Computer junkies I need help.

I had the worst @$$%^&*@ day of my life. I got to my shop and the comp that has everything from every damn car I have worked on and what I did to it as well as my entire customer data base crashed. :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

I back it up but get busy and sometimes I forget and it go's too long. The hard drive took a $hit and really really screwed me. Well I had a Forensic lab off I-25 and Arapahoe road get me what I needed off of it for $1100 :cry: They are supposed to have it to me tomarrow.

I need to know what I need to have my network automatically back it self up every 24 hours. I will pay you to help me set it up so this can not ever happen again. My shop is growing faster than I can keep up with and this really cost me a ton of money in down time.

I would rather give one of the members here the money if you can do it than somebody I don't know. If you can help me let me know.

The next time I go up shooting I have a hard drive that is going to experience the full wrath of my M16. I don't care if it takes me all day to clean the mess up. :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

BUMMER! Been there... sorry for the headache man.

I'm an IT admin by trade but have never setup backup infrastructure myself (100+ IT types in my group doing different things). What I can tell you is what we use... EMC's Retrospect:
http://www.emcinsignia.com/products/smb/retroforwin/

My loose understanding is that it's a fairly solid application - we've been on it for several years now with varying backup schedules. You'll need a dedicated server with LOTS of hard disk (probably a RAID-5 config), and the faster your network the better, natch. If you click their "Buy" link on the right, you'll see another link for "...Local Solution Provider" i.e. a local outfit that'll do it for you. Put in some basic location info and you'll get a list of providers. No idea what they'd charge though. If you click the link above that one for "...Direct Marketing Reseller" you'll see vendors. Price at CDW for single server, unlimited clients (pretty sure that'd do it for your needs) is about $600.

Dang. Wish I could offer more. Feel free to PM me, I'd be happy to talk to the guys that run our system and share/consult.


If you can wait til the next North shoot to blow away the hard disk I'll happily toss you a mag worth of .223 out of sheer sympathy. :evil:

And honestly, good on ya for practicing backups in the first place. You might be surprised how many folks don't even think about it. You even knew how to get the data recovered professionally! <hi-5>

I bought a CD/DVD burner that included a copy of Nero. You can set Nero to back up the hard drive or just portions of it at any interval you want. I also bought an external HD to store the backup on. Very easy to setup and will be less than $200.

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Originally Posted by newracer

I bought a CD/DVD burner that included a copy of Nero. You can set Nero to back up the hard drive or just portions of it at any interval you want. I also bought an external HD to store the backup on. Very easy to setup and will be less than $200.

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+1. Tim, this will probably be the best bet for you (I'm assuming that you don't have a huge network). let me know if you need some help. I have an IT degree, although it's never been put to any use at all.

Western Digital and Seagate sell some decent external hard drives with software to automatically backup your files, XP/2000/2003 all have decent backup software builtin for simple file backup scheduling.

I would setup a decent external HDD for daily/nightly backups and a DVD burner for a monthly archive.

Remember 2 is 1 and 1 is none.

Sorry you had this issue. As with the rest I will be glad to help you out.

dave

You may also want to consider a RAID setup on your next computer so it saves everything twice every time you save anything and EVERYTHING! Sorry for the problem. Karl.

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Originally Posted by KarlPMann

You may also want to consider a RAID setup on your next computer so it saves evverything twice every time you save anything and EVERYTHING! Sorry for the problem. Karl.

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my thoughts exactly... for less than the cost of retreiving your data, you can build a new computer (faster too, I'll bet)

get a system that supports SATA, get two identical drives and run a RAID config.

Remeber to make it RAID 1 or better.

RAID0: 2 or more drives striped together to form one big drive. A pair of 250GB drives will become one big 500GB disk. If one drive fails, you lose everything. Advantages: more space without seperate drive letters, faster read speed than one 500GB disk. Disadvantages: Lose one drive, lose it all.

RAID1: 2 or more drives mirroring eachother. Two 250GB drives are represented as one 250GB drive. If one drive fails, the other still has everything on it. Advantages: redundancy, faster write times. Disadvantages: Double the cost for the same ammount of space.

RAID2-4: various combinations of the above and something magical called 'parity'. I don't really remember what the various specs are for 2-4, but I'm sure something like Wikipedia can tell you if you really want to know.

RAID5: 3 or more drives striped together with parity. 3 250GB drives will give you about 500GB of space. 5 250GB drives will give you about 1000GB (1TB) of space. Lose one drive, just replace it and wait for the controller to rebuild the array. Advantages: Great redundancy, really fast read times, not so much investment for space returned. Disadvantages: Sometimes slower write times while parity calculates (but usually not noticeable), the disks may not be readable on anything but that particular controller card/chip, still expensive (3 disk minimum and some space used by parity).

RAID 0+1/1+0 (sometimes called RAID 10): Various strategies of mirroring and striping, combining RAID0 and RAID1. Depending how it's built, it can be quite fault tolerant, or quite fast at either reading or writing. Usually not necessary for anything less than a major datacenter environment. Advantages: Incredible fault tolerance, darn good speed. Disadvantages: holycrapexpensive. (minimum 4 disks, and you only get 2 disk's worth of space). Not recommended.


Most SATA controllers out there will support RAID0 and RAID1, so get a pair of identical disks and make them a RAID1 array. Some of the more expensive controllers support RAID5, and there's software out there that'll run RAID5 on any controller, but the 3 disk minimum makes things get more expensive.


So. My recommendation: Get a SATA card that supports RAID1, a pair of SATA disks, set up the array, and get a CD or DVD burner that you can backup to regularly. You should be able to schedule backups, but you'll have to manually swap disks to burn to. The RAID will generally keep things sane, but in case of major explodage in the computer, you'll have the backup disks. I suggest taking these disks home with you, as offsite backup is better than onsite (think fire or similar). Remember, now that I mention fires, that 'fire proof' safes generally mean that they won't let the internal temp get high enough to have paper ignite, but that optical media and floppy disks melt at much lower temperatures.

ETA: holy crap I'm a geek.

ETA2: I guess I might have just volunteered myself to take on the job. I'm more than willing to do so but work nights and wouldn't be able to swing by till Friday. PM/email me if you wanna talk about it.

RAID 1 sounds pretty good.

Like automatic mirroring without ever having to manage backup software or hardware.

And hey - hard drives are ridiculously cheap these days.

When I used to do that stuff I would always run RAID 1 on all my file servers.

I had 1 network that I managed that had a tape system on it. I did not install the system and me and another guy never could get the damn thing to work right.

RAID 1 saved my butt more than once. That is what I would recommend along with a good DVD burner to do monthy or Bi-monthly backups to.

Note: These were small networks less than 50 computers. Which I asume you dont have more than 50 comps. in your shop.

RAID 1 is what I was talking about. It's the only reasonable way for him IMHO. The other systems get too expensive and offer little for a small setup. All he would need is to rebuild his computer with a SATA/RAID motherboard, but that would usually entail almost every other component as well since his older computer doesn't use the newer processor, memory, video, etc. I'd look into either having a friend build one as cheap as possible or just getting a package deal from a major builder like Dell or Gateway. Karl.

Personally, if you can afford it, I would go Raid 5. Unless you lose more than one drive at a time with Raid 5, you can still recover everything.

I don't know that I'd recommend RAID-5 unless the usable space requirements dictate it.

These days you can get a 250GB SATA-II drive for $63. Mirror it for 250GB usable and you're at all of $126.

Sure, you could have 500GB usable in a 3x250GB RAID-5, but its overkill if you don't actually require that much space. If you want hardware RAID, you'll pay more for a card capable of RAID-5 as well.

Mike
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Originally Posted by Scott

Personally, if you can afford it, I would go Raid 5. Unless you lose more than one drive at a time with Raid 5, you can still recover everything.

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Thanks for all the replys guys I don't need anything fancy. I don't need a zillion gigs.

All this comp does is maintain my entire customer data base thats it I don't need anything major. I can build another comp that is not a problem I have built many of them over the years. My problem is in the last 5 years my shop took me away from that hobby and as you know 5 years means I might as well not know a damn thing anymore.

All I need is something that will back it's self up for a small business and not take days to recover if it crashes. The simple way is what I am looking for nothing fancy I am not some big corporation just a small guy.

RAID sounds great as long as it is simple, For the short term I can do the nero thing.

I have no clue how to do RAID 2C offered me a good deal on a board and other stuff I just need to know how to do RAID.

Man , that sucks monkey chunks HunterCO, hope you get it worked out.

PM'd ya back Hunter.

Pm coming at you Hunter.

Also, as I was gooling around, it seems there's a fair number of folks who get stuck and fight with their systme trying to get raid running.

May just be certain motherboards, not sure. The board I'm offering Hunter is intel 865 based with intel raid on the ICH5 chip for those out there who know this stuff. If anyone is hot shit setting raid up I know I would need help if it was me.

Bingo!

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Originally Posted by newracer

I bought a CD/DVD burner that included a copy of Nero. You can set Nero to back up the hard drive or just portions of it at any interval you want. I also bought an external HD to store the backup on. Very easy to setup and will be less than $200.

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RAID 5 has the advantage of faster reads, but you take a hit with slower writes since you're also having to write parity data. RAID 1 is easier and you get at least the same performance of the single drive.

My primary server at home is RAID 1 and my performance desktop is using RAID 0. RAID 0 offers performance by striping the data across multiple spindles, but you lose everything if 1 drive in the stripe set fails.

Using a DVD burner for backup still would require the user to change media even if you schedule the backup. RAID will protect your data in the event of a drive failure, but it won't help you in the event of data corruption. Regular backups could allow recovery to a point in time before the data was corrupted.

RAID 1 with an occasional backup with something like a Maxtor OneTouch II should give you the belt and suspenders.
PCmag: Maxtor OneTouch II External USB Drive

There's also a really low tech way to keep an extra copy of important data. Schedule an event that copies the important stuff from your primary data source to another system on your network. Chances are, both systems won't fail at the same time.

The RAID configuration is really a moot point. As long as you remove the single point of failure for your drive then you should be fine. RAID 1 is just fine and is usually the most cost effective RAID configuration.

Then to make sure your backup isn't a single point of failure (IE if your shop was robbed/burned/bombed and the computer taken/destroyed...then so is your data)

Use microsoft's built-in backup utility to do a backup of system state and critical data to another computer or hard drive (like the USB drive).

Then if you are really paranoid use ghost or some other imaging software and take a monthly or bi-monthly image of the drive and burn the image to dvd's and take them off-site.


Oh and sorry to hear about the drive failure. I just had that happen with a Maxtor that I was in the middle of putting all my cd's and dvd's onto to make my home theater media-less. And now it's all gone. :evil:

Well I'm going to say a few things here, but let me caveate that this is part of what I do for a living and have been for 13 going on 14 years now. I don't say that to attempt to trump others, just to establish that I have a clue here or there about IT in both the small/medium business all the way through to Fortune 10 companies.

1. You get what you pay for. Just like in our fetish for fire arms.

2. RAID1 sounds snappy and in a server that has the capacity I often set up the OS/App partitions on a RAID1 disk set. NEVER for critical data!!!!!!

Why am I bashing the RAID1 concept so many people here (professionals to boot)... well it is a simple thing called data corruption and that is but the first of many concerns I have with the recommendation to utilize RAID as your safety net for your business and lively hood. For example - yes I've seen this happen about 10 times too many - Should the data on the primary disk become corrupted, that corruption is written to the second disk as well. Virus threats as one of many examples have brought this fundimental fault to light in the last 10 years. Then again this can be said for all RAID based systems. Additionally you retain the single point of failure in the controller. Redundancy does not come from allowing single points of failure. A lot of folks are starting to use what is called "The 3rd Mirror" but I won't go into that in detail, lets just say that it's a 3rd disk that takes point in time snap shots of the Mirrored drives. In essence it's a backup of a Mirror configuration (e.g RAID1)

There are simple ways to impliment a consistent backup plan and process, but without operator commitment, none of it will work. We can fairly easily, with native tools, create a backup solution that will more than meet the need. Large disks are readily available and cheap.

I don't mean to belittle any of the recommendations made, but considering that we in the US Fish and Wildlife service aren't exactly funding rich, we have to impliment solid solutions at low cost, to sites and facilities that are either not directly supported onsite and/or have very poor connectivity to the rest of the service.... the number of sites is in excess of 400 and we are in the process in implimenting these solutions now. To that end we are utilizing low cost NAS (Network Area Storage) devices and external USB drives to do this. Along with a rather spiffy, but proprietary process to ensure backups are made daily.. damn flight migration patterns are really important to these guys for some reason.

I don't think a NAS is required here, but buying a few (about 5 or so) mid sized external USB 2.0 drives, using NTBackup or something simular to automate the process, and simply taking that weeks drive home with you at the end of the week, will give you what you're looking for. Then again, testing and practicing the restorations are at least as important as making the backup. That is the single most common failure of folks who think they are safe because they have a backup...

Setting this all up shouldn't take more than a few hours (scheduling backup sets, unpacking, labeling and formating/testing all the drives) and discussing what is actually taking place. Maybe even just writing down the backup and restore steps as well.

If no one else has offered to do a setup/config for you, just let me know. I can swing down one evening after work and we can knock it all out. I won't charge a club member for my time.. I'm too damn pricey as it stands and I'm already spending your tax money, willingly and with a smile, every day of the week.

If you're wanting to discuss disaster recovery (shop burns, gets robbed, yada yada) we can talk about the different concepts and issues there as well. DR can be done on the cheap or all the way into the 100's of millions depending on the exact need.

Again, let me know and I'll start sketching and pricing out some options.. this isn't a big deal and won't be nearly as painful as some things we already do - shoot a .50 cal for instance - :cool:

Once again thanks for all the help guys. I bought a external USB drive and gave it to the forensic people to put the recovered data on. I got everything I needed and am back up and running and I didn't lose anything.

It's ironic that several of you mentioned data corruption as that is exactley what happend. My drive was mechanically fine the data just got corrupted.

I do however need to be able to back this up even if I have to do it manually every night before I go home. I have the external USB drive now to use for this and I also have ghost so I could do DVD backups also just to be extra safe.

Badshot if you have any suggestion I am all ears. I only need to back up one PC the other PC out in the shop is not a big deal as it has no data just software. If it crashes I simply reload everything and I'm done. Depending on how much trouble it is I may back it up also if it would help me get it up and running faster in the event of a crash.

Thanks for all the help guys.

You can schedule backups to the USB drive using Backup under system tools in XP.

Also you need to be sure and defrag C:\ drive about once a week, and I like to run scandisk every couple of months.

If your program is using a database of sorts, it should have a tool for cleaning it up every so often. I would try and run it every couple of weeks or so.