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General => Technical Help => Topic started by: andrewalston on Sunday 28 February 16 10:16 GMT (UK)
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You have spent many hours on your research. You have probably spent a fortune as well.
But do you have all your research results in one place? All those eggs in one basket?
How many times have you read a post saying that someone has had computer problems and lost something important?
DON'T LET IT HAPPEN TO YOU!
I work in the IT industry. I know that most people think that disasters only happen to others. You only become paranoid about backups when you actually lose something important. It's now 30 years since that happened to me.
Computer hardware is not infallible. Disks do actually wear out, even solid-state ones. Your computer might even get stolen. There will come a time when you won't be able to access all those hard-won zeros and ones. So PLEASE make backups.
You need to sort out what needs backing up. I suggest the following as a start.
- Installation media for your genealogy software and any key needed to unlock it
- The contents of the folders where your genealogy software puts your data. Some software makes this difficult to find
- All those image files for certificates, photos and other documents
- The software you use to do the backup
- Usernames and Passwords for the sites you visit (including RootsChat!)
You may be one of the people who trust their research results to the likes of Ancestry, and hope that they will take care of backups for you. You think you can get away with just the last item in the above list. Fair enough, but what if you fell on hard times or could no longer afford an increase in the subscription? What if they stopped providing the service because it was no longer profitable? Can you download everything and keep it locally? Why not try it out now?
So once you have your hands on your data, you need to make a copy.
You could burn CDs or DVDs, but that takes time. The scheme most likely to be used is the one which takes as little time as possible.
What works for me is a memory stick which is kept on my key ring. If you are doing something similar, work out the total size of the stuff you intend to back up, and buy a stick at least four times that size. My 64GB stick has a metal case so it survives attacks from my keys, and cost 24 quid from Tesco. It gets used for a lot of other stuff too, but I know that I always have my data with me. You will probably get away with something much cheaper.
Data is copied to that stick using FREE software. We all like that price! Because I'm a Windows user, I use SyncToy, downloaded from Microsoft. To use it, you specify a folder you will back up from (on hour hard disk), a folder for the backup (on your memory stick), and a simple rule. "Echo" gives a straight copy of the source. You can set up several folder pairs if needed.
The first time it runs, everything is copied, so that might take a while.
On subsequent occasions, SyncToy checks the date and time on each file, and copies only the ones which have changed.
What I end up with on my stick is a copy of each file from my research. It's not hidden away inside a big archive file but is ready to use if needed.
Mac and Linux users no doubt have similar software available, and at a similar price.
I don't care what software you use. I don't care what software you use to back up. I DO want you to be able to carry on this wonderful hobby of ours after your computer goes in the recycling bin.
So BACK IT ALL UP TODAY!
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I used to make hard copies of all my research and have files of this and my handwritten notes, then when our computer crashed I still had all my research.
My techie son introduced me to a flash drive (he is also about backup) and I had all my research etc on there, until recently when it started to do strange things when opening it. It was rather old and son said it had reached the end of it's life, so he showed me how to back all my info into the "cloud". I have uploaded my family tree, all my files etc. I love this as I can access all my stuff from any computer. Now when I have downloaded new documents etc, I upload and then sort into the folders that I have created. I even have a folder for all the sites I visit and the password and username for them. (he has also given me a space on one of the servers that his company has for clients off site backups ;)
I also have a website for my family tree which is free and available on one of the big genealogy sites.
I would really hate to loose all the years of research because it wasn't saved.......
(Plus this "cloud" thing makes this old dog feel very up to date and smart ;D)
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Good advice and I think some FT programs make theirs applicable to DL to USB.
ie the family tree program ( RootsMagic) I use has this capability.
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Good advice and I think some FT programs make theirs applicable to DL to USB.
ie the family tree program ( RootsMagic) I use has this capability.
That's a good idea, I have Rootsmagic already on the pc, so I'll ask son to get me one of those flash drives with a few gigs on it and keep it just for my tree..... :D
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Sorry to put a spanner in the works but please do not rely on usb sticks, flash drives pen drives or whatever you want to call them as a back up for important files.
They are good for transferring files between computers and short term storage but should never be relied upon as a back up.
They are susceptible to heat, cold, magnetic fields and liquids, unplugging one before writing to it has finished may corrupt the file and even the entire memory stick so always leave at least 20 seconds between writing a file and removing the stick, for large drives be prepared to wait even longer.
Cheers
Guy
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Sorry to put a spanner in the works but please do not rely on usb sticks, flash drives pen drives or whatever you want to call them as a back up for important files.
They are good for transferring files between computers and short term storage but should never be relied upon as a back up.
They are susceptible to heat, cold, magnetic fields and liquids, unplugging one before writing to it has finished may corrupt the file and even the entire memory stick so always leave at least 20 seconds between writing a file and removing the stick, for large drives be prepared to wait even longer.
Cheers
Guy
You should be able to use a modern brand-name USB stick pretty heavily for about 3-4 years. The individual cells inside them wear out, but a brand-name device will contain features to even out the wear across the whole of the available cells.
A cell will typically manage 10000 write cycles before it becomes unusable. Some technologies see figures 10 times that. That sounds like a lot, but there are other things going on inside the drive, so you may only see half that number of writes before a cell fails.
Even then not everything is lost, because a device may be "overprovisioned", so there are spare cells ready to be used should this be detected. Sophisticated error correction is used to recover the data and put it somewhere safer.
The better the quality, the better the reliability. An enterprise grade solid state drive may be overprovisioned by 100% and have a 5-year warranty. The consumer-grade SSD in my laptop has a 4-year warranty.
A cheap stick might be made of chips which failed QA, be overprovisioned by 0% and have no wear levelling or error detection, and no warranty worth having.
Whatever you use, at the first hint of unreliability, you should replace the device.
Don't forget that the same technology is used in the memory cards you use in your digital cameras. Don't expect those to work forever either. Older ones may already be failing.
Flash memory is very rugged. The maker of my drive quotes it as being shock resistant to 500G, handling magnetic fields up to 5000 gauss, airport x-rays, being waterproof in 1m of water for 72 hours, and having an operating temperature range of -25C to +85C.
A cheap and nasty drive won't have been through any of that testing, and won't survive a trip through the washing machine, as a couple of my drives have!
Unplugging ANY device before writing is complete is likely to result in corruption. Using one for backup is, however, quite a controlled environment, and using the operating system's "eject" function will ensure that all is well. Formatting the device as NTFS rather than FAT32 gives further insurance against corruption caused this way.
As it happens, my research is backed up additionally to my file server at home (SyncToy again), which is then backed up periodically to tapes. There's also a copy in one of the Cloud services. I did mention "paranoid about backups" didn't I?
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After working in IT sysadmin for 35 years I have seen enough hard drives fail at work and have had enough friends call in a panic when their drives (or operating system) have failed, taking their documents and photos with them. I could often recover some or all of their data, but not always.
USB sticks? I have had a number fail, and usually only use them for transferring data to friends and family. I also have far too much valuable (to me) data to store on them, currently about 1.5TB of photos, music, documents, etc.
The cloud? I don't trust anyone else to look after my data and not mine it for info, lose it (I'm thinking data centre fire or cyber attack) or suddenly increase fees.
So, my current backup system is:
- A NAS device with two 3TB hard drives in a RAID 1 mirrored configuration (i..e. two identical copies); if one fails, the other carries on regardless.
- Incremental backup software (I'm presently using Bullguard Backup) running every night and copying any new or changed files to the NAS (the unchanged files and any deleted files are them moved into another folder in case any are needed later).
- Finally, none of those are guaranteed to stop a Ransomware attack, theft or fire, so I take a full backup of everything onto a large USB hard drive every few months (especially just before going on holiday) which is then hidden in a safe place elsewhere in the house. When I'm away the NAS drive is hidden away too.
- The only thing that's not covered is if my house burns down, but I'm about to fix that by making another USB drive copy and giving it to one of my kids to look after...
I think that's all bases covered ;D.
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I stopped using Raid drives when a controller failed on a 4 disk raid system I had in place failed.
Luckly being parinoid i also had a convention copy on two individual hard drives that gave me access to everything I needed.
Cheers
Guy
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Since my last post my "techie" has backed my research to the back-up servers he has for his clients. ;D ;D He kindly offered when he realised how much work I had put into all this. :D
So now I have it on a large capacity flash drive, in the cloud, hard copy and now in a small corner of a server ;D ;D
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Sorry to put another spanner in the works, but for those of us who don't do 'tech talk' - could you explain what some of those terms mean or are, Andrew, farmeroman and Guy ?
Most of my family history is backed up 'off' computer, so I figure is relatively safe, unless my home burns down of course :)
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Hmm,
I agree Claire.
Topic started well & understandable but now it's like "knowledge" v "knowledge" & only for the "knowledgeable", certainly not for us average users or beginners ::)
Annie
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Sorry to put another spanner in the works, but for those of us who don't do 'tech talk' - could you explain what some of those terms mean or are, Andrew, farmeroman and Guy ?
I agree that the discussion has gone wildly tech in just a few posts, but that's the nature of nerds ::). However, hopefully some of us techies' paranoia about the threat of data loss has rubbed off on anyone reading this.
I think that the real message is take regular backups of anything that you would hate to lose, which I'm sure includes your photos (50.6GB/20,000 photos in my case), genealogy research data (10.6GB/6200 files and roughly 10 years of my life) and music (22GB/50,300 tracks), plus other important documents, etc.
NAS: Networked Attached Storage. It is a box containing or more disks which is connected to the network (e.g. into the back of a wifi router). It can be used as a backup device for one or more computers and the data can be shared between one or more computers. It can also be set as a personal cloud meaning that the data can be accessed anywhere there is an internet connection.
RAID/mirroring: Too techie for normal people to care about ;D.
Incremental backup: Software which recognises when a file is changed and backs it up to the relevant drive immediately or according to a schedule (daily in my case ::)) whilst also retaining a copy of the original file (I can go back several months to recover from mistakes).
Ransomware: A nasty piece of software which can be triggered by clicking on the attachment on an email purporting to be from a bank, etc. Your files are then encrypted and you can only get them back by paying the criminal a fee, in which case he may give you the key to decrypt it. Or not. Unfortunately it will encrpyt anything on the network which the computer has read/write access to, which may include other computers and NAS drives. Oh and don't leave your USB backup drives permanently connected as those will get encrypted too. That's why I also take a regular USB drive backup and remove it from the computer.
So, whatever method(s) you use, back it up, take it out and store it somewhere safe! But don't rely on a single copy on your computer's hard drive. It will fail eventually.
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I stopped using Raid drives when a controller failed on a 4 disk raid system I had in place failed.
Luckly being parinoid i also had a convention copy on two individual hard drives that gave me access to everything I needed.
Yeah, unfortunately that can happen. Maybe I'll get a second RAID array for redundancy ;D.
Only joking; I probably have enough copies now to cover every eventuality apart from a nuclear strike or an Armageddon asteroid hitting the earth :o.
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" that's the nature of nerds" ... Well you said it ;D ;D
As Annie said this thread started off well, and to me, really informative. So thankyou :)
And thankyou farmeroman for taking the time to explain to us lesser techie folks what you were all talking about :)
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RAID/mirroring: Too techie for normal people to care about ;D.
RAID arrays (redundant array of independent disks) are a way of splitting files between a number of hard drives in the hope that all the information can be combined in the case of a failure in any specific part of the hard drive.
Hard drives are divided into sections (like the sections of an orange), the most common type of failure in any hard drive is a section that fails leading to loss of the complete file that could be written over 50 sections.
A RAID system shares copies of every used section onto other drives in the system in the hope if one or more sections fail other sections will hold the required information.
The flaw in this system is if the controller or master index fails none of the information held on any of the drives can be read.
There are a number of different ways (7) a RAID array may be set up over a number of disks.
0 : A array that allows two drives to act as one huge drive
1 : Mirroring – basically a copy of one disk held on another.
2 : Striping each sequential bit is on a different drive.
3 & 4 : More complicated striping
5 & 6 : The higher two levels allow one or two of the drives to be removed from the array (in case of failure) yet still allow all the information to be safely accessed.
Cheers
Guy
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Thanks Guy.... I think :) :)
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One of the great things about working in the IT industry is that you get a good feel for the reliability of the equipment you come across.
Proper file servers, for example, are built to be reliable. Properly-designed components, not just whatever is cheapest this week.
However, the industry is forever moving onto newer and newer equipment, and that leaves servers with many years of life left in them being sent for recycling. Great kit, but most businesses want the shiny new stuff.
That means that three years ago I picked up from eBay a server of the same type which until this summer was handling the main storage needs of a large business. It came with redundant power supplies, a couple of drives (I already had quite a number from the ancient box I had previously), 4GB RAM and two dual-core processors. It has on-board RAID and SCSI controllers. There are 10 fans keeping it cool. All the important components can be hot-swapped - replaced without powering the system down.
I paid 25 quid including delivery.
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You are right there andrewalston, I see it all the time with my son (who is in IT). Not complaining though it got me a fairly new computer that had been "junked" by a client as too old. The equipment becomes obsolete so quickly...
Good buy you got there!!! ;D ;D
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I backup all my stuff in the cloud. I use my cloud storage kinda like a Windows PC, in other words all my folders, documents, images... everything I view/move around/edit online. My cloud storage is backed up via another cloud service and is done automatically. The beauty of this is that I can access all my stuff anywhere and it works really well because I also have my full tree online.
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It is alright emphasising Back up, Back up but how is it actually carried out. In simple terms please which are easy to understand and follow.
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It is alright emphasising Back up, Back up but how is it actually carried out. In simple terms please which are easy to understand and follow.
The simplest and most reliable form of back up is to copy each and every file (text, image, database) to a second hard drive.
There are many ways to do this some manual some automatic.
Depending how concerned you are you can back up to a diffrent hard drive on the same computer, a hard drive that is only attached to your computer when you wish to make or to access the back up or a hard drive in the "cloud" or at a remote location.
Many people make sequenced back ups, i.e. have a number of back ups made on different days in case one of the back ups fails as well as the master.
Cheers
Guy
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Many people make sequenced back ups, i.e. have a number of back ups made on different days in case one of the back ups fails as well as the master.
One of the most common schemes is to have three copies "Grandfather, father, Son (GFS)".
Say you have three external hard-drives HD1, HD2, HD3
Week 1 : backup to HD1 = "Son"
Week 2 : backup to HD2 = "Son", HD1 = "Father"
Week 2 : backup to HD3 = "Son", HD2 = "Father", HD1 = "Grandfather"
Week 4 : backup to HD1 = "Son", HD3 = "Father", HD2 = "Grandfather"
Week 5 : backup to HD2 = "Son", HD1 = "Father", HD3 = "GrandFather"
Week 6 : backup to HD3 = "Son", HD2 = "Father", HD1 = "GrandFather"
Week 7 : backup to HD1 = "Son", HD3 = "Father", HD2 = "GrandFather"
Week 8 : backup to HD2 = "Son", HD1 = "Father", HD3 = "GrandFather"
Week 9 : backup to HD3 = "Son", HD2 = "Father", HD1 = "GrandFather"
etc.
Businesses might have 7 such copies (and backup daily) with extra backups per month.
It depends on how important it is to have copies to come back to, and - especially for us - how much time it takes to replace all the files, images, and information you have collected in the course of time ( if indeed you can actually find replacements !!)
more on rotation schemes here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_rotation_scheme
In general I try to follow the GFS method (roughly once a month) and on days when I am doing a lot on the computer (editing files, etc.), then I also make backups (almost) immediately after.
Bob
ps. I have mentioned elsewhere, that some people use the OSISHMAB method.
i.e. in the moment when the hard-disk crashes (irretrievably) they say:
Oh S*** I Should Have Made A Backup
Speaking as one who knows this method (very well !!) I can only say, regardless of the method -
Make Backups - Often !!!
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I've recently retired after 40 years working with computers. I've seen everything that can possibly go wrong. I've also got a car. I get in it I start it I use it. I've got no desire to know anything about how it works, nor even to maintain it apart from an annual service. This means I can relate to people who use a computer in the same way, but if your data is important to you you owe it to yourself and your sanity to learn how to protect your data. There are probably millions of tutorials on YouTube and time spent watching them will be well spent. There is some excellent advice in this thread, but watching a film makes it so much easier. Of course this only applies if your data is important to you. A long time ago a very wise man told me that there are two sorts of computer drive, those that have failed and those that are yet to fail. And while I'm being apparently pessimistic comma make sure a friend has a copy of your data just in case anything bad happens to your house.
Martin
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Backups are used to protect you from two classes of problem.
- General disasters, such as theft of your PC, hard drive failure etc. For this you need to be able to set up a fresh PC from scratch and recover your applications and data. A fresh PC might come with an operating system ready installed, but little else. Windows comes with a backup program to allow you to recover everything to a replacement disc if yours dies and is replaced. The same program can be used to upgrade the drive, say to a solid-state one. This sort of backup can take a long time, but only NEEDS doing when something major changes on your PC.
This sort of backup should be put somewhere safe - ideally in a different house. Imagine what would happen in a house fire or flood. - Finger troubles, such as accidentally deleting something. We've all done it! Windows also comes with a program to back up just the user data - FH data, music, photos - and the way your desktop looks and works. This is quicker, but some folks have thousands of photos and music files, in which case it won't be a quick job. There are plenty of programs around to allow you to selectively back up just the stuff that has changed since the last backup, which means that you won't be as tempted to put off the task. You should always be able to selectively restore, say, one accidentally deleted file.
This sort of backup can be kept to hand, with occasional off-site copies. The "cloud" is a very convenient place for this.
Note that working with your files "in the cloud" will only help in the first of these types of problem. Your data would still be safe while you concentrate on getting back your system. If you delete a file from wherever it is sitting, or corrupt it, you need another copy SOMEWHERE to get it back from. Some cloud services may allow you to restore one or more files or versions of files from the past, but you need to check carefully before relying on this. If your system is set up to immediately replicate changes to a cloud service or second drive, you are in the same boat.
In the IT world, we regularly test backup systems. The only way you know whether everything is working correctly is when you try to restore. One system I used took a lot of setting up to get the backups running smoothly, but when you needed to restore, the software was clear and logical, reducing the stress when it mattered most.
There is an old story about the site which backed up religiously to a tape unit, and when a restore was needed it was discovered that all the tapes were unreadable. The motor which adjusted the position of the recording head had failed, and all eight of the (usually parallel) tracks of data had been written over the same section of the tape. The fault had been there for over a year.
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I once accidentally chucked my usb memory stick out with some rubbish. When I realised what had happened it was too late and the bin man had been. So not only back your Pc’s Also back any portable storage you use. I learnt the hard way.
Regards panda
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It was Andrew's original long post that started this thread that made me comment this morning, and I'd just like to echo his more recent words. Another thing that he would agree with me on, is check that your backup works. Try reading it on somebody else's computer, or save your GEDCOM file and try re importing it as a new project. There is nothing worse than having a crisis, turning to your back up, and then finding that it is unusable.
Martin
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This all very interesting but lacks the one thing many of us needs. How precisely do we carry out a back up?
My particular problem is getting urgent. having changed broadband provider I now find that the previous supplier intends to close down the email address. I therefore need to copy many emails with their attachments quickly to avoid losing many hours research covering a long time period.
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This all very interesting but lacks the one thing many of us needs. How precisely do we carry out a back up?
My particular problem is getting urgent. having changed broadband provider I now find that the previous supplier intends to close down the email address. I therefore need to copy many emails with their attachments quickly to avoid losing many hours research covering a long time period.
For files and folders:
1) Buy a flash drive (aka a memory stick, USB pen, etc.) from Amazon, PCWorld, Tesco, etc. 16GB should be plenty, but get a larger one if you have thousands of photos.
2) Insert the drive into a spare USB port on your computer; they will normally be at the side or back of a laptop or front or back of a desktop.
3) Open a Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) window (I'm assuming you know how to do this).
4) Find the location where you important files are saved (probably My Documents) in the left hand pane and left click on it to show the contents in the right hand pane.
5) Position the mouse pointer on a folder to copy (e.g. Family Tree) and then right click and, while holding the mouse button down, drag the mouse across and release it on top of the USB drive in the left hand pane. Release the mouse and select Copy Here (not Move Here!).
Emails are a whole different issue I'm afraid; I suggest that you save each individual attachment to a folder in your family tree folder and back up from there. Alternatively, set up a Gmail email address and forward each email to it.
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I learnt my lesson 2 yrs ago when I lost the HDD on a 7mth old laptop. Since then I always use an USB flash drive and I back that up to another external HDD. Please I did this last week as my USB went kaput this morning.
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I learnt my lesson 2 yrs ago when I lost the HDD on a 7mth old laptop. Since then I always use an USB flash drive and I back that up to another external HDD. Please I did this last week as my USB went kaput this morning.
Yes, it can happen after 1 day, 1 month, 1 year or 10 years. The only thing that is certain is that a hard drive WILL pack up one day, taking all of your data with it. And as you discovered, a USB flash drive can go kaput too...
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This is a typical fairly naive question that people who are self taught computer users ask, but here goes; up until now, I've saved the photos on my computer onto one memory stick and the documents onto another. Every so often, I update the two memory sticks, so if I lose any data, the loss will be minimal. I decided (after a bit of a laptop hissy fit scare recently) to buy an expansion port and invested in a Seagate 1TB portable drive. I plugged it in and dragged and dropped the documents folder and photos folder to it. I also set up a Windows automatic update facility, though as I haven't created any new files, I haven't tested if that will work.
I was under the impression that I could safeguard my emails and the Windows 10 operating system too, so if my laptop decided not to work, I could clear everything off it or buy a new hard drive, then reinstall everything - am I right in thinking that isn't possible?
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No, it is possible.
You need to use the appropriate software to create an image of your drive and of course the necessary space to do this
Acronis trueinage back up software is excellent
https://www.acronis.com/en-gb/lp/personal/sem?gclid=EAIaIQobChMItPO-v-6k5wIVSbTtCh3kGQ71EAAYASAAEgLv3PD_BwE
Another is Ashampoo Backup 2020
https://www.ashampoo.com/en/usd/pde/1459/security-software/backup-2020
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This is a typical fairly naive question that people who are self taught computer users ask, but here goes; up until now, I've saved the photos on my computer onto one memory stick and the documents onto another. Every so often, I update the two memory sticks, so if I lose any data, the loss will be minimal. I decided (after a bit of a laptop hissy fit scare recently) to buy an expansion port and invested in a Seagate 1TB portable drive. I plugged it in and dragged and dropped the documents folder and photos folder to it. I also set up a Windows automatic update facility, though as I haven't created any new files, I haven't tested if that will work.
I was under the impression that I could safeguard my emails and the Windows 10 operating system too, so if my laptop decided not to work, I could clear everything off it or buy a new hard drive, then reinstall everything - am I right in thinking that isn't possible?
I would suggest unplugging your external hard drive from your computer unless you need to access the back-ups.
It is not uncommon for a computer fault to corrupt the external drive file index making the stored files useless.
In addition do not rely on any back up program to back up files, photos, databases etc. safely. I suggest dragging and dropping those files to your backup drive manually, that way they can be viewed in their original format (even on a different computer) after back up and checked that they work.
Cheers
Guy
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The easy reply first; Guy, by pure fluke, I have done the drag and drop procedure and I do intend to keep the external hard drive disconnected from the computer except when I'm using it to back something up - mainly because the laptop is usually on the dining table and has to be moved at meal times ;D
Thanks Falkryn for those two recommendations - I will look into those.
As regards the emails, I do have Thunderbird as a backup, as well as the email server's site and I really ought to tackle the 800 or so emails which I haven't got round to fully acting upon or completely "putting to bed"!!
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A backup is only as good as your backup strategy.
Hard Drive's and USB thumb drive's do not have an infinite life.
They can fail unexpectedely for a number of reasons.
One of the most common failures is power outages or hastily 'powering down'
the device before the read/write cycles have been completed.
Thus 'corrupting' the said backup files and the dive in question.
For good housekeeping always leave about 30 seconds after the
backup has finished before removing/powering down the device.
Always follow the correct protocol in 'removing' the HD/USB
drive for your operating system.
Jim