Timely Reminder To Backup

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Tim

Normally I’d post something like this to my technical blog however, if you are reading my technical blog, hopefully you’d already be doing your backups regularly.

Once again, I’m in the business of hard drive recover. (I should start charging, if I charged even a fraction of what the data recovery companies charge, I’d be rich, especially as they charge it with no guarantees of getting any data off your drive!) It would be a lot easier and cheaper for everyone, if people maintained good recent backups. Hard drives are cheap and big, which means you can have a few so you can duplicate your content between them all. Unfortunately, actually doing backups and keeping track of them is where the problem is. And, people view each hard drive as available space, so when a friend has some new TV Show they want, they don’t think twice about clearing some space on a drive for it, space that should probably be for backing up data.

Simply put, Hard Disk Drives are not to be trusted. Hard Drives are not indestructible, and they WILL fail in your lifetime. This goes for all common storage formats, CD’s, flash drives, portable hard drives, laptop hard drives, desktop hard drives, DVD’s, and whatever new form of storage you are carrying around today.

So here is a quick and easy to follow HOW-TO to backups. Please, don’t skip over it and think you’ll do it another day, do it TODAY!

First, if you are a low data user. Your main data you have is word documents, a bit of photos, etc. You are most likely only going to have 1 computer, and probably don’t use portable hard drives or flash drives much. So you probably have between 1Gb and 10Gb of important data. This method will work for bigger amounts of data but will start costing you a monthly fee as well as using lots of internet.

Use an online storage service, one that syncs your data automatically in the background. The first service I’m going to recommend is Dropbox. The free version gives you 2Gb, up to a maximum of 10Gb (I think) when you get referrals. So for every person I get to signup, I get an extra 250Mb, as do they (so using that link above helps me and you). It runs on Windows, Linux and Mac, and makes it very easy to keep your files automatically backed up. And for a monthly fee, you can increase your storage space. I personally only use it for backing up my documents, and a few software projects I’m actively working on. It also keeps things synced between a number of computers so that I can work on a document on my laptop, come home and it’s already synced on my home computer.

Another similar service is SugarSync. The free version gives you 5Gb of storage, and again has a referal system to get more storage. It doesn’t work on Linux but does work on Mac and Windows. I’ve not used it myself yet so can’t comment much more.

If you are a medium user. This would be someone who uses the computer more often. Probably have 20-30Gb of photos, 5Gb of music, maybe 1Gb of documents you’ve collected from Uni and School and probably some TV shows. All up, 50-300Gb. You may have already outgrown your computers hard drive and have an external drive that you use to store your TV Shows.

This is where External Hard Drives come in. You are going to need 1 or 2 dedicated to backups. This are not the external drives you use daily, but rather drives you backup on, and then don’t use until next time you backup. Ideally these hard drives will be Desktop ones (they are not very portable and need a power supply). I recommend at least 2. This is simply using backup software on your computer to do regular backups. I recommend weekly. You need 2 hard drives because you should make 2 backups. This means you’ll end up with 1 original, and 2 copies. I’d also recommend that like the Light user above, you use Dropbox or SugarSync or a similar service to backup your essential things.

For windows users, I can recommend SyncBack. I’ve not used it in a long time, but the free version should be sufficient. Windows 7 also includes built in backup software, but I have no experience with it. Maybe you can use SyncBack for one drive, and Windows Backup for the other?

For Mac users, I believe Time Machine should be sufficient. However you may need to research some more ideas.

If you are lucky, and have a modem (like BoB) that allows attaching an external hard drive, you can access the drive over the wireless or wired network. This will make it easier to backup to that drive as schedules can run without you needing to get the hard drive out and plug it in. Like any backup system, it will only work if the backups are done regularly. Having software remind is an aid, you still need to do the work of getting the drive and plugging it in. AND, make sure these drives are only used for backups! It’s useless turning your backup drive in to a storage drive for all those TV Shows your friend is giving you, because when a drive fails, it’s not the TV Shows you’ll care about!

Lastly, If you are a power user. You probably don’t need to be reading this because you’ll already have a great backup system in place! However, if you feel that the previously mentioned backup systems just aren’t good enough for you, keep reading.

I recommend a NAS. A Network Attached Storage system. And not just a hard drive with a network port, but a RAID based one. Please, do not read this as “RAID is Backup” because RAID is not a backup method, however it does protect you from drive failures more than JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). For a basic backup system, a 2 disk NAS with RAID 1 (Mirroring).  Then you have your computer do regular backups to that NAS. Ideally a complete backup monthly, with incremental backups weekly or daily. If space permits, store 2-3 months of backups. Again, I’d recommend one of the online services for your critical documents. As you go up to a bigger system, say 4 disk and above, you’ll want to probably use RAID 10. I would not recommend RAID 5 or 6 as disks are cheap. Go for something that will work well and fast, and not be demanding on your little NAS. Also, if you can get a NAS that does Linux software RAID, then if the controller dies, you can just pop the drives into a Linux box and get all your data off very easily.

This kind of system will scale from 500Gb all the way to 8Tb fairly easily. If your backup needs are bigger than that, I’d say you probably already have a decent system in place!

I’d be happy to recommend both QNAP and Thecus. If you are looking for the cheaper smaller systems, then WD My Book World Edition seems to be ok (ensure you are getting a 2 disk version that can mirror).

Again, a backup only works if it’s done regularly. Backups should also be tested, ensuring the data on them is actually usable. No point doing a backup to find it doesn’t work. For a simple backup, browsing through the backup and picking files at random to check they open properly would be ok. Ideally use a backup system that can verify backups. It will do this by reading every single file after it’s been backed up, and comparing it to the original.

And if you want to know why you should backup, it’s because it takes much less time to restore from a backup, than to recover from a loss.  In the time it’s taken to write this, the recovery software restoring from a dead hard drive has managed to restore only about 100Mb. The drive is 500Gb. It’ll probably take 48hrs to restore all the easily readable data from this drive, any sections that are badly damaged could take days to be restored, if ever.

Backup, save yourself lots of stress, time and money. And save me a couple days of recovery!

http://www.2brightsparks.com/download-syncback.html
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3 Months in 5 Minutes

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Tim

Seeing as we haven’t updated in 3 months, I’m going to attempt to fit 3 months into a short 5 minutes to get everyone up to speed!

First, we had Christmas. An interesting event, Christmas dinner was at our place, which we had lots of fun preparing and hosting. Then a few days later, it flooded in forest hill! Of course, up north was flooding during Christmas, so that wasn’t so much fun, unless you went swimming/fishing in the banana paddocks.

Due to the flooding, we had to leave for our trip to Nth QLD earlier, and then got stuck up North! Which was when it flooded back home, and we couldn’t get back. While this did dampen our Cairns holiday at the resort, it was still lots of fun with 2 full car loads, 17 people if we remember right. Nathan started learning to swim too!

So eventually the water went down, and we could return to Forest Hill and Blenheim. What a relief, the water had lapped the underside of the floorboards at the Watsons, but not entered the main house. Unfortunately the 3 rooms downstairs got gutted, as did the shed and even a car. Still, that’s what insurance is for right!

Shortly after, we jumped on a jet plane with Jess and Bunsom to go to NZ for Stu and Jo’s wedding! What an amazing time we had. Camping next to beautiful lakes, swimming in hot springs, and taking lots of photos. Nathan even learnt not to complain when he had people sitting next to him in the car!

Arriving back in QLD we got thrown into turmoil as UQ informed us that Sara’s placement was on the Sunshine Coast!! 3 hrs just to get to uni 4 days as week wasn’t going to happen! After some frantic phone calls, Griffith told her to come to Uni the next day, as they had already started her course and they’d sort out her enrolment later! What a God send they were, they assistance with everything, even though she’d missed almost a full week of their intensive course! And even more of a God thing, was it meant her placement would be in Toowoomba, finally we could move to where our amazing church is, and also could share a house with Jess and Bunsom saving everyone money, and getting a much nicer house.

The house hunt was a long hard one, with a number of applications being submitted, and no response. Eventually though, God showed us the House he had set aside for us, across the road from the Uni!! No worries of buses for uni, we can just walk out our door, cross the road and we are at uni! And it’s a decent sized house with enough privacy for the 2 families, plus extra room for when people visit.

Which brings us to now. Uni has been back for almost half a semester, and we are enjoying being in Toowoomba, especially as it means we can properly be part of our church, including being in the worship team. We do miss the country, but at least it’s not a giant city!

And that’s taken me 10 minutes to write, so hopefully only 5 minutes for you to read! More current stuff to come soon.

Tim

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Life in the country

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Tim

Uni has finished for the year. I am happy with this semesters results, 3 High Distinctions and a Distinction. Seeing as USQ’s cut offs for grade levels are higher than Curtin, it would have been 4 HD’s had I been at Curtin.

So what is life like living in the country?

Well firstly we have dodgy internet, and finally after 3 months we have found a spot for the modem that gets a stable connection. Stable enough that we might even be able to use it for VoIP! This is a good thing, as it also means I can finally work on the hotspot project without having internet problems. As uni is over, I’m making good progress on the hotspot.

Next, we have the chooks. We have 2 sitting chooks, sitting on what we can only presume to be fertilised eggs. We have a crow problem stealing our eggs, so thankfully these 2 chooks are doing a good job protecting their eggs. We have 2 other chooks laying eggs too, which means the egg count in the fridge is finally going up! Hardy the Rooster has been a little overprotective too, but seems to have calmed down in time to avoid the chop.

Molly our goat has lost her winter coat and looks a lot skinnier now! I’m sure the other day she wished she still had her winter coat as we had lots of rain. She still needs to be chained up all the time as she is an escape artist. Fences mean nothing to her, and the horses next door don’t like her. That means though that I have to keep finding new places I can attach a chain to, that are far enough away from a fence that she won’t go through the fence. And of course, she is always getting the chain tangled up. I’m glad it’s not a rope! She broke her collar the other day, which was lots of fun trying to catch her, she thought it was a great game running all over the paddock with me chasing her. Finally I called for Sara to help, and she walks out carrying Nathan, and Molly goes under the fence and walks right up to them like she had done nothing wrong!

Our water tank has overflowed again. Sara had a shower under the overflow pipe yesterday, it was pouring out! At least that means the downpipes aren’t blocked, and we don’t have to worry too much about water this summer.

Nathan is pulling himself up to standing using the couch, and then walking himself along the couch. He still refuses to sit though. Today he sat, but only long enough that he could put some piece of dirt in his mouth before he was off again in search for more things to put in his mouth. It won’t be too long before he’s walking outside with me to feed the animals, instead of being carried.

Christmas is coming, so the (small) Christmas tree is up along with some lights. We’d love to have some large durable nativity pieces, as we want to make an outdoor nativity scene near the front gate. Then some solar charged spotlights on it, and when people drive past they’ll see our nativity. So if you have some large nativity pieces you don’t use, or would love to make us some, then feel free!

Anyway, that is just a short update of life out here. Enjoy the festive season, but don’t forget the real reason for the season.

Tim

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Videos of Nathan

Posted on November 15, 2010 by Tim

Here are some videos of Nathan taken recently.

Nathans first trip to the beach. Initially he wasn’t sure what to think of the water but he decided against it.

Nathan has a play on Grampas new bike. He absolutely loved it, he’s a boy through and through and will be riding bikes as soon as we let him.

p.s. If the videos don’t show up in the email version, goto http://vimeo.com/purewhite/videos

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Uni End

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Sara

It has been a very long week or two and I’m glad that it is behind us.  The two weeks just gone were exam weeks.  Tim had one the first week, and three this week.  It’s the first time he has been to the campus in Toowoomba.  He really liked it.  If the need to study on campus comes up, I don’t think he will mind.  There’s even free parking!

Jessica’s wedding is fast approaching.  Two weeks from today I believe.  There is a lot of last minute planning going on, and I’m seeing a fair bit of them.  There was an industrial accident in the local area yesterday and the wife and daughter of the man who died were our caterers and hairdressers, so we are having to find others to replace them.  Not fun for us, but a billion times worse for them.

Her fiance is from Cambodia and he arrived about two weeks ago.  It’s been great to catch up with him, and others from Cambodia are slowly starting to arrive.  It’s been incredible to catch up with really great friends of mine from years ago.  To introduce them to my husband and my son!

Nathan is growing more and more every day.  He has become a real mummy’s boy in the last few weeks.  Tim and I play a game; He starts to cry with Tim, upon which he gets handed to me and he zips up.  Then I immediately pass him back to Tim and he starts crying again.  It’s like an automatic on/off switch.  :-)

He is a lot of fun to be around.  He is interacting with everything and giggling a lot.  The other day we had our first experience of him doing something for laughs.  He had reached up to pull a toy from an activity mat that his Grammy (my mum) bought him, and he let it go and it bopped him on the head.  We laughed and he laughed, and then when he realised we had stopped laughing, he turned around, pulled and released again, and looked back to check if we were laughing again.  This game continued for about five minutes, becoming increasingly funny by the fact that he was so amused.

Another milestone this week,  first tooth is coming through.  He hasn’t been that fussy about it either.  He’s been a bit grumpy, but I’m pretty certain that has more to do with the late nights that we’ve had.  The little guy is down to two sleeps a day.

Anyway, there is a lot coming up in the next few weeks, all of it kind of building up to this Nov 27th wedding.  It’s very good having Tim home again.

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Casual Saturday

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Sara

We took Nathan for his very first swim today.  Our friends have a pool and so we took advantage of the very humid day to take him for a dip.  We don’t have a swim nappy yet, so we just used one of his old cloth nappies and put a fairly tight pilcher over it, and that worked fine.  He enjoyed the water.  He wasn’t all happy and giggly, or upset.  Just very tame.  It’s pretty hard to phase this little guy.

We went for a drive this afternoon to relieve Tim of his assignment stress (the two due this week) and checked out some of the back roads.  In other words 4wding.  It was pretty rough terrain and we got to a point where we couldn’t go any further and had to reverse out.  We were following the railway line road.  On our way home Tim said the brakes felt strange.  Upon closer inspection it looks like we’ve killed a brake line.  It looks like there’s been a slow leak for a while, and this just finished it off.  So mum and dad have lent us a car to get to church tomorrow and we shall get it fixed asap.

Vanity, one of mum and dads kids, turned 14 today so they had a BBQ party over at their place tonight.  Just their kids alone is a pretty mad party most days so the extra crew were fairly loud.  My ears were completely blocked from the swimming so the noise was reduced for me.  :-)

Mum and Dad are discussing how to bury Morry, our cockatoo.  Dad has suggested putting her in the freezer until future technology provides alternatives.  Fine until the freezer accidentally gets turned off.

Anyway, I really am trying to keep this more up to date, even with useless information that I am sure you don’t really care about.  If it bothers you, get Tim to take you off the mailing list and you can just check back when you want to.

XX  Sara

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Nathan 6 months

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Sara

Well Despite our best efforts, this blog has gone to the wayside again. But I will try and update you on all that is happening.

Obviously what everybody is most interested in would be Nathan. He is now six months old. My Mum (Grammy) seems to think that that time has gone quite quickly, but it feels like forever to me. I can’t really remember not having him. It’s been less than three years since I left high school, but it feels like years more. He is in his room right now playing on an activity mat, which is a rare moment. He is always moving, always needing to be walked or jumped or thrown in the air. He refuses to sit still on your lap or give you cuddles unless he is a few breaths away from sleep. So now that he can get around by himself it has made our lives a little bit easier. He’s not conventional crawling, but he can drag himself across the ground commando style, and if he wants something, bygosh he can get there quickly.

He’s not sitting unsupported yet. He’s getting there. I’m sure he would if I actually left him to, but I don’t trust him just yet so I’m always right behind him. He LOVES food. For at least the last two months he has wanted to down everything that he sees. We tried keeping him until six months before starting him on solids and we succeeded fairly well. Up until now he’s only had some mashed banana. He gets so cranky when he can see you eating and not sharing it with him.

He had his first taste of Ice-Cream last week. Tim and I went to Cold Rock to celebrate me getting my P’s and as I was eating mine, Nathan whipped his hand out, stuck it into my icecream and then back into his mouth pronto. It was like a lizards tongue. Needless to say, he was moved and didn’t have that opportunity again.

Tim has a lot of uni to do at the moment. We are about two weeks away from block exams, and so the assignments are coming on hard and fast. So far he’s done really well with his assignments. He’s gotten 100% on two now, so I’m very proud of him for that. Once the exams are over we can relax a bit I guess.

One of our good friends is getting married at the end of November so we are eagerly awaiting that event. Some of my friends from Cambodia are coming over, and it will be the first time I’ve seen them since I left, so I’m quite excited. I am helping with the planning and everything. I love planning weddings!

We are going to a great church in Toowoomba. It’s a bit of a drive, but totally worth it. We’ve been going up to music practice during the week as well and just having a jam with them. It’s been great to get hooked in with a church family so quickly. Just what we needed. Although it’s not a big church, there are lots and lots of little babies. It’s great to meet up with other parents and chat.

On the not so cheery side of things, we have been in to Brisbane recently to see my cousin Adriel who is in the Royal Children’s Hospital. He is two years old, and lives in North QLD. While him and his dad were helping clean out someones house, he fell over in the Kitchen and injured his head. It turns out he had a stroke. I believe they’re not sure whether the stroke caused the fall or the fall caused the stroke, but it has turned out to be quite serious. Initially he was paralysed, and they thought it would be a temporary thing and full movement would return, but it turns out its not as straigh forward as that. So he’s been flown down to Brisbane to start therapy and rehab. Because he’s young they have high hopes that he will be able to recover most of his ability, but its too early to say just yet.

This has affected me more than I thought it would. Seeing him in hospital was quite a shock. They’re a very healthy family. His mum is down with him, and as you would expect is very stressed out. If you could keep them in your prayers, we would appreciate it. His name is Adriel.

On another sad note, though not quite comparable, my parents cocaktoo died this morning. We’ve had her for 10 years, and she used to belong to a very close friend of ours that died, so she’s an important part of the family. Though she was 75 years old, we expected another couple of decades with her. I’ve always said I was going to take her when Mum and Dad died. :-)

So that’s an update from us. Hopefully we’ll be back soon, but you won’t believe that because we have such a bad track record. Love to you all. We are really missing you guys over in Perth. Too bad we can’t be everywhere all at once.

Xx Sara

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