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 Do not be fooled by his smile. Robert is a backup Ninja!
All of us will experience hard drive failure and data loss - It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. The question is, will you be able to cope when you lose several months or years of work?
This Tuesday, longtime NMM member Robert Szkolnicki, will share with you several backup strategies for restoring your data including: photos, video files, project data, and client work. Robert has over 21-years of experience backing up and restoring data for the City of Winnipeg. He has dealt personally and professionally with the intricacies of devising backup solutions that are tailored to an individual and company workflow. By the end of this training session you will learn how to turn hard drive failure into nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
This Training Event Will Cover:
- How to plan a backup and restoration plan that will work for you
- Affordable Hard Drives to get you started
- Unique hardware for the budding Ninja (the 4-star shuriken just doesn't cut it anymore)
- Matching the right hard drive with the right software
- The future of backup
We'll also be giving away TWO Western Digital 160 GB Passport Drives,
and One 500 GB MyBook during the evening to one of our members. If you
would like to become a paid New Media Manitoba member you can sign up
via cash or cheque for $30 annually.
We hope you'll join us this Tuesday as Robert breaks years of
silence and shares how to go from "backup-grasshopper" to
"restoration-Ninja." There is no charge to attend and all are welcome.
Don't forget your shinobi shozoko.
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Robert's notes from the presentation:
Backup Buddha Ninjitsu
or
“Backups … a damn good idea”
by
Robert Szkolnicki
for
New Media Manitoba
July 24, 2007
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Backup? What? Why? How? ? ?
“Backup” is making an exact copy of your data at a moment in time.
“Data” is a file, a text file, PDF, photo, video, MP3, a database, a program OR a folder of files.
Why are backups important?
One. I deleted something by mistake and I need it back!
Two. The computer broke and I need to work!!
Three. My laptop was here a minute ago!!!
Four. The office flooded and my computer is under water!!!!
Five. Revenue Canada wants to talk about a return I filed five years ago!!!!!
How?
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All you need to know about backups.
One. You can never have enough backups.
Two. Don’t think about the data you want to backup.
Think about the data you want to restore.
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How do large companies backup data? or If I had a million dollars …
Use reliable computer hardware and software. (Dedicated hardware.)
Assign people the task of monitoring the backup server. (Dedicated function.)
Small client programs on workstation talk to backup server.
Set up schedules to backup data every day.
Make a copy of your backed up data … every day ... and send it offsite.
Challenges: Expensive.
Not all data gets backed up. Identify data to be backed up. (What do you want restored?)
How long to keep the backed up data? (“Forever” means earliest retirement date.)
More work to do all the time … there are still only 24 hours in a day to get it done.
Need to be able to recover the backup system in case it fails.
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What can I do? or If I had a thousand dollars …
Hardware: 500GB USB/firewire disk is $200.
500GB of multi-disk fault-tolerant storage is $500.
1000GB (or 1TB) of fault tolerant storage is $1000-$1500.
Software: Off the shelf backup programs available in many sizes.
Many USB/firewire disk drives come with backup software.
What else: Backup your data online! Really? Yes!
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Cool hardware
WD Passport
100-200GB small, power brick-free, good for a year’s worth of photos, no backup software
WD MyBook
500GB, simple backup software, good for standard data recovery
Drobo
various GB size, automatic redundancy, good reliable storage, no software
Considerations: Drive speed? Good enough for your needs?
Are drives reliable?
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A look at software
WD drive software bundles. There may be some software on your external drive!
WD Backup. Basic function. Some Automation. Single program. A good start.
Retrospect. Feature rich. Backup server concept. Big learning curve to get backup server running.
CrashPlan. Cheap. Backup over the network to someone you know. Possibly slow restore. Good for small amount of data.
Jungle Disk, Mozy. Cheap. Backup to a service provider? Slow restore for large amount of data.
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The future
Storage hardware is becoming cheaper. More options!
Near future … Microsoft Windows Home Server will be appearing this fall!
It will run on one (dedicated) computer in the home and will backup all the computers in the house.
Will accept internal disk drives and USB/firewire external drives.
Storage can be redundant. (?)
Disk drives can be easily replaced.
Hardware vendors will release equipment with this software. AND software should be available for purchase.
Distant future … “utility computing” or “virtual desktop” …
Your desktop, your programs, your data will run from a service provider. So backup becomes someone else’s problem.
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Final thoughts
One.
Invest time researching backup software and storage hardware. Is it
compatible with your OS? Is it fast enough? Does it meet your data
recovery requirements? Try something out. Try out the software that is
bundled with your external drive. Buy a drive with some software
included. Key is to build confidence using it.
Two. Automate. You can do quite a bit of work when you are asleep.
Three. DIY? Dedicate a computer to perform backup operations.
Four. Test your restores. How? Introduce data recovery in your work flow.
Building a new system? Use your backup data to build it.
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Links
Western Digital Passport
http://www.wdc.com/
http://reviews.cnet.com/
http://www.dmailer.com/
Western Digital My Book
http://www.wdmybook.com/en/compare/
http://reviews.cnet.com/
Drobo
http://www.drobo.com/
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/
http://blogs.zdnet.com/
Retrospect
http://www.emcinsignia.com/
http://www.amazon.com/
CrashPlan
http://www.crashplan.com
Jungle Disk
http://www.jungledisk.com/
Mozy
http://mozy.com/
Windows Home Server
http://www.microsoft.com/
http://h71036.www7.hp.com/
Blogs and sites to watch
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/
http://storagemojo.com/
http://blogs.technet.com/homeserver/
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