Bored and frustrated

[nitehawk]

Backups are a bit more complex now, especially under Windows. One can burn the files manually to a CD or DVD, but most backup programs want another hard drive to write to. This is a royal pain in the backside, especially if you want to set it and forget it and allow the system to do the backups automatically to a removable media.

I suppose one of these days I'll invest in another external drive and use it as a backup device, but until that day happens, I still want the ability to write to removable media, and most backup programs don't give you that ability.

well, thank you so much for that particular info.  I  am still learning,....and this information just helps in my quest.  "kudus" to you,  retired1af...I am still learning many things,..and I find this particular info helpful in what I am trying to do.

[retired1af]

What I'd LOVE to do, is find a stinking drive caddy for the second bay in my notebook. This would allow me to install another hard drive, use it for Linux, and then use the external drive I'm currently using as my Linux drive for backups. I spent an entire day on the phone with Toshiba and other parts vendors. Think I could track one down? Noooooooooooo! **banging head on desk**

[sledgehammer]

Once I found grysync (root backup tool) in the VL 6 "system" menu and bought a removable hard drive for it to write to, my backup worries were eliminated.

[nightflier]

Since we're zeroing in on backups, I do have an opinion on that subject (surprise, surprise).

I prefer to take the human element, myself included, out of the picture as much as possible. If the backup depends on someone going though the effort of making it happen, that is a weak link. Another area where I do not like to depend on someone making the effort, is reviewing logs on a regular basis.

I consider my solution simple. Bash scripts use rsync to copy to a network location. They can be called by cron, or like on my desktop, by the shutdown script. The result is e-mailed to me, using sendEmail. On Windows machines the rough equivalents are task scheduler, batch files and robocopy. SendEmail is also available for that OS.

You can substitute an external drive for the network share, if you make sure the drive is the kind that powers down when not in use. I have seen the ones which run continuously overheat and fail.

[retired1af]

Automated is nice, provided you have the resources available to do so. For the average user, that's usually not an option.