Tag: backup

Wait a minute ... backup!

 

Recent blog posts by web developer/designer Chris Bowler and photographer François Arnold started me thinking about my own computer backup strategy.  I would like to think I've developed a reliable and workable system over the years but on inspection I think have a few gaps.

Chris's blog posting is about how he uses Time Machine as part of his backup strategy.  He also compares his strategy to that of others.

My own process is similar, making use of a 1 TB external drive for weekly clones of my hard drive and video storage, a 750 GB external drive for Time Machine backups, a 120 GB external drive for monthly clones of my hard drive, and Dropbox for everything that is important (even my music and photos).1

François on the other hand focuses on creating a detailed backup strategy for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

 

As photographers, we mainly want to backup our master files with their editing (so we don’t have to do it all over again) and our catalogs.2

François's strategy starts from the moment he imports his photos into Lightroom which includes choosing the right format to keep his images and edits. François is a Mac user so his strategy also includes Time Machine.

My current strategy is not quite as organised or well thought out as Chris's or François'.

My current backup system involves three external hard drives and a cloud backup service. My Lightroom catalog is kept on one of the external drives; a 1TB G-Drive Q attached to my iMac. My wife prefers iPhoto so I import photos from her iPhone and any images of family. The iPhoto library is kept on the same 1TB drive as the Lightroom catalog. iMovie files are stored here as well. The second external hard drive, a 500GB G-Drive Q attached to the iMac, stores my iTunes library. Some of my important files are stored in the Documents folder on the iMac's 250GB internal drive and some are stored on the 500GB G-Drive Q. I use Dropbox to store my 1Password keychain as well as documents that I've import onto my iPad via GoodReader. These documents might have come to my iPad via Mobile Safari or the Mail app.

The backup process is both automated and manual. I use the Backblaze3 cloud backup service to backup the entire Lightroom catalog, the files stored in the internal Documents folder and the Documents folder on the external 500GB G-Drive Q. The Backblaze agent runs continuously and copies any changed files up to the cloud service. Occasionally — there is no set schedule — I connect a 250GB Seagate FreeAgent drive and run Time Machine to backup. This backups everything except the default exclusions4. I also have a 500GB Time Capsule that I never use. The Time Machine backups were taking too long over Wi-Fi.

After reading Chris' and François' post I realise that I have a gap in my strategy. The first issue is that I only have two copies of my photos and documents. The copy on the external drives and the backups in the cloud (for the photos and documents) and the Seagate drive (for documents). I think a good backup strategy requires at least three copies of important files — the original and two backups — with one of the copes stored off site. The second issue is that I don't have a backup for my iTunes library. All my purchases — movie, music, and apps — are at risk5.

I think I need a new system. I have not bought any equipment yet but I think I have a strategy that will work.

  • Move all important documents — tax paper work, receipts, etc — to the Documents folder on the Mac's internal drive. I'll use TimeMachine Editor to automate the schedule. Continue to backup the iMac via Backblaze but add a twice weekly backup to the FreeAgent via Time Machine. That's one off site backup and one onsite backup.
  • Continue to keep the iTunes library on the 500GB G-Drive Q. There is still the issue of a second and third backup. I could backup to Backblaze but media files tend to be quite large and I'm worried about exceeding my Comcast bandwidth cap.
  • The photo libraries are already being backed-up to Backblaze but as with the iTunes library the second backup is an issue. My Time Capsule does not have enough storage to keep my iTunes library and my very large photo libraries. I could add another FireWire drive to the iMac but I've already got two drives hanging of the back of the thing and the desk could get crowded. The Seagate FreeAgent Drive is too small to hold iTunes and the photo catalog.

I'm not sure what to do about the other backups. I guess I could perform manual backups on a weekly basis to another external drive but I really want an automated solution. I need to do more thinking.

I "remote wiped" my iPhone

Last month NPR carried a story about a woman, Amanda Stanton, whose iPhone was remotely disabled while she was travelling for work.

She had been talking on it and navigating with a GPS app during a work trip to Los Angeles. Then, without any warning or error message, the phone quit.

Her phone was hooked to her employers Exchange calendar and email system and someone in IT had mistakenly sent a "remote wipe" signal to her iPhone.  Her personal iPhone.  Amanda was shocked to discover that her employer could not only do that to an employee-owned device but she was upset that she had not been warned about what she was agreeing to in exchange for the convenience of checking her email and calendar.

Of course, my employer, like many others offers similar connectivity from iPhone, Blackberries and certain Android phones.  However, we make a point to inform the user up-front, via a waiver, that the offer comes with a caveat.  My employer warns users choosing to connect their personal devices in this way that we can and will remote-wipe their phone under certain conditions — theft, loss or termination.  This is done to protect company information.

But one sentence in the NPR article had me concerned.

Everything was gone — all her contacts, photos and even the phone's ability to make calls.

I didn't mind the idea of my contacts, photos etc being erased.  I back up my iPhone and iPad at least twice a day via iTunes.  If my iPhone was wiped I could easily restore my personal data from backup.  It was the thought that I would not be able to make calls that bothered me.  My wife and I cut the landline cord several years ago.  Our cellular phones are the only phones we have.  Accidental or intentional wiping of my iPhone would leave me without any means of communication.

As a person with Type 1 diabetes, I use insulin to manage my diabetes.  One of the side effects of insulin is hypoglycemia — low blood glucose.

Hypoglycemia is a condition that occurs when your blood sugar (glucose) is too low. Symptoms: Cold sweats; Confusion; Convulsions; Coma; Double vision or blurry vision

Because of the risk of hypoglycemia, my wife and I worked out a safety protocol. Before I drive, I test to get a measure of my current blood glucose. If it's low I take a small snack. When travelling, I call my wife when I leave or arrive at my destination. If I forget to call her or she doesn't hear from me, she calls me. Imagine how both of us would feel if we can't communicate?

I discussed this with my management and some of the other security analyst at the office.  I argued that remote-wipe resets iPhone back to factory defaults and that when I received my iPhone from Apple it could not make any calls until I activated it via iTunes.  However, they were all convinced that a remote wipe would not affect the iPhone's ability to make calls.  Of course, none of them would volunteer their phones for a test.  I called Apple support and spoke to a tech who told me that my colleagues were indeed correct. But I was not convinced.

I have a day off today.  I decided to put the question to bed.  I backed up my iPhone, logged into my employer's email portal and sent a remote-wipe request to my iPhone.  Three minutes later my iPhone suddenly rebooted — there was no indication that the wipe was occurring — and I was presented with a screen instructing me to connect my iPhone to iTunes.

Before connecting to iTunes, I swiped the "Slide to Unlock" and was presented with a dialer — for emergency calls. My iPhone in this state could make emergency calls only. The iPhone was not able to dial any numbers except for 911. I was not able to make any person to person calls or use any applications on the phone until I synced with iTunes. The iPhone also had a "No Service" message in the signal bars area.  My iPhone was now indeed reset to factory default rendering the iPhone completely useless (except for 911 calls).

Once the iPhone was restored from backup via iTunes — about 15 minutes during which the iPhone displayed a message “iPhone is activated” — and rebooted, I was once again able to make calls.  I had to sync on more time to re-install my 121 apps and re-initialize other iTunes specific settings (like folders and icon arrangements). That took another 15 minutes.

Shortly after doing this test, I removed my iPhone from my employer's servers.  In balancing my employer's risk against my own I've decided the convenience to them isn't worth the risk to me.  However, I have decided to leave my iPad connected to the email and calendar servers.  I don't make calls from that device.

Backblaze: Time Machine for the Cloud


BackBlaze
BackBlaze

Last year my friend had to deliver some distressing news to his wife. The external hard drive on which he had been storing their family photos failed. The problem had started a few weeks earlier when his wife mentioned that the hard drive was making some strange noises. My friend had planned on backing up the disk to DVD but being a busy IT manager he just never got around to it.
At that time I remember thinking smugly to myself, if only he had a Mac with Time Machine he would have been protected. I realized later on that I was wrong. I use Time Machine to backup three of the household Macs to Time Capsule once a day. This protects my data should the local hard drive fail but I lose ALL of my backups if the Time Capsule disk fails. I wanted a backup system that was more robust; one from which I could survive a local disk and local network storage failure. That's where Backblaze comes in.

Backblaze is a cloud based service that backs up everything on your computer except your operating system, applications, and temporary files. The service costs $5/month ($50/year) and provides three methods to recover your data. You can download your files from the Backblaze web site, order them delivered to you on DVD ($99, 4GB max) or for a $189 fee Backblaze will deliver your files on a 500GB Western Digital external USB hard drive. The 500GB seems quite reasonable to me considering that I now have 74GB of data (70GB of photos, 4GB of documents) stored on Backblaze.

After registering for the service I downloaded and installed the Mac version of the Backblaze client. The Mac client is Intel only. Backblaze also offers a client for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

One of the first things I did was setup the frequency of backups. By default, Backblaze simply backs up all the time so you don't have to remember. But if you wish, you can schedule Backblaze to backup at a convenient time (like the middle of the night) or only when you click "Backup Now". I chose the "Continuously" option. I take a lot of photos during the summer and I find myself emptying the SD card from my Nikon at least once a week.

Backblaze will backup any USB or Firewire drive I have attached to my computer as long as I leave the external hard drive attached to my computer all the time. It was simple to add my 500 GB G-Drive Q Firewire HD to the backup queue. Good thing too, since this is where I keep my digital photos.

To prevent users from abusing the service network (NAS) drives, Time Machine drives , remotely mounted computers or volumes, or shared volumes do not get backed up.

From the setting screen the user can also set options to control how much local network bandwidth is dedicated to backup as alerts for failed incomplete backups.

By default Backblaze backups everything on the main hard drive except for applications and the operating system. It also does not backup files over 4GB. Backblaze claims that most users do not create files larger than 4GB. I can't disagree with that and they do make an except for iPhoto library files.

I don't really need every user folder to be backed-up. My iPhoto library are stored respectively in the Photos and Documents folders on the externally drive. Unfortunately the mechanism that Backblaze uses to mange what gets backed-up and what doesn't is not easy. I had to explicitly exclude all the folders that I did not want backed-up — on both the local and external drive. If you have more than one user on the local machine this can take considerable time.

The Backblaze console provides a fair amount of reporting including how much storage each type of file will use and which files are scheduled for backup.  This was an eye opener for me. I did not realize how large my iPhoto library had grown. A drive failure would surely be a painful experience.

I've been using the Backblaze service and software for just a few weeks and so far I have no had any problems.  Of course, the true test of service is how easy it is to service a hard drive failure.  Knowing that I can rebuild my machine and recover all my files with a single click gives me piece of mind.