3-2-1 backup, what other media do you use besides HDDs?

[owlig11]

As the title ask, I'm curious what media types are used for those that follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy. HDDs are the main media used by most people. SSD is still too expensive for large data sets. Tape isn't really an option for home users. Optical is not very reliable long-term (maybe M-Disc?).

 

[PHolder]

Well most people have primary data on SSD's these days, so HDD would be another choice, along with cloud backups. Burned DVDs would probably be fine for 10 year backup of data that can be organized into 4GB chunks that are suitable as "store offline" (as long as it's climate controlled.)

 

[Barry Wallis]

My main storage is 1TB SSD. That is incrementally backed up hourly to an external 4TB HDD storing backups to June 25, 2020. It is also continually backed up to the Microsoft Cloud via OneDrive (which allows me to access any file from any device anywhere).

 

[Tazz]

My backups are on HDDs and OneDrive. The primary backup location is 3 6TB disks in a RAID5 setup, then synced to 2 2TB disks in RAID1. This is all in the same machine.

Then I manually sync the backups to a different machine that has 2 1TB disks running on TrueNAS in a virtual machine using the physical disk passthrough. I do it manually because the disks are only online (in disk management) while the backups are copied over. I might look into setting a script to online/offline the disks at specific times when I get tired of the manual method.

Then the backups get copied to a 1TB disk on another PC at a different location about a mile away, thanks to the new fiber op internet connection that rolled through a month or 2 ago
Again, the disk is only online when the files are being copied to it.

I do a full disk backup the first Sunday of every month and incremental backups every Sunday after that. The full disk backup gets uploaded to OneDrive every month. I try to keep 4 months of backups for two PCs. Any Windows updates are usually done Sunday or Monday so that I'll have a "fresh" backup to go back to if the update breaks more than it fixes.

 

[JimWilliamson]

As the title ask, I'm curious what media types are used for those that follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy.

I do not follow the 3-2-1 strategy but am content with the backup routine in place.

As to your direct q (media types): 1) mechanical hard drives - online and offline are primary, 2) online backup service (likely mechanical hard drive), 3) select data onto paper via a black toner laser printer.

For those that state "OneDrive"... Are you folks using OneDrive backup or OneDrive sync? Not that an answer is needed though I do hope it's OneDrive Backup. A nit-pick of mine is "sync" and "RAID" are not "Backup". I'll be curious to comments (not that I'm really asking for them). I'll be out for a week - Maze District of Canyonlands N.P. starts tomorrow. g'night.

 

[Barry Wallis]

For those that state "OneDrive"... Are you folks using OneDrive backup or OneDrive sync? Not that an answer is needed though I do hope it's OneDrive Backup. A nit-pick of mine is "sync" and "RAID" are not "Backup". I'll be curious to comments (not that I'm really asking for them). I'll be out for a week - Maze District of Canyonlands N.P. starts tomorrow. g'night.

I use OneDrive sync and backup. That currently allows me to recover versions going back nine months. I have exercised this as a backup several times. I run the Windows Insider version of Win10 and needed to wipe my drive and reinstall Windows from scratch (without retaining any files). Restoring from OneDrive was quick and painless since I use Files On-Demand and only the placeholders needed to be recreated with the contents being downloaded as needed.

 

[Bplayer]

My backup requirements are not particularly demanding. Laptop data synced to Desktop once a week. The Desktop is used by my spouse and would be synced to another laptop when traveling. Data from both is backed up weekly to encrypted zip file(s). These are then auto synced to OneDrive and manually burned on a DVD. The weekly backup is incremental, and every quarter a full backup is performed. No data losses/crashed experienced in the last 7 or more years, and only a rare situation where a single file need to be recovered.
There could be some loss with a complete SSD or HDD failure just before a backup was done, but our data is not mission critical and could be reconstructed.
If my laptop failed it could easily be recovered from the Desktop. If the Desktop failed it would be recovered from the last full backup and then all the incremental backups. The downsides are the time to do this, and deleted files would be restored.

 

[Tazz]

Let me clarify a little, I use Macrium Reflect to make the disk backups and SyncToy to do the automatic sync in that one PC.

For those that state "OneDrive"... Are you folks using OneDrive backup or OneDrive sync?

Just plain old OneDrive, I upload the files manually from the web interface.

A nit-pick of mine is "sync" and "RAID" are not "Backup".

My thinking is that I have multiple copies of my backup files across three different sets of redundant disks.

1. File created on RAID5 (3 disks).
2. Files synced to RAID1 (2 disks).
3. Files manually copied to TrueNAS Mirror on separate PC (2 disks).
4. Files copied to a single disk at different location (1 disk).
5. The full disk image is uploaded to OneDrive in the first few days of each month.​

My ultimate goal is to be able to grab a copy of the backup files in the event that I need to restore my PC because of my screw-up in trying to make it 'run better' or a Windows Update with additional unintended "features'. I don't care where I get the files from as long as they're there.

 

[miquelfire]

I use Macrium Reflect as well to create nightly backups. I have it set to keep 14 incremental backups on my Drobo 5N2 NAS. Currently have 3 4TB and 2 3TB disks in there with "RAID 6" protection. Some issues with how Drobo does things might cause me to switch to using my Unraid box as a replacement in the long run (Drobo reports a set disk size to Windows, and currently it's like 5-6x bigger than what I actually have, and that set size is the max size I can have total on this machine anyway)

I use BackBlaze for my cloud part of the 3-2-1 backup.

 

[Lob]

I use OneDrive for my data plus I use Veeam free tier to back up to SMB which just happens to be in the OneDrive structure of my server. Daily incrementals and monthly full with Veeam. I was with Macrium but I hopped to this a month or two ago.

The machine image is just for convenience, the OneDrive is the key. I have O365 family for three people plus a server to have 1Tb OneDrive storage. Costs me less than $80 per year for this subscription (either find deals or see if your employer does the MS HUP for such pricing).

 

[Barry Wallis]

I have O365 family for three people plus a server to have 1Tb OneDrive storage. Costs me less than $80 per year for this subscription (either find deals or see if your employer does the MS HUP for such pricing).

Another way to get a discount (at least last year) was to sign up for the free MS Build conference. At the end you got access to several discounts including MS 365 subscriptions.

 

[doopy]

Optical is not very reliable long-term (maybe M-Disc?).

Not that I would necessarily trust them to be reliable, but I have some CD-Rs lying around that are probably 20 years old and still read fine. They've spent half that time in a converted attic which gets very hot in the summer on days without the AC on. None of them are high-grade discs or anything either. On the other hand, I've seen a few go bad in less time. Interestingly, Linux live CDs especially, presumably because they've spent more time under the laser, maybe?