Re: Backup for Home PC and Laptop

[David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/6/2010 9:51 AM, Lennon_s_j@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I want to move beyond CDs for backup of my home PC (XP) & laptop 
> (Vista).  The obvious solution seems to be a USB External Hard Drive.

Spot on.

> Most of the one’s I’ve looked at seem to come with vendor supplied 
> backup software, but don’t seem to have much detail on the software 
> capabilities.

I've found the vendor software to be pretty weak in terms of capability ... it will do the job, but just barely.

> I don’t know that I want continuous backup.  I’m more inclined to want 
> to say when to do a back up (probably weekly) and want to keep several 
> generations of the backup (this week, last week, the week before, etc.) 
> Though possibly a continuous backup will allow me to keep “n” copies of 
> a file and that might be easier for restores.

My personal favorite is Norton Ghost ... it's pretty solid, in general, and can do a periodic scheduled backup ... part of the schedule can be a full backup followed by incremental backup's.

> I also want to back up *both* my desktop and my laptop to the one 
> external drive.

You'll either need to swap the drive between machines, or attach it to a NAS server.

If you go the NAS route, I suggest you get something that can do gigabit.

> I’d like to hear your about your experience with specific hardware, the 
> vendor supplied software, or non-vendor specific software (e.g. Ghost or 
> Acronis, and your approach to backup).

I use Ghost both at home & work ... the ITS guy at work likes Acronis.

As for hardware ... personally, I usually get a case & drive separately ... I like Antec & vantec cases & Seagate drives.

> (And I’m curious about how these drives connect.  Do they just plug in 
> and act like a USB Memory Stick?  Can you reformat them?  Make multiple 
> partitions?  Do they all work the same way?--I’ve read some that Western 
> Digital drives install some strange software.)

USB hard drives & memory sticks generally appear to the computer the same way ... there is some internal identification in the device to indicate if it's a removable or fixed device.

They are partitioned & formatted the same way as any hard drive.  No special software is required in modern operating systems.

david