Hive mind advice, combining computers

[Brad Johnson]

Finally getting around to looking at combining our data onto a single machine because my 12 year old Optiplex is getting very long in the tooth. Wanted to make sure I'm not about to shoot myself in the foot.

My proposed plan

-Upgrade SWMBO's 2 year old machine from a single 2GB drive to dual 4GB drives set up for drive mirroring.
-Migrate data from my old machine using network sharing.
-Use a portable USB drive or an external SATA dock and HDD to make regular backups which will be kept downstairs in a fire-resistant box.

This gives dynamic redundancy against failure of the primary drive, plus an external backup kept in a separate, semi-protected way as a contingency against more catastrophic events. If I get really paranoid I suppose I could make redundant external backups and keep the second copy somewhere else. If I got really went nuts, maybe even a NAS at my parent's place, though given computer use frequency, the type of data I'm worried about, and considerations for simplicity and cost, I think carrying a physical backup between locations is sufficient for now.

I'm waffling between making a disk image or simply copying data files. A disk image would necessitate having the old machine available to install a re-imaged drive, something likely not be possible in a catastrophic even (tornado, fire, etc). A simple copy of relevant files seems a better solution.

For context, the data in question is personal - photos, documents, etc - plus a few work files I keep at home as references for remote login needs.

What say ye, oh Great Espousers of Limitless Knowledge?

Brad

[fifth_column]

Sounds reasonable, except that two mirrored 4GB drives seem kind of small to me.

[lee n. field]

budget?

[Brad Johnson]

Sounds reasonable, except that two mirrored 4GB drives seem kind of small to me.

D'oh. Doing too many things at once. Mirrored 4TB drives. Be glad I didn't refer to them in MB. I still do that without thinking about it. Does that make me old?

Probably WD Blue, the 5400 RPM version (WD40EZAZ). I'd love to go with WD Gold, but at twice the price it becomes prohibitive for the content and context involved. Losing the files would hurt but it wouldn't be the end of the world. I can also double-tap backup redundancy for less than the drive upgrade price delta.

budget?

No set budget at the moment. If I can do it for $300-ish I'd have in mirrored drives and an external drive, that's easily doable in the immediate.

Oh, that reminds me... the external drive. Is it preferable to stick with some type of bespoke portable USB-based drive, or go with an internal HDD in a dock? I figured the portable drives are more physically robust due to their intended application, but that's only a presumption.

Brad

[zxcvbob]

Something I just found out to watch out for: SMR drives (shingled magnetic recording)  https://www.buffalotech.com/blog/cmr-vs-smr-hard-drives-in-network-attached-storage-nas  Hard drive manufacturers love them because it reduces the number of platters they need to achieve the same storage capacity, and it's often not easy to tell if a drive is conventional or shingled -- for some applications it doesn't matter, others will have terrible performance with SMR.

[MechAg94]

Are the solid state drives worth looking at? 

I got a new computer from HP earlier this year.  No spinning disk.  Very quiet.  I hope that means the drive will last longer.  We will see. 

[Brad Johnson]

Are the solid state drives worth looking at? 

I got a new computer from HP earlier this year.  No spinning disk.  Very quiet.  I hope that means the drive will last longer.  We will see. 

From what I can tell it really depends on the application. For shock (physical impact) resistance, read/write speeds, and physical size, an SSD wins hands down. No comparison at all. Write cycles are a different story. HDDs are still far superior there, though the gap is closing quickly.

I haven't looked into data viability in the context of long-term storage, but I would think the state-change methodology of SSD storage means data would degrade faster over time than HDDs. Maybe some of our resident Bit Wranglers have info in this respect?

Brad

[Jim147]

If I build something soon it will have an SSD main drive with a platter mirror. For the reasons mentioned above.

[Hawkmoon]

No set budget at the moment. If I can do it for $300-ish I'd have in mirrored drives and an external drive, that's easily doable in the immediate.

Oh, that reminds me... the external drive. Is it preferable to stick with some type of bespoke portable USB-based drive, or go with an internal HDD in a dock? I figured the portable drives are more physically robust due to their intended application, but that's only a presumption.

Western-Digital MyCloud. External, network addressable storage. Get the one with dual drives and set it up as redundant drives.

[Brad Johnson]

Well, scratch the idea. Just discovered the machine is set up for dual 2.5" slots and a single 3.5" slot. That doubles the cost of any drive larger than 2TB.

Back to the drawing board. Ugh.

Brad

[Bogie]

USB 3, and external drives?

[zxcvbob]

USB 3, and external drives?

That's exactly what I was thinking

[MechAg94]

From what I can tell it really depends on the application. For shock (physical impact) resistance, read/write speeds, and physical size, an SSD wins hands down. No comparison at all. Write cycles are a different story. HDDs are still far superior there, though the gap is closing quickly.

I haven't looked into data viability in the context of long-term storage, but I would think the state-change methodology of SSD storage means data would degrade faster over time than HDDs. Maybe some of our resident Bit Wranglers have info in this respect?

Brad

My SSD is at least 1 TB and the only drive on the computer.  Read/write speed is pretty fast.  I guess I will see how long my SSD lasts, and make sure I back it up.    

[Ben]

JMHO, but these days, unless you're a business with critical needs for no downtime, I would skip the mirrored drives. I used to mirror drives back in the tape backup days. These days, I just auto-schedule a weekly full backup plus separate backup of just my data directory*, then clone the computer's SSD once a month or so.


*I keep most all my data in a single main data directory with whatever subdirectories.

[cordex]

JMHO, but these days, unless you're a business with critical needs for no downtime, I would skip the mirrored drives. I used to mirror drives back in the tape backup days. These days, I just auto-schedule a weekly full backup plus separate backup of just my data directory*, then clone the computer's SSD once a month or so.


*I keep most all my data in a single main data directory with whatever subdirectories.

Agreed. 
Also, BackBlaze.  $60/year for unlimited backup of a non-server OS computer (including all attached USB drives).

[lee n. field]

Finally getting around to looking at combining our data onto a single machine because my 12 year old Optiplex is getting very long in the tooth. Wanted to make sure I'm not about to shoot myself in the foot.

My proposed plan

-Upgrade SWMBO's 2 year old machine from a single 2GB drive to dual 4GB drives set up for drive mirroring.
-Migrate data from my old machine using network sharing.
-Use a portable USB drive or an external SATA dock and HDD to make regular backups which will be kept downstairs in a fire-resistant box.

This gives dynamic redundancy against failure of the primary drive, plus an external backup kept in a separate, semi-protected way as a contingency against more catastrophic events. If I get really paranoid I suppose I could make redundant external backups and keep the second copy somewhere else. If I got really went nuts, maybe even a NAS at my parent's place, though given computer use frequency, the type of data I'm worried about, and considerations for simplicity and cost, I think carrying a physical backup between locations is sufficient for now.

I'm waffling between making a disk image or simply copying data files. A disk image would necessitate having the old machine available to install a re-imaged drive, something likely not be possible in a catastrophic even (tornado, fire, etc). A simple copy of relevant files seems a better solution.

For context, the data in question is personal - photos, documents, etc - plus a few work files I keep at home as references for remote login needs.

What say ye, oh Great Espousers of Limitless Knowledge?

Brad

Random thoughts:

Depends what you want to do.

I'm taking it that this is a Windows PC, right?

Backup can be done a bunch of ways.  Depends on what you're capable of, and how paranoid.  I use Veeam Endpoint, the basic free version, various places.  It's quite capable, but one needs to check it every once in a while to make sure it's OK.

(Linux backup I do differently.   Mount a veracrypt encrypted usb drive, run a cobbled together script that tars about 50gb of this and that, to a date labeled file.  One encrypted usb drive stays with me in my backpack, swapped out now and then with another stashed off site.  )

A NAS appliance on site, synced to a NAS off site, will work.  Offsite, set up local backup to USB drive, for best coverage.  (That way you at least have something not directly network accessible.)  The offsite backup on usb is your real backup.  In house NAS is where your working files are.  A share each for you and the little woman.

Windows 10 is dead easy to get back up and running, as long as you have all your applications and license keys and all that.  I've had to re-do my work pc a couple time, for various reasons.  Fully back up an running in a couple hours (Win10, the usual free apps, join local domain, Office, Sage Accounting, recover my user profile, including nearly 20 years of email.)

Mirrored drives is not (much of) a backup.  It's protection against drive failure, but nothing else.  2 4TB drives, mirrored -- are you really using enough to justify that?   Most folks I see are using, at most, a couple hundred GB.

[Brad Johnson]

Thanks everyone. Lots of good info here.

Thought about cloud backup, but the part of me that says "Cloud = someone else's computer" keeps beating the idea into submission. I just can't get myself over that mental roadblock.

Also, good thoughts on the CMR v SMR issue. It took a bit of checking, but the WD Blue drives are now SMR. *sigh* From what I can tell, the Red Pro, Black, and Gold lines are still CMR, or at least what I can find indicates they are. The Seagate BarraCuda Pro line is all CMR as well.

I would love to set up a redundant NAS system using my parents' house as the second location. I could also integrate their and my brother's business data into the backup strategy for added benefit. That's more paranoid than I can afford at the moment, though in thinking about it I may take it up with my SIL as a business integrity thing. My data is mostly personal stuff. They have a bunch of business data that could use protecting. If we could make it a family thing, we could justify a couple of 10-12TB NAS boxes to share amongst households.

Talking to SWMBO last night and the new plan is to get another 2TB drive, mirror it, and have a regular schedule of copying files to a portable drive for safekeeping in the basement. That gives us basic everyday failover redundancy with discrete external backup. The files we're most concerned with are our trove of irreplaceable documents, photos, and music. Those don't change very often so monthly full file backups should suffice. I might also set up some out of the way spot at my parents' place for hiding a portable drive. We go there every month or two so it wouldn't be an issue to rotate out a couple of drives.

In a couple of years it'll probably be time to get a new machine. We'll revisit then.

Brad

[zxcvbob]

Thanks everyone. Lots of good info here.

Thought about cloud backup, but the part of me that says "Cloud = someone else's computer" keeps beating the idea into submission. I just can't get myself over that mental roadblock.

Also, good thoughts on the CMR v SMR issue. It took a bit of checking, but the WD Blue drives are now SMR. *sigh* From what I can tell, the Red Pro, Black, and Gold lines are still CMR, or at least what I can find indicates they are. The Seagate BarraCuda Pro line is all CMR as well.

I would love to set up a redundant NAS system using my parents' house as the second location. I could also integrate their and my brother's business data into the backup strategy for added benefit. That's more paranoid than I can afford at the moment, though in thinking about it I may take it up with my SIL as a business integrity thing. My data is mostly personal stuff. They have a bunch of business data that could use protecting. If we could make it a family thing, we could justify a couple of 10-12TB NAS boxes to share amongst households.

Talking to SWMBO last night and the new plan is to get another 2TB drive, mirror it, and have a regular schedule of copying files to a portable drive for safekeeping in the basement. That gives us basic everyday failover redundancy with discrete external backup. The files we're most concerned with are our trove of irreplaceable documents, photos, and music. Those don't change very often so monthly full file backups should suffice. I might also set up some out of the way spot at my parents' place for hiding a portable drive. We go there every month or two so it wouldn't be an issue to rotate out a couple of drives.

In a couple of years it'll probably be time to get a new machine. We'll revisit then.

Brad

I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but could you set up a smallish NAS (3TB) at your house and another at your parents' place and you use theirs for offsite backups and they use yours for the same?  Your own little cloud!  The trick is addressing and security.  But I think it should be doable without having to pay for static IP addresses.  When I am in the office, Steam can see if my computers back home on a totally different network are online and available for streaming games. (I haven't tried it to see if it actually works)

[Brad Johnson]

I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but could you set up a smallish NAS (3TB) at your house and another at your parents' place and you use theirs for offsite backups and they use yours for the same?  Your own little cloud!  The trick is addressing and security.  But I think it should be doable without having to pay for static IP addresses.  When I am in the office, Steam can see if my computers back home on a totally different network are online and available for streaming games. (I haven't tried it to see if it actually works)

That's what I was talking about when I mentioned the redundant NAS setup with my parents' place as the second location. Unfortunately, the cost is prohibitive at roughly $3000 all-in (estimating $550-600 per unpopulated NAS box, $700-800 per box for enterprise-level drives, and $350-ish in a couple of spare drives).

Would I love to? Absolutely. That would solve all manner of ills. Just can't justify that kind of investment at the moment, especially with the backup generator setup I'm about to install and a remodeling bill about to hit.

Brad

[zxcvbob]

That's what I was talking about when I mentioned the redundant NAS setup with my parents' place as the second location. Unfortunately, the cost is prohibitive at roughly $3000 all-in (estimating $550-600 per unpopulated NAS box, $700-800 per box for enterprise-level drives, and $350-ish in a couple of spare drives).

Would I love to? Absolutely. That would solve all manner of ills. Just can't justify that kind of investment at the moment, especially with the backup generator setup I'm about to install and a remodeling bill about to hit.

Brad

Those prices sound way too high.  A spare drive bay or external USB 3 drive at each location should be all you need.  And isn't a 2 to 4 TB HDD about $100 now in 3.5" drives?  I don't know how you set up the disk sharing or remote login so you can access the drives from another network but the Internet can't find and access them -- pretty sure that can be done with just Windows networking settings.

[Ben]

Talking to SWMBO last night and the new plan is to get another 2TB drive, mirror it,

I'm just being nosy, but you seem pretty set on mirroring. How come?

[AZRedhawk44]

USMT

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/usmt/usmt-overview

Copy the entire profile off of any old computers you want to scrap, and on the new computer, create a new profile and then restore the old profile onto the new computer as that new profile.  Obtain USMT and put it in the C:\USMT folder on each PC involved.

If the old computer is named OLDCOMPUTER and a user is named BJohnson, it would go something like:

(On the old computer, with an external HDD accessible as drive E:)

C:\USMT\scanstate.exe E:\BJohnsonStore /auto /ui:OLDCOMPUTER\BJohnson

(On the new computer named NEWCOMPUTER and having created an account BJohnson on it prior to running loadstate, with an external HDD accessible as drive E:)

C:\USMT\loadstate.exe E:\BJohnsonStore /auto /mu:OLDCOMPUTER\BJohnson:NEWCOMPUTER\BJohnson


The benefit to this is it exports all your registry settings, preferences, application settings (assuming both computers have the same apps installed), contents of My Documents and assorted personal folders, etc.

[JTHunter]

Oh, that reminds me... the external drive. Is it preferable to stick with some type of bespoke portable USB-based drive, or go with an internal HDD in a dock? I figured the portable drives are more physically robust due to their intended application, but that's only a presumption.

Brad

Brad - I'm using a 12 y.o. comp with Win. 7.  It has a 1 TB internal HD and I have a Seagate 1 TB external HD. Three to 4 times a year, I transfer all my files from "My Documents" and the "Desktop" on the computer to identically named folders on the Seagate.  The only difference is I add the date that I do this to keep the multiple folders in chronological sequence.  There is no copying of the OS or "drive image" on the Seagate and, as things stand now, there is a little less than 200 Gb used on either drive.
In the event of a fire or some other kind of emergency evacuation, you can grab the external drive and run like hell a lot easier than lugging a computer tower.  Then just plut that ext. HD to another computer and most of your files will be there.  You would only lose what the main HD had that was not added to the external since your last "save" as described above.

Good luck !

[Brad Johnson]

I'm just being nosy, but you seem pretty set on mirroring. How come?

Day-to-day failover protection. With garden variety drives so inexpensive it seems silly to not have mirrored drives if. I figure fifty bucks for a second drive is cheap aggravation insurance.

Those prices sound way too high.  A spare drive bay or external USB 3 drive at each location should be all you need.  And isn't a 2 to 4 TB HDD about $100 now in 3.5" drives?  I don't know how you set up the disk sharing or remote login so you can access the drives from another network but the Internet can't find and access them -- pretty sure that can be done with just Windows networking settings.

Dedicated NAS boxes filled with enterprise-level drives in RAID 5. $160-ish a pop is surprisingly inexpensive for an enterprise drive, but at four per box, per location, it adds up. I could do it with cheaper drives and other configurations, but if it ever gets to the point where redundant NAS's are deemed mission critical, I'm doing it right. Plus, setting up something in a spare drive bay at each location really isn't an option due to the users involved. Trust me, you don't want my mother anywhere near machines you might be counting on for a backup.

Eh, it's no biggie. More a perfect-world dream that I can't even remotely begin to justify for the data we're trying to protect.

Brad

[Brad Johnson]

USMT

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/usmt/usmt-overview

Copy the entire profile off of any old computers you want to scrap, and on the new computer, create a new profile and then restore the old profile onto the new computer as that new profile.  Obtain USMT and put it in the C:\USMT folder on each PC involved.

If the old computer is named OLDCOMPUTER and a user is named BJohnson, it would go something like:

(On the old computer, with an external HDD accessible as drive E:)

C:\USMT\scanstate.exe E:\BJohnsonStore /auto /ui:OLDCOMPUTER\BJohnson

(On the new computer named NEWCOMPUTER and having created an account BJohnson on it prior to running loadstate, with an external HDD accessible as drive E:)

C:\USMT\loadstate.exe E:\BJohnsonStore /auto /mu:OLDCOMPUTER\BJohnson:NEWCOMPUTER\BJohnson


The benefit to this is it exports all your registry settings, preferences, application settings (assuming both computers have the same apps installed), contents of My Documents and assorted personal folders, etc.

Interesting.

Brad