[AccessD] On the subject of backups

[James Button]

>From Experience - 
Bothe the file history and the win-7 mode system image have serious flaws

The image gets updated with changed files from the backed-up system, 
So crypto-malwared, or content corruption, and file deletions get to be part of
the backup.

Re he file history - 
The history entries are limited to the 255 character fullname length. And about
30? Characters of that limit are taken by the additional file timestamp etc.
that is needed for the backup identity
 Also - how frequently do you want backups to be taken, - and does it matter to
you if the 'backup' is of the file in a partially updated state - or one of a
set of files that makeup a restorable set of data.

Note - the short-name  reuse problem will apply if you recover a file rather
than updating the content of the 'known to the OS' instance

Drag-n-drop has that problem & will sometimes deal with excessive file lengths
Xcopy has that problem and reports lack of memory and gives-up when encountering
excessive file lengths
XXcopy Similarly - 

I use ROBOCOPY for a daily backup of the files I manually update.

Script (run from the target device, so specifically naming the source
partitions, and not needing the OS to assign that target device the same letter
as last time!)
Phase 1 maintains a date of the last posting to the target partition, and only
processes files that it considers to be newer (or the same date) as the current
backup "date"
Phase 2 creates a datetime stamped folder and copies the same set of 'new;
versions to that.
Then uploads zip sets of 1GB parts of that datetime-stamped set.

OK - flawed in that:
 it expects the OS date to be OK
 multiple runs the same day will save multiple copies of the same file(s)
It keeps old files that I may have deleted, an/or moved elsewhere.

I also have a version of the script that is phase 1 only to keep a composite
USB stick of the daily work
And a similar script to update the laptop with the USB stick content - 

There is Dropbox, built-in Onedrive, and Google-drive  and other 'SYNC'
facilities for those with reliable 24/7 broadband to cloud.


EASEUS Todo for 'restorable' partition images of data - and the OS - the backup
being split into 4GB parts, can be uploaded to OneDrive, and 
then - at need downloaded and 'mounted' so that I can get individual files, or
copy content.
(Note separate drive image for the boot UEFI stuff - from experience some full
system backups get reported as unreadable by the Windows OS's
seems to be associated with the order of the partition table entries not
matching what Windows expects.)

Belt, braces, elasticated waistline, bit of rope, and an unoccupied hand  - mode
Wait till you have had the power control on a motherboard fail - with smoke
While doing a backup and charging your phone - killing all the storage etc.
Then you find there was a problem with the previous backup to the alternate
storage device!
POP3 email - many ISP's allow recovery of up-to-30 days emails, or - (Gmail?)
get all they have stored 
So it can take a week or more to download the emails from day dot onwards, in
order to get the last 60 days!
remember - you had to realist you needed a complete new system and set of
storage - and then set them up - 
After getting the replacement phone working!

JimB

-----Original Message-----
From: AccessD
<accessd-bounces+jamesbutton=blueyonder.co.uk at databaseadvisors.com> On Behalf Of
John Colby
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2023 3:55 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
<accessd at databaseadvisors.com>
Subject: [AccessD] On the subject of backups

I'm on a mission from God...

Having lost my boot drive recently, I have decided it is time to get
serious about backups.  Yea yea, after the horse is gone...

Windows File History isn't an all encompassing backup but it seems to
garner good reviews for what it does.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/833338/windows-file-history-review.html

One thing this article mentions is that File History automatically backs up
all *libraries*.  Now libraries are a subject I had no clue about but it
seems that we can create our own libraries which will then be automatically
included in File History backups.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-use-libraries-windows-10

So I created a library for 'Development'.  I place all of my dev stuff out
on a second partition drive D: with a half dozen or so directories.  So I
created a Development library and added all of these directories on drive
d: and voila, file history will now grab it

TBH when I clicked "create" apply changes to the library took off and man
is it taking awhile.

I think this will be handy.  I am a budding (or withering, depending on how
you look at it) musician.  I play at the bass and am trying to get a midi
keyboard working through my computer as well.  I own and really like Band
In A Box as a way to create a 'busking' like thing going and it requires an
entire install and a ton of files, plus the stuff that I create.

So a Library seems in order for that as well.  Automatic backups for that
stuff.

At any rate, File History for all the functionality it provides.
-- 
John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
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