Best backup method?

[BrianG 11]

Currently, I do not employ any form of RAID for my media drives. I have just two (so far) 3TB drives inside my media server that hold all my DVD ISO files. I also have two external 3TB drives which are exact copies of the server drives. When I add another movie, I hook up the correct external drive and manually copy the new movie. Basically a 1:1 backup solution which is kinda/sorta a form of "offline RAID1" setup I guess.

 

I'd like to improve this process as it is tedious, inconvenient, and time consuming, but not quite sure how to go about it, or if it is even worth the bother. I am hesitant to use RAID of any form. Why? Well, I've read some studies which have shown that since all drives in a RAID array see the same read/write cycles and power-on time, when one drive fails, there is a high chance other(s) will fail soon - statistically-speaking. I've seen this happen in our data servers at work; one drive will fail and then another will fail within a relatively short time.

 

Ideally, I'd like to have a setup where backup drives are ONLY powered on when being written to, but automatically powered-off during read cycles. Basically: read from one drive, but write to both. This would greatly reduce the read-cycle and powered-up duty cycle of the backup drives and so should theoretically last much longer. If a drive fails (presumably the one most often used and powered up), the system would take that drive temporarily offline until a replacement can be swapped in, and then the system would handle re-replication from the backup.

Does such a thing exist? I realize turning a drive fully off would require some kind of software-controlled switch to enable/disable power going to the backup drives. Nothing I've seen or read about approaches this kind of scheme, so am not very optimistic. If nothing else, I will keep doing what I currently do and deal with the inconvenience.

 

I will say having spares is a MUST as I have already had one 3TB failure; the external backup drives were well worth their cost. I still have all the original DVDs, but re-ripping them would have been a major pain.

 

Sorry to be so long-winded, but I want to be sure everyone understands where I am coming from. Thanks in advance!

[Deathsquirrel 741]

My backup process is about the same as yours and I haven't found anything else that's as reliable, cheap, and easy to do.  It's just manual.

The one possible difference my process which makes it easier is frequency.  I rip a disc and post it to the server.  I then make a copy of the full server folder, with metadata, to a 'needs backed up' folder.  When I've got a couple hundred GB in that folder I back it up and then clear the space on my ripping machine.  There's a copy on the server already so there are always two copies that way.  Saves me having to bust out a backup drive very often.

[BrianG 11]

Thanks for your input!

 

Actually, I do something similar to what you do, but I tried to keep my original post as simple as possible for clarity. My actual process:

 

- On my PC, rip the movie(s) to a folder set aside specifically for that purpose.

 

- Copy the ripped movie(s) to a "drop" folder on my server via network. This "drop" folder is a temporary network share and has read & write access.

 

- Log into the server remotely and move the movie(s) from the "drop" folder to the final destination (media drive).

 

- Once I have several movies ripped on my PC, I bring home one of the external drives and copy them all from my PC to the backup drives. I keep the backup drives at work for off-site storage in case of fire/theft/flood at home. 

 

You may ask why I don't simply copy the files from my pc directly to the media drive on the server. Well, I am a little paranoid so I disabled write access for the media folder network shares. This prevents accidental deletions by me or family members on their PCs (each room has its own mini-HTPC), or viruses (like CryptoLock) which can attack network shares/mapped drives. I also disabled administrative shares (C$, D$, etc) on those media drives as well. No one ever gets on the server itself since it sits in the basement with no monitor, keyboard, or mouse attached.

 

The server has no optical drive, so I can't rip directly there (even if I did install a monitor/KB/mouse), nor do I want to sit in my basement to do so. So, you can see why I wanted to simplify the process.

Edited December 10, 2013 by BrianG

[Sundog 16]

This might take some tweaking, but Id write a Batch file with either an "xcopy" or "robocopy" command.  With the right switches, it will only copy new or changed files.  You can also turn the USB ports on and off, so if its in your basement and you can log into it remotely, the drives should in theory power off when not in use.

 

Make a text file, and paste in something like ...  

 

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor /v "Start" /t REG_DWORD /d "3" /f

xcopy C:\source X:\destination /s /d 

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor /v "Start" /t REG_DWORD /d "4" /f

 

... then save it, and change the extension to ".bat"  In the reg lines, "4" turns USB off, and "3" turns them on.

 

Set that to run periodically vs your main collection in the task scheduler, and it will back up new stuff without having to do it for every single item.  Maybe once a week.  

 

PS:  Id also add ...

 

reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor /v "Start" /t REG_DWORD /d "3" /f

 

To a startup script, so if you have an issue, you can reboot and USBs will be on.  They wouldnt turn off again until the next script run.

 

(Standard disclaimer:  Use at your own risk!  Untested!)

 

[BrianG 11]

That is very interesting! I already have batch files to do certain tasks so I'm pretty familiar with the process, I just didn't know there were options to turn on/off USB devices via CLI.  That opens up a whole new set of possibilities for this as well as other tasks!

 

Instead of a scheduled task, I'd probably make the batch file run manually via an icon on the desktop for when I'm logged in, or better yet, run it via my intranet web application from any PC on my network.

[Pelon 160]

Actually it is much easier than this if the external hard drives are always connected.

The first step is to download the free Microsoft SyncToy 2.1.

This tool allows you as the name state sync diferent folders. It can be 2 ways as in what is updated in one hard drive also gets updated on the second.

Or as I have it, you can have it one way so that only when you add something to the internal hard drives, that gets copied to the external ones.

 

That is still a manual process, but an easy one.If you want to run this manually you can, and you can even use the command line to run this process.

 

The next step is to use the Windows Task Scheduler to schedule the backup at any preset time that you want.

 

This will only copy the files that have been modified since the last time it ran.