Someone asked me the other day about my backup routine. My answer: Do you really want to know? They said yes ... so I told them. Hang on, it takes a while ...
My computer box contains 4 HDDs. These are used for ...
- 1 x 1TB drive dedicated to movies
- 1 x 2TB drive dedicated to recorded TV
- 1 x 1TB drive dedicated to backups
- 1 x 1TB drive dedicated to other stuff
- This drive has been partitioned heavily
- A logical drive set up for user info
- A logical drive set up for storing d/l software and manuals (fridge, washing machine, motherboard, etc)
- Another version of Win7 that is bootable (if required)
- General disk space that I use to keep junk in (eg explicit backups if I am doing a major overhaul)
I only back up the SSD, the user data and the software data. This means my movies and recorded TV aren't backup. Boo Hoo if I lose that data.
Later, at 1:45am, a daily backup run is triggered using Acronis True Image. This task performs an incremental backup of my user and software logical drives to the same dedicated directory on my internal 1TB backup disk.
The first task calls a batch file before the backup is run.
The second task calls a batch file after the backup is run.
What do these batch files do?
The first batch file reviews the target backup directory and, if a certain condition is TRUE, it archives the current directory. Effectively, it renames 'set0' to 'set1'. I have set this up so that this 'create new generation' happens on a wednesday morning. I have also set it up so that it keeps 5 old generations of data.
So ... my backup directory structure looks like this (Q is the letter for my internal backup hdd) ...
- Q:\Gens\set0
- Q:\Gens\set1
- Q:\Gens\set2
- Q:\Gens\set3
- Q:\Gens\set4
- Q:\Gens\set5
When I say "it renames set0 to set1", what it actually does is deletes set5, renames 4 to 5, 3 to 4, 2 to 3, 1 to 2, 0 to 1 and creates a brand new set0.
The second batch file does exactly the same as the first but runs against a 1TB external disk drive. This keeps the internal and the external drives in sync for the generations
About every 6 weeks ... more honestly, when I remember ... I detach the external drive and take it to work. This now becomes my offsite backup storage location. I bring home the other external drive and it becomes the new external drive in the daily backup dance.
Backup Cycle
- Daily: Backup of system files and important personal files
- Weekly: Starts a new backup generation
- 6 weekly: Starts a new, offsite version
Requirements
- 1 x 1TB internal HDD
- 2 x 1TB external disks
- Beyond Compare software
- Acronis True Image
Effective Impact
I have 12 weeks of daily backups available to me at any point in time.