Need a backup recommendation

Hi All,

I have a customer who should back up her pictures. They
are very dear to her. About 600 GB of them on a laptop

Problem:

1) cloud backup gives her the creeps.

2) she doesn't have the technical skills to operate
an external backup drive or the temperament to
learn.

A) She likes to move her laptop around and
any external drive would get unhooked and
not rehooked very quickly. She would not
know/remember how to plug the thing back
in.

B) Giving her an icon to click on to initiate her
backup is over her head.

C) any continuous backup would require the drive
be plugged in

Would a NAS (Network Attached Storage) backup work? Is
there software for a NAS drive that is not proprietary
(you can read the files with any file browser, etc.)?

A NAS backup would have to automatically attach and
reattach whenever she entered and exited her wireless
network.

So what to do? You guys have any recommendations?
Part of me just wants to give up.

Many thanks,
-T

Il giorno Tue 19 Jan 2016 11:49:32a, *T* inviava su alt.windows7.general il
messaggio . Vediamo cosa scrisse:

Would a NAS (Network Attached Storage) backup work? Is
there software for a NAS drive that is not proprietary
(you can read the files with any file browser, etc.)?


yes, why not? we use a Fujitsu Celvin Q700 as backup (2+2 Tb, RAID 1),
running Cobian Backup on the windows clients
Cobian can run on a timer-base, i.e. every 180 min, as incremental backup,
thus saving a lot of time (after the very first run)

A NAS backup would have to automatically attach and
reattach whenever she entered and exited her wireless
network.


afaik yes, you map it with a letter, i.e. K:, and set it to reconnect on
startup; if you miss the connection because you leave the house/office, it
will be restored automatically by windows on the first access

--
/-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ /\/\ /\/\ /-\ T /-\
-=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- -=- - -=-
http://www.bb2002.it
............ [ al lavoro ] ...........

In article , lid, T says...

Hi All,

I have a customer who should back up her pictures. They
are very dear to her. About 600 GB of them on a laptop

Problem:
snip

So what to do? You guys have any recommendations?
Part of me just wants to give up.

Many thanks,
-T

It sounds like she needs to go through the process of losing her data!


But back to cloud backup - it's just so simple. And secure? - how about
Mega...
https://mega.nz/

--
Duncan.

T wrote:
Hi All,

I have a customer who should back up her pictures. They
are very dear to her. About 600 GB of them on a laptop

Problem:

1) cloud backup gives her the creeps.

2) she doesn't have the technical skills to operate
an external backup drive or the temperament to
learn.

A) She likes to move her laptop around and
any external drive would get unhooked and
not rehooked very quickly. She would not
know/remember how to plug the thing back
in.

B) Giving her an icon to click on to initiate her
backup is over her head.

C) any continuous backup would require the drive
be plugged in

Would a NAS (Network Attached Storage) backup work? Is
there software for a NAS drive that is not proprietary
(you can read the files with any file browser, etc.)?

A NAS backup would have to automatically attach and
reattach whenever she entered and exited her wireless
network.

So what to do? You guys have any recommendations?
Part of me just wants to give up.

Many thanks,
-T

I think a NAS is an excellent idea, from the point
of view of "laptop theft". I had an on-device solution
in mind, but I think your idea has better characteristics.
There should be physical separation between the storage
device and the laptop, in case the laptop is dropped,
or the laptop is stolen.

I have no idea what kind of software to use.
Scheduling backups is one thing, but having them
trigger when "the NAS is within ear-shot", I don't
know how you do that.

And you don't want "sync" software either. You
want a "backup" solution instead. One couple lost
their files, when they got CryptoLocker on their
computer, and Dropbox synced the now-encrypted
files, over top of what they thought would be
their "safe" copies. So syncing files is not
a safe way to do backups. You want actual
backups for that.

So your idea looks fine - you just need to find
the software to do it.

Paul

On 1/19/16 4:57 AM, Paul wrote:
And you don't want "sync" software either. You
want a "backup" solution instead. One couple lost
their files, when they got CryptoLocker on their
computer, and Dropbox synced the now-encrypted
files, over top of what they thought would be
their "safe" copies. So syncing files is not
a safe way to do backups. You want actual
backups for that.

Sure glad you mentioned this, Paul. I'm mostly anti-cloud, I believe in
taking care of my own information, not putting it into someone else's
hands. This gives me another "arrow in my quiver" for reasons not to
use the cloud for backup.

Expanding on this, could it not also be a problem with both File History
(Windows) and Time Machine (OS X)?

--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 42.0
Thunderbird 38.0.1
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

"T" wrote in message ...

I have a customer who should back up her pictures. They
are very dear to her. About 600 GB of them on a laptop

For speed as well as security, you can copy all to two DVDs,
and tackle her other problems at a later date.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

On 19/01/2016 16:33, Don Phillipson wrote:
"T" wrote in message ...

I have a customer who should back up her pictures. They
are very dear to her. About 600 GB of them on a laptop
For speed as well as security, you can copy all to two DVDs,
and tackle her other problems at a later date.


600GB on two DVDs!!! How is this possible?


--

/*This post contains rich text (HTML). if you don't like it then you can
kill-filter the poster without crying about it like a small baby so that
you don't see this poster's posts ever again.*/

/*This message is best read in Mozilla Thunderbird as it uses 21st
century technology.*/

On 19/01/2016 11:05, Dave Doe wrote:
But back to cloud backup - it's just so simple. And secure? - how
about Mega... https://mega.nz/

I think Amazon's AWS service would be the best and very cost effective.


amzn.to/1RRl60L

Pricing: https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/



--

/*This post contains rich text (HTML). if you don't like it then you can
kill-filter the poster without crying about it like a small baby so that
you don't see this poster's posts ever again.*/

/*This message is best read in Mozilla Thunderbird as it uses 21st
century technology.*/

On 19/01/2016 15:14, Ken Springer wrote:

I believe in taking care of my own information, not putting it into
someone else's hands. This gives me another "arrow in my quiver" for
reasons not to use the cloud for backup.



It's dangerous for an old man to ignore help. The danger lies not only
for the old man but to the general public. These zombies going around
on our crowded streets without regard to other members of the public.
Why do I have to slow down for these zombies?

Go an get yourself Microsoft cloud and see for yourself how wonderful it is.


--

/*This post contains rich text (HTML). if you don't like it then you can
kill-filter the poster without crying about it like a small baby so that
you don't see this poster's posts ever again.*/

/*This message is best read in Mozilla Thunderbird as it uses 21st
century technology.*/

On 19/01/2016 17:00, Good Guy wrote:
On 19/01/2016 11:05, Dave Doe wrote:
But back to cloud backup - it's just so simple. And secure? - how
about Mega... https://mega.nz/

I think Amazon's AWS service would be the best and very cost effective.


amzn.to/1RRl60L

*/This should be a link:

http://amzn.to/1RRl60L

/*

On Tue, 19 Jan 2016 08:14:44 -0700, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 1/19/16 4:57 AM, Paul wrote:
And you don't want "sync" software either. You
want a "backup" solution instead. One couple lost
their files, when they got CryptoLocker on their
computer, and Dropbox synced the now-encrypted
files, over top of what they thought would be
their "safe" copies. So syncing files is not
a safe way to do backups. You want actual
backups for that.

Sure glad you mentioned this, Paul. I'm mostly anti-cloud, I believe in
taking care of my own information, not putting it into someone else's
hands. This gives me another "arrow in my quiver" for reasons not to
use the cloud for backup.

I'm not personally sold on cloud storage for other reasons, but what Paul
described is basically a configuration issue and not something that's
limited to cloud storage. It could just as easily have happened in a LAN
environment. Are you going to stop using LAN-based backup storage and limit
yourself to directly-attached storage? Well, guess what, it can happen
there, as well. The point is to be careful (and in this case, learn from
others!).

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jan 2016 08:14:44 -0700, Ken Springer
wrote:

On 1/19/16 4:57 AM, Paul wrote:
And you don't want "sync" software either. You
want a "backup" solution instead. One couple lost
their files, when they got CryptoLocker on their
computer, and Dropbox synced the now-encrypted
files, over top of what they thought would be
their "safe" copies. So syncing files is not
a safe way to do backups. You want actual
backups for that.
Sure glad you mentioned this, Paul. I'm mostly anti-cloud, I believe in
taking care of my own information, not putting it into someone else's
hands. This gives me another "arrow in my quiver" for reasons not to
use the cloud for backup.

I'm not personally sold on cloud storage for other reasons, but what Paul
described is basically a configuration issue and not something that's
limited to cloud storage. It could just as easily have happened in a LAN
environment. Are you going to stop using LAN-based backup storage and limit
yourself to directly-attached storage? Well, guess what, it can happen
there, as well. The point is to be careful (and in this case, learn from
others!).


Although the probability is low of running into trouble, you really want
a backup device that stays offline most of the time. If you got Sality
on one computer, in no time at all, it could spread to all the machines.
It's times like that, I would be wishing for my backup image drive to
be offline and out of reach, until I can figure out how to clean the whole
house of the problem.

You could set up the NAS, so files are written to a folder but
cannot be read or listed. But I don't know how backup software
feels about a set of permissions like that.

Paul

Per T:
2) she doesn't have the technical skills to operate
an external backup drive or the temperament to
learn.
......

B) Giving her an icon to click on to initiate her
backup is over her head.

That sounds like a situation I would *not* want to embed myself in.

It's like being a "second" to an old-time Samurai's suicide: nothing
good can come of it, and if things go wrong you look bad.

I used to go on-and-on about backup with people like that - stone
technophobes who actively resist learning how to do anything - but I
have since seen the light and just keep my mouth shut.....

Better let the person attach themselves to somebody else.
--
Pete Cresswell

On 01/19/2016 12:43 PM, (PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per T:
2) she doesn't have the technical skills to operate
an external backup drive or the temperament to
learn.
.....

B) Giving her an icon to click on to initiate her
backup is over her head.

That sounds like a situation I would *not* want to embed myself in.

It's like being a "second" to an old-time Samurai's suicide: nothing
good can come of it, and if things go wrong you look bad.

I used to go on-and-on about backup with people like that - stone
technophobes who actively resist learning how to do anything - but I
have since seen the light and just keep my mouth shut.....

Better let the person attach themselves to somebody else.


The never ending recession is eating me alive. I have to
work for somebody!

Per T:

The never ending recession is eating me alive. I have to
work for somebody!

Then I would lean on her hard to use one of the Cloud solutions - one
where you set it up and, as long as the user does not explicitly do
something to kill it, it just keeps on running.

I would also make sure I had the ID/PW:

- So I could check up every so often to verify it was still running

- To facilitate Q&A with the user.
--
Pete Cresswell