Home computers and backup

[oj88]

How many computers (desktop, laptop, notebook, netbook, etc) do you have at home and what's your backup strategy?

[ghosthunter]

I have a total of five computers. Three desktops and two netbooks.

Backup strategy at home? Important files copied to external drive.

But I am planning a new game PC (to replace my ancient one) that would have built-in hard-disk mirroring so the entire system is backed up automatically on a 2nd HDD in case the primary drive crashes.

[Jun aka Pekto]

At home? The current lineup is 3 desktop PCs and 3 laptops (1 of each for me, the wife, and the kid) plus 2 Mac Minis (mine and the kid's).

Backup strategy? I keep all important files, photos, documents, software/patches/updates on all external hard drives plus the 3rd hard drive on my PC.

I don't backup my Windows install. In case something happens, I rather do a fresh install.

[jimnyeatworld]

3 laptops

backup strategy : acronis trueimage

[ptk675]

4 laptops. i used to struggle with duplicated files since I switch laptops fairly often (whichever one is within reach). specially a problem when the wife asks me to whip up a document NOW and I happen to be on a different laptop than the last time she asked me for something.

Now everything is stored on an external drive + a backup copy is stored in my Live SkyDrive account.

[oj88]

Ok, the reason I asked is that I'm curious as to what you guys are doing. The number of computers in our home is increasing to a point that using an external HDD as backup is most likely impractical. And being the only IT guy in the family, I'm the go-to guy for any computer-related problems. So it's just natural that I think up creative ways on how to make my life a bit easier. First on the list for me is to automate backups among all computers at home.

To put things into perspective, we have a total of 3 desktops and 7 laptops. (Don't ask... big family).

Just to share, I've been considering the MS Windows Home Server (WHS) platform for a while and it seems to address my needs. Particularly of interest to me is the drive extender; You just keep adding HDDs and WHS will automatically add it to the storage pool and present it to the user as one logical storage unit. So I can buy a motherboard with six SATA ports which could potentially yield 12TB of available storage (2TB x 6). That will take care of scalability for the next several years.

WHS v1 is based on Win2k3, which is needless to say, a bit outdated. WHS v2 (Code name "Vail") however, is still on public beta. Nevertheless, I'm downloading it right now . Gonna buy the hardware maybe tomorrow and put in 1 or 2 2TB HDDs as a start. You think it might be a good idea to use "Green" drives? I am planning to leave this server running 24x7.

I'll keep you guys posted on this build.

[ptk675]

That should work pretty well. I have a win2003 domain running in my parent's house (4 desktops + 3 laptops) and used it for the same purpose when I still lived there. but i've since gotten married and moved out. getting VPN going between my house and theirs is too much of a chore just so I can keep syncing my files there (im lazy :D) so i just went with the external drive. for now its still manageable.

Let us know how it goes with WHSv2 i might consider that in the future as well. was thinking of setting up my own domain at home too so I can setup GPOs and stuff to manage my home network and get everything organized.

[ghosthunter]

My suggestion:

A simple file server with a SATA based RAID1 (mirror) HDD setup would be enough for most people to store their data safely.

Maybe two 1TB HDDs should provide enough storage for years.

[roninblade]

maybe two 1TB hdds should provide enough storage for years.

ftfy






.

[oj88]

Thanks for the ideas. At this point, I don't think that I'd benefit much from a full AD implementation. I don't want to impose on my family when it comes to GPO's and security (without which, there's no point in AD anyway). Well, at least that's my take on that.

As for setting up a standard file server, we use Win7's Homegroups extensively to share network resources. WHS v2 supports Homegroups. Going for a typical file server approach and I think I'll still have to do standard file sharing AND Homegroups, adding to my admin chores.