarantine" my drives from each other until I copy between
them.

i cold swap ide/ata drives with caddies ... cost about $20/disk (lol, that
is getting to be a higher percentge of drive cost than it used to be)

need windows experts to comment on scsi caddies
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Tony A.
Guest
PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:45 am    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
"Darren Harris" <Searcher7@mail.con2.com> wrote in message
news:9437a27c.0312180816.89993de@posting.google.com...
[...]
Quote:
I checked out the ARCO site, and was only thrown deeper into a state
of confusion. They appear to specialize in some sort of RAID solution,
but I don't know exactly what card you were referring to, and how it
changes what hardware I can use in my system.

The card I was referring to is the DupliDisk3 PCI raid controller (I used an

earlier version though) -
http://www.arcoide.com/products/raidcontrollers/pci.html.

Since you already have impressive-sounding SCSI RAID hardware though, I
guess if you're going to use RAID at all you'll use what you've got. Can't
comment on SCSI RAID, never used it.

Tony
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Dave
Guest
PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:46 am    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
In article <9437a27c.0312171341.2bf0b105@posting.google.com>, Searcher7
@mail.con2.com says...
Quote:
I'm going to attempt to put together a system that will use a
mirroring application for backing up.

The system will have three drives of equal size in the main case.(And
if I go SCSI, three more in an external case will be used for less
important data storage). The main three will all start out as
identical, with the operating system and the needed software
installed.

From there, the "E" drive will remain untouched for the most part
except on those rare occasions where a new app will need be installed,
but only after it has been used for a while on my main working "C"
drive.

However, the "C" drive will be mirrored to the "D" drive on a weekly
basis.

So, basically, all my work will be done on the "C" drive, with
occasional back-ups to the "D" drive. And "E" will only be used to to
bring the "C" drive back to it's original state in case anything goes
seriously wrong.

Question #1: Whether on or off the internet, will Windows normally
write to drives "D" and "E", even though I'm doing all my work on "C"?

Question #2: If so, can this be stopped? Will it require having the
ability to power down drives "D" and "E", even when the system is on?
And is this possible if all drives are in the same case?

Question 3: Can I get recommendations on which mirroring app is best
for what I want to do? I've narrowed it down to "Drive Image", and
"True Image", but are there any programs like these that can be run
from a floppy or CD, without having to install anything?

P.S.: I have some RAID hardware, but I realized that complexity makes
RAID a non-option. So since I already have SCSI hardware, I just may
stick with that.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

For my 2p worth, I don't think your system would serve your purpose. It

would not protect either back-up set against:
Theft
Fire
Electrical mains spikes
PSU failure spikes
Disk problems creating bad data, then copied over good data
Viruses corrupting data, which is then copied over good data

You don't say what OS, file system or quantity of data is involved, but
my own suggestion would be:

Single working drive, split into 3 partitions - OS, data, programs.
Single back-up drive, with #1 copied manually as required. (If you copy
automatically, that's when you find you've copied bad data over good.)
Use a simple copy system, such as a batch file with a zipper. I use
Infozip. No good using a wonderful drive imaging program if it gets
stolen with the computer!
Separate back-up drive(s) kept well away from the computer - in a
different house, if the data is important enough.
I would guess that both your OS & program partitions would fit onto
DVD's, zipped (& encrypted) if required. For data or bigger program
partitions, use several DVDs or get some appropriately sized IDE drives
+ caddies, which would probably be cheaper than USB or Firewire drives.

The most important thing is, whatever system you settle on, test it to
PROVE that it will back up & restore data BEFORE you need it for real.

HTH, Dave
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jasmith
Guest
PostPosted: Mon Dec 22, 2003 4:36 am    Post subject: Re: Advice Please: Building A Simple "Back-up" System Reply with quote
Raid 1 will mirror each drive. I would think that someone w/enuff $$$ to do
a scsi PC, would have some $$ to search for the best PC builder in the area
to custom build what they needed. Anymore, it makes more sense to go IDE
for simplicity and cost. Just my opinion.
"Darren Harris" <Searcher7@mail.con2.com> wrote in message
news:9437a27c.0312171341.2bf0b105@posting.google.com...
Quote:
I'm going to attempt to put together a system that will use a
mirroring application for backing up.

The system will have three drives of equal size in the main case.(And
if I go SCSI, three more in an external case will be used for less
important data storage). The main three will all start out as
identical, with the operating system and the needed software
installed.

From there, the "E" drive will remain untouched for the most part
except on those rare occasions where a new app will need be installed,
but only after it has been used for a while on my main working "C"
drive.

However, the "C" drive will be mirrored to the "D" drive on a weekly
basis.

So, basically, all my work will be done on the "C" drive, with
occasional back-ups to the "D" drive. And "E" will only be used to to
bring the "C" drive back to it's original state in case anything goes
seriously wrong.

Question #1: Whether on or off the internet, will Windows normally
write to drives "D" and "E", even though I'm doing all my work on "C"?

Question #2: If so, can this be stopped? Will it require having the
ability to power down drives "D" and "E", even when the system is on?
And is this possible if all drives are in the same case?

Question 3: Can I get recommendations on which mirroring app is best
for what I want to do? I've narrowed it down to "Drive Image", and
"True Image", but are there any programs like these that can be run
from a floppy or CD, without having to install anything?

P.S.: I have some RAID hardware, but I realized that complexity makes
RAID a non-option. So since I already have SCSI hardware, I just may
stick with that.

Thanks a lot.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
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