It’s the first of the month, how’s your backup?

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Always at the first of the month, no matter what tech item I’ve got, whether it’s a tablet, a phone, a computer, a server, a laptop, a thing, I always
[See the full post at: It’s the first of the month, how’s your backup?]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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SueW, KB6OJS, WCHS, lmacri, Alex5723

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All my devices are backuped regularity.

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Thanks for the reminder.

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From main blog:

Laptop: last backed up at 4 a.m. to a tiny external usb flash drive. Check.

I certainly don’t advise image backups to a usb flashdrive, no matter what the usb flash-drive manufacturer claims.
Seen too many failures when attempts to restore from a flash-drives have been made. YMMV

If debian is good enough for NASA...

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I want it portable so that it can go wherever the laptop is. An external USB hard drive is not portable.

Secondly there really isn’t anything important on the laptop, backing up is merely to make rolling back from an update a bit easier. if it doesn’t work, I’ll reinstall the operating system. It’s worked for me just fine on my retired Windows 10 laptop.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Susan Bradley wrote:

So when is the last time you checked?

Today.

 

 

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Do you do these ‘first-of-the-month’ backups in addition to a backup before the monthly Patch Tuesday patches?

Are these ‘first-of-the-month’ backups data backups only? (i.e., what kind of a backup are we talking about here?)

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This is a reminder to check that it’s working.  Unless you have set up an alert for failures you might be assuming that your backup is working and it’s not.  I always take the time at the first of each month to double check.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Backed up Parallels VMs today – x2 Win8.1Pro , x2 Win10 Pro, x2 Win11 Pro on ARM.
Scheduled (first Monday of the month) image backups of Win10 and Win11 machines tomorrow.

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Never gave much thought to backing up an Android phone.

But then again, we only us the thing for making calls and an occasional text message.

Will search the net of instructions and see if the time/value is worth the effort.

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Android doesn’t have a backup feature (like Apple OSs..). Usually each OEM has its own backup app to its own servers and you don’t know what is being done with the data.

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Also review if your two factor apps have a backup methodology.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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How to backup your Android phone to the cloud Android Authority

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Do you have a contact list on the phone and if so how did it get there?  If you get a new phone how do you move that to the new phone?

In a business setting that contact list may come in from your email hook, if not, you may be manually typing in your contact list again.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Alex5723 wrote:

Android doesn’t have a backup feature

Yes it does.

Back up or restore data on your Android device

I’ve used the “restore” option when updating to a new Android phone so it has all the same apps, contacts, pix, etc. as my old Android phone before recycling it.

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Alex5723, NaNoNyMouse, SueW

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Since it’s the first Sunday of the month, it’s Super Joyful Backup Day.

The Windows machines will do full Macrium Reflect backups this evening. I’ll put Windows Update on maximum deferral as I turn each machine on since they’re all now patched.

I’ll back up my iDevices to the Macbook Air today and make sure it’s done it’s Time Machine backup before shutting down for the night.

I’ll make sure Timeshift is functioning as it should on the Linux Mint machine and install any available software updates.

I’ll check for any firmware updates for my router after making this post since it’s been a while and I have a funny feeling I’ll forget if I defer until tonight.

That ought to be about it.

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Always at the first of the month, no matter what tech item I’ve got, whether it’s a tablet, a phone, a computer, a server, a laptop, a thing, I always
[See the full post at: It’s the first of the month, how’s your backup?]

I back up frequently but not on a regular schedule.  Yes, I know I should, but I’m a bit slack in that area.  I <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>usually</span> do an image backup the weekend before Patch Tuesday, so that I have a fallback, but I’ve just had a lot of other things going on (mostly medical issues).

Thanks for the reminder, I will do an image backup of my laptop this afternoon.

//Steve//

 

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Susan Bradley wrote:

I want it portable so that it can go wherever the laptop is. An external USB hard drive is not portable.

I use an external NVMe stick for immediate backup. It’s in an SSK adapter bottom with a rather large heatsink with pipes on it and a little switchable 40mm fan nearby if needed. Very portable and very fast.

I use terabyte for my backups and frequently (at least just before the patch Tues one month back update) back up the full SSD, and very frequently back up the partition I happen to be upgrading – recently, Mint. That way if I make a mistake on my upgrade, I can back it off and lose almost nothing. Very fast. I used to use Macrium but terabyte has been much faster for me.

My android phone (Moto one 5G Ace) backs up automatically every night, just past midnight.

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Do you have a contact list on the phone and if so how did it get there?  If you get a new phone how do you move that to the new phone?

On Android if you have a Gmail account contacts are copied from Gmail.
On iPhone/iPad.. contacts are downloaded from Cloud.

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I have many contacts with whom I’ve never exchanged any emails and for which I have absolutely no reason to make those contacts known to any Gmail account or to iCloud.

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You can export your contacts to .vcf/csv files.

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I do!

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Not necessarily.  If your phone is connected to Microsoft 365 your contacts are in Office.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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I Clone my C (OS) HDD every 2 weeks. I have 2 SATA “Hot Swap” Racks in 2 of my 5.25″ Desktop Tower PC Bays so Cloning & Imaging are easy since the Racks allow easy Insert/Eject access to my HDD’s.

I rotate 2 spare shelf C HDD’s every 2 weeks, having 2 Cloned HDD’s on the shelf when/if needed due to unexpected issues that may arise.

– Image (Full HDD Image) about once every 4 months. I’ve rarely used an Image file to do a complete C HDD “Restore” since I use 2 of my Cloned spare HDD’s for more frequent “roll back” restores. Those Cloned HDD’s have come in handy a few times over the years to quickly roll back my C HDD in the event of bad updates, Graphic Card updates that create problems, etc.

– Incremental Backup of several of my “must have” files (Outlook PST Data file, some Excel Files, etc) twice daily via automated unattended Backup using Acronis to a continuously connected portable USB HDD. I keep my Desktop PC in Standby (Sleep) Mode so that I can awaken it via Windows Task Scheduler a couple of minutes before the automated Acronis Backup utility launches.

– Once Daily semi-manual Backup of my few “must have” files to multiple USB Sticks (connected only during the Backup action) using a Script File. The Script prompts for a USB Drive Letter, then copies the selected files from my C HDD to the USB Drive.

Regarding full-HDD Backups, it’s advisable to do a “Test Restore” occasionally so as to have confidence that a recently-Cloned Or Imaged HDD will restore the PC without issues.

Since I’ve yet to encounter a Cloned or Imaged HDD to properly restore my PC, I do a Test Restore only once every 4-5 months. I use one of my spare shelf HDD’s to Test Restore my PC.

To prep the spare HDD for a “Restore” action, I’ll use the Diskpart “Clean” command to quickly erase the HDD’s Partitions, Zero out the Disk Signature (Hex) value, etc. The “Clean” command isn’t a complete “wipe all 1’s & 0’s” command on a HDD but it’s a fast way to render the HDD as “Unallocated”, somewhat like formatting a HDD except that the “Clean” command is very fast, taking less than 10 seconds to complete.

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