A Backup Strategy of Sorts!!

I've actually always had one really. A very haphazard one but a backup strategy none the less. On most of the PCs I've owned until recently anyway, always had more than one hard disk installed. The plan was to take valuable files and make duplicate copies on the additional drive. Then I would always make duplicate copies of stuff on different PCs as well, also I always seem to copy files from one OS to another on the same PC if possible. Things I would tend to copy would be pictures, un drm'd musics files, copies of databases, my web and mail servers, install programs, user keys, personal settings, configurations ...etc. Then there were the several USB flash devices I had acquired that I put various files I deemed necessary for one reason or another and they were of course very useful for moving stuff from one machine to another. The word centralized was not however in my vocabulary as the scattered method had always gotten me through the few emergencies I ever encountered without to much pain.

Recently though the idea of a network attached storage device had been intriguing me as a means of sort of automating the process and a way of centralizing everything. I at one point considered building such a device or maybe getting a bring your own disks type rig. There is certainly no shortage of options in the market right now and it almost seems like if one can visualize what they want they can either find a solution out the box or make it themselves. My criteria were pretty simple I wanted it now so it had to be available locally which is really huge as where I live as shopping choices for hardware are somewhat limited. It also had to be fairly compact because I wanted it hanging off my wireless router, and most importantly it had to be dead simple to to use. I wanted to plug it in, find it on my network, set it up, and start using it period without installing any additional software to access it. It also had to be accessible from Linux as well as Windows. With my criteria in mind I set out to one of the chain computer/home electronics style stores located around here. Very few choices were available but I was expecting that so I settled for one of these in the 500GB flavor from Circuit City.I knew it wasn't going to be terribly fast but I was pleased to find out that it wasn't terribly slow either and by that I mean for a home user not doing automated backups, but just backing up user files using the mapped drive interface its speed is tolerable. Now on my server via software I have backup set to happen synchronously and currently is at about 1 GB of data. Since it is set up synchronously it just runs in the background and keeps up with the task as things change hopefully causing a minimal impact on the servers perfomance. The initial backup took well over an hour and I used the Memeo AutoBackUp software that came bundled with the LinkStation Live which is only a trail version as the registration number they bundled with it did not work (less than honest sh*t imho). It would not copy empty folders and as slow as it seemed to be I wasn't about to buy it. So I've been on a download spree trying almost every free product out there before settling on another trialware offering. The program is called MirrorFolder and it completed the initial copy in less than 20 minutes which might not sound all that fast but compared to the various programs I gave a shot it is lightening fast and very easy on system resources. It copies everything you tell it to and as far as I can tell does what the program's writer says it will. To a new user this is not exactly the most intuitive interface but the program's performance compared to other offerings make the learning curve a worthwhile endeavor.

As far my backup strategy goes I'll still do all the things I mentioned in the beginning of the post I've just expanded a bit to include some new automation tools and hardware. Just for the record the LinkStation Live plays very nicely with Linux (Ubuntu anyway) as my installation had no problems finding and making it usable. Still though the whole experience has been sort of a mixed one for me being somewhat tainted by the bundled Memeo trialware debacle and I found the documentation that came with the product lacking. I mean there is a PDF file on the install CD which I didn't use and it is also available on the LinkStation Live once one has managed to connect to it. I just prefer a well written quick start guide in paper form at least. After all I did not want to have to install any software to connect it. Luckily I did not have to but I can see where some users might not have any choice as basically the PDF gave that out as the first step.

Insert the LinkNavigator CD into your computer’s CD-ROM drive.
On a PC, setup should automatically launch. If it does not, manually launch setup.exe by pressing Start and selecting the Run... option. When the Run dialog opens, type d:\setup.exe (where d is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive). Press OK to continue.

Installing Software
If you are installing the software on a Mac, open the CD and click LinkNavigator to begin installation.

Not what I was realy looking for... a minor thing but a thing none the the less.