Home Backup Policies

At my house, we have about 8 total computers running at any given time:

• a Media Center PC (media)
• a storage server (luna)
• 5 personal computers
• 1 or 2 work laptops

I needed a way to backup all of the data that is spread out over all of the computers, but I also couldn’t dedicate a single machine to only be for backups. The following system works for me, but it definitely could be improved, so keep that in mind when designing your own backup routines.

First, I want to get all of the personal computers’ data backed up. I use an iMac, so that’s taken care of with a 500GB external drive and Time Machine — definitely the easiest, most efficient backup I’ve ever used. The rest of the computers are PC’s, so I’ve installed SyncBack (freeware) on all of the machines. It is super easy to use and does an excellent job of scheduled backups.

To start, I setup backup space on both servers. I use dedicated hard drives in each server as the “backup” drive and share them across the network. Within each drive, I setup a folder for each machine that will backup to it. I have 2 computers backing up to one server and the rest to the other. If I had the space I’d have them all go to just one server, but with the way the files are distributed on each one, right now I can’t.

On each personal computer I setup 3 jobs in SyncBack:

1. Daily backup of all documents (I just backup the My Documents folder) to a “daily” folder; delete target files if not in origin (this basically makes the daily copy an exact replica of the source machine)
2. Weekly backup to a “weekly” folder; do NOT delete target files if not in origin. This means that if I backed up a file last week and deleted it on my computer this week, it will remain on my backup drive
3. Monthly backup; this is essentially the same as the weekly backup, but I DO delete target files that are not in the origin. This basically cleans up the “weekly” backup folder once a month of old files. You could choose to do this once every few months or once a year if you feel more comfortable and have the space to do so.

With this setup I always have two copies of each file in case I need to revert back to an older copy.

In addition to backing up the personal computers, I have setup backups of the servers where space allows me to. We bought a 500GB external drive that we are supposed to keep off-site (at work) except for one night a week when we bring it home to run backups. These backups are setup in SyncBack, also, and copy the entire Backup drives on both servers, as well as some of the data on the servers, such as movies, archived documents, tv shows, etc, that otherwise aren’t backed up.

With this system in place, I have recovered documents and restored crashed hard drives with minimal loss.

Like I said before, this system could definitely be improved, but right now space is a factor. I’m saving up to purchase a bunch of hard drives and RAID them in a NAS to provide redundancy and remove the requirement to backup everything to other servers or drives. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, comments, or questions, please let me know in the comments!

Why do we share so much about ourselves online?

My mom recently (earlier tonight) asked if I had Google’d myself recently. Being the tech-geek I am, I had done so within the last few weeks. She was amazed to find all of my “away messages” and “personal” information at the top of the search results. She questioned me about why I shared so much and she didn’t think it was a good idea. I tried to briefly explain but it just didn’t make sense to her. I realized that I’m growing up/living in a much different time than my parents and older generations did.

While I think nothing of posting what I ate for dinner or a picture from my weekend, many people find this an invasion of their privacy. But this is definitely not an invasion of privacy: I’m posting it all myself! Then the question is, why?

There are a few reasons why I personally share “so much personal” information. First of all, the Google results help prove my point. On the first page, 7 of the 10 results are links to content that I personally generated: my blog & photoblog, a tweet, a Digg, my LinkedIn profile, and my Cork’d profile. I think this is critical, because rather than having information posted by somebody else (possibly someone I don’t know who has posted false or inaccurate data) I have complete control over this content. If I don’t want someone to know what I’m doing tomorrow, I don’t post that information. On the other hand, if I found a really great website that I think would be useful to others, I simply digg it and everyone knows I enjoyed that site. This is especially helpful if the person knows (of) me because a recommendation from a trusted friend is almost always better than from a stranger.

This brings me to my second reason for posting online: I like to share my life with all of my friends. Along with the Web2.0 ability for everyday people to post content, many of today’s services link together. For instance, when I post to Twitter, I could have it set my “status” on Facebook and Plaxo and also show up on my blog. When I post a picture to Flickr, it shows up as a tweet, on my Mini-Feed on Facebook, and on my Pulse on Plaxo. By linking my various accounts together, I can share all parts of my online and personal life that I choose to with all of my friends (most of whom use Facebook, with only a few on Twitter, Flickr, or Plaxo). Since I don’t get to physically see many of my college or work friends very often, this is a way to keep them all informed of what I am doing all the time. I still use direct contact with many of them, but obviously I can’t do that with everyone all the time.

What other reasons do you have for sharing, or not sharing, personal information on the web? Do you use services besides the ones I listed…tell me about them! Share with me in the comments….

What Will the Future Bring?

I just finished reading a post from Nate Westheimer’s blog (aka @innonate) about his views on the future of technology, 5 Things from the Future. I was a little skeptical when I first saw his five indicators of the future, but after reading why he chose them, I completely agree.

His list of 5 indicators include: 1) Twinkle 2) AppleTV 3) Silicon Alley Insider 4) Meetup / The Point / CarrotMob 5) DonorsChoose & Kiva

He makes the point that while these products/services aren’t necessarily the future, the theory behind them is. For example, he describes why he didn’t include the iPhone or Twitter:

No need to put the iPhone or Twitter on my list, because the Twinkle application (jailbroken phones only, for now) combines both of these tools and highlights what is most revolutionary about these two phenomenons.

The other key takeaway from this post was the section on Meetup / The Point / CarrotMob. The idea of “Just In Time Philanthropy” and pushing change by organizing large groups of people to a common cause is incredible. Take a look at teh CarrotMob video after the jump, I’m so impressed about how many people turned up! I would love to see this concept take off - imagine the future….

5 Things from the Future

Sparks Dance Video - Friday

As promised, here’s another one of the time-lapse videos I created from the Sparks dance show. This one is from Friday night’s pictures. Check out Viddler for the rest.

Anyone that’s done time-lapse videos from pictures: What software did you use?

I couldn’t find anything for my Mac that would let me change pictures fast enough. I ended up using my PC and Microsoft MovieMaker to make it look right. Let me know in the comments…

Staying at a Ritz-Carlton

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to stay at a Ritz-Carlton this week for business. Beautiful hotel, gorgeous landscape, amazing room and view. Every member of the staff always treats you like a king (or queen), whether it’s offering you a bottle of water while you’re waiting for the valet to get your car, greeting you in the hallway, or helping you out with anything you need. They even provide a complimentary shoe shine service from your room. Complimentary…let’s get into that.

When I think of complimentary, I think free (so does Dictionary.com). And with a $350/night room rate, I would definitely think the basics would be free. But then you look at what and how much they charge you for…

• They automatically add a “laundering” fee to clean your room (isn’t that a normal hotel practice?)
• They add a maid tip (this is fine, but a heads up would be nice so I don’t tip twice)
• They charge RIDICULOUS prices for catering: $30/person for continental breakfast; $3+/granola bar for snacks; $90/person for lunch; etc.
• They mandate valet parking at $20

The hotel is incredible, I want to reiterate that. But I wish they wouldn’t nickel and dime you for very basic hotel services. I could stay at a Holiday Inn and get free “laundering”, my own maid tip, free continental breakfast, and free parking, all for less than $100/night. As great as the hotel is, I don’t think I’ll be staying at one on my own dime in the future.