What is the Best Backup for Windows in a Small Home or Office? (SOHO)
This is the question I asked myself over two years ago. At the time I recommended the SynologyDS210j and I still would if they made it!
It’s now been replaced by the DS212j, that’s it on the left.
This though, is essentially the same as my old one and in fact, in appearance it’s the same. My DS210j has functioned perfectly for well over two years. It just sits there, quietly doing its own thing and has never let me down.
My friend has just bought a D-Link ShareCenter 2 Bay Cloud Network Storage Enclosure since they didn’t want to spend so much…
It’s less than half the price of the Synology and tomorrow evening, I get to set it up!
The specifications, included software, and operating system functionality are almost identical to my Synology. You know, stuff like media server, web server, iTunes server, backup drive, security camera monitoring, the list goes on..!
The reviews, however, say that it is noisy, though my friend says this isn’t an issue since it’s going in a cupboard with the router and internet gateway. It does seem to have a smaller fan than my little white cutie, so that could be it.
Some reviewers had difficulty setting it or its software up. Well actually, I’ve had a few difficulties myself with the DSM software from Synology – if you’ve not done things like this before, it can be difficult and confusing. It’s not Windows after all!
So, watch this space. I’ll get back later when it’s all done.
What is the Best Backup for Windows in a Small Home or Office? Which Windows Backup? A History. Over the years I’ve tried many systems for backing up crucial Windows data. Currently for small-scale backups I use the ubiquitous and almost bullet-proof flash drives, my current one tipping the scales at 8Gb. But for major...
Another day, another Microsoft security alert.. This morning, another raft of advisories arrived in my mail from Secunia, this is one; Internet Explorer Data Binding Memory Corruption Vulnerability This rivetting title is like deja-vu. Time and again we’ve seen this. This is the fault of a company, Microsoft, that puts form before function, functionality before...
What is the Best Backup for Windows in a Small Home or Office?
Which Windows Backup? A History.
Over the years I’ve tried many systems for backing up crucial Windows data. Currently for small-scale backups I use the ubiquitous and almost bullet-proof flash drives, my current one tipping the scales at 8Gb. But for major backups, as the years have passed, I’ve used;
Floppy discs – 1.4Mb
Iomega Zip discs – 100Mb
CDRW – 650Mb
DVD-R – 4.7Gb
Western Digital My Book Home Edition – 1Tb
They all had their problems and limitations. The last one looked good with Firewire, USB2, ethernet & eSATA connections – but it overheated and broke…..
Best Windows Backup!
My current system is from Synology and is a “DS210j – Budget-friendly 2-bay NAS server for Home and Small Business”
I can heartily recommend the thing. It has so much gubbins within it and far exceeds my limited expectations. I installed two green 2Tb drives from Western Digital in mirrored RAID for security and use the auto-backup software provided as well as Windows’ own. This is extremely relevant for the large number of hits I’ve had to this posting where a major part of the problem is the time taken to do a backup! In my case, the 750Gb just takes a few hours to copy across the Gigabit speed ethernet that the unit can use.
Addendum June 2011: The tool is a seriously capable bit of kit and I cannot recommend it enough. Get one!
It does everything it says on the tin, and more! The whole thing cost me about 200 quid, plus an hour of my time to install.
Even its firewall is more configurable than any router I’ve used! It can be used as a server for FTP or the web. It comes with software for a host of things that mimic Flikr etc but without all the privacy or security issues inherent in off-line storage. It’ll also run with any operating system because it itself is a mini-linux installation as it is, and includes Windows, Apple and Linux applications.
Check it out, straight from their overview page:
Build Your Entertainment Center
Download Station 2 functions as a 24×7 BitTorrent, FTP, HTTP, eMule, and NZB download center. RapidShare and RSS download are now supported.
DLNA Compliant Media Sever ensures compatibility and interoperability between Disk Station and a wide range of DLNA-certified home devices.
iTunes Server provides an easy way to share music and videos with other iTunes clients within the local network. You can create playlists with songs that match the criteria you specified, and best of all, iTunes will update these playlists automatically as you add or delete songs.
Audio Station supports music, Internet radio stations, and iPod playback with connected USB speakers. Web-streaming mode allows your music to be shared with multiple users over the Internet.
Back Up Your Precious Data
DSM 2.2 offers comprehensive solutions for you to back up data stored on Disk Station or your desktop computer to the Disk Station.
Server backup includes two alternatives: Network Backup and Local Backup. Both allow you to back up data in the shared folders and databases. Incremental backup option and flexible schedules are available. All can be easily configured with a step-by-step wizard.
Desktop backup provides Windows PC users with the Synology Data Replicator 3 for backing up desktop data, Outlook, and Outlook Express emails to their Disk Station by choosing one of the three backup modes: Immediate, Sync, and Scheduled backup, while Mac OS X users can use Apple Time Machine backup application to back up their critical data to Disk Station.
USBCopy allows you to quickly back up your data from an USB storage device such as an USB flash or USB card reader to the Disk Station with just one single touch on the front-panel Copy button.
Enrich Your Web Presence
Photo Station 3 simplifies photo, video, and blog sharing over the Internet. The flexibility of photo theme customization, blog layout arrangement, visitor’s privilege setting, RSS feed, and the dazzling 3-dimentional photo browsing with Cooliris make Photo Station 3 your state-of-the-art lifestyle sharing center on the Internet.
Web Station with built-in PHP+MySQL allows users to publish their own websites or install numerous popular open-source programs.
Access With Your iPhone/Mobile Device
The iPhone App DS audio allows Disk Station users to stream music stored on Disk Station with their iPhone/iPod® touch where Internet access is available, while DS photo allows uploading photos from the iPhone/iPod® touch to their Disk Station.
Users with a mobile device running on Windows Mobile® 6.0, iPhone OS 2.2.1 onward, or Symbian OS 9.1 can log on their Disk Station to view photos with Mobile Photo Station and read supported file formats with Mobile File Station where Internet access is available.
Eco Friendly
Eco Friendly
Synology Disk Station is designed and developed perpetually with the concept of energy saving. Compared with average PC counterparts, Synology Disk Station consumes a relatively low amount of power and has the HDDs hibernate when not in use. This not only helps to save energy but also extends the lifespan of the hard disk.
Synology Disk Station truly earns the title of “green product” because of the unique Scheduled Power On/Off feature, and the smart fan design effectively cools down the system with minimum power consumption, yet keeps the system quiet on operation.
Finally, all Synology products are produced with RoHS compliant parts and packed with recyclable packing materials. Synology recognizes its responsibility as a global citizen and is continually working to reduce the environmental impact of the products we create.
How to Convert a Windows 7 Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk When Microsoft says It’s Irreversible! Firstly, Do Not Dance with the Devil! I made the mistake (again!) of trying dynamic disks with my new Windows 7 installation. I must have been asleep – the use of this system is seriously frowned upon for most...
Windows 7 Ultimate Install To say that I’m seriously impressed is an understatement! Having an MSDN subscription confers certain benefits, but for most Microsoft stuff that I have to use, it’s usually an exercise in teeth-gritting somewhere from the banal to the infuriating as I plod on through. My personal experience of Vista comes into...
In a weird co-incidence that I missed at the time, I’ve just found that the plans for the Auschwitz death camp were put on display during my Austrian visit earlier this year. This visit very soon prompted my outburst on the pontificating nutty bishop, Richard Williamson (see The Face of Evil from 20 Feb...
This week, I’ve become aware of three excellent initiatives that are focussing people’s energies, creativity, and cash(!) into positive solutions to the global energy crisis. It just shows what can be done – and these projects are not difficult or hard to creative creatures like ourselves. Big Mirrors in the Desert This is a $400billion...
How to Convert a Windows 7 Dynamic Disk to Basic Disk When Microsoft says It’s Irreversible!
Firstly, Do Not Dance with the Devil!
I made the mistake (again!) of trying dynamic disks with my new Windows 7 installation. I must have been asleep – the use of this system is seriously frowned upon for most users. It has several pitfalls not least that it’s high-end Windows specific (i.e not home, basic etc), and it’s impossible to clone partitions for backup or moves, say.
But mainly, it’s supposed to be irreversible AND un-do-able!
Dynamic Disk Option
To convert from basic to dynamic is frighteningly easy (see screen shot). The reversing option disappears once it’s done and in virtually all Disk Partition Software, any ‘partitions’, now called volumes, just show as one big monolithic slab of pale yellow disk that has any possible action greyed out! This was really bad as it was on the system drive…
You’ll see in the screen-shot that there are 3 disks.
Disk 0 & disk 1 were an effort at user-data mirroring originally until I realised what I pile of poo I’d just landed in. All the initial recommendations were negative and the prognosis didn’t look good. See:
The trick, as in Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is 42!
Specifically, all 42‘s must be converted to 07.
The highlighted area contains the bit to edit and the numbers to edit in this area are those in column 02 that are 42. So change all the 42′s to 07′s in column 02 in the four highlighted lines. (n.b. The screendump was taken after I’d fixed the disc, so all the 42s are now 07 and some partitions have been deleted.)
That’s all.
Do NOT twiddle anything else.
Caveat
This post in the thread says to just alter one line – this is wrong! (There’s a confusing addition at the bottom. This relates directly to my experience, so yes, all real primary partitions are numbered 07)
And this post says to do them all – this is right. It shows 3.
In my original pre-editted state, I had 4! Handily, this shows the reason (I think), why you can only have 4 primary partitions on a drive.
Finale and Actual Actions Summary
Current Disks
Now you’ll see I have only two 07′s in the column (in the screenshot above). These map to the two partitions showing in my Disk Management full screen-shot here. For some reason, it had ‘remembered’ other volumes I’d made on the disk – that’s why I had 4 to do.
I was quite prepared to buy the paid-for software. It looked good and worth the cash. Instead:
I very tediously moved ‘volumes’ into ‘partitions’ onto a third disk I entered into the system.
This later disk needed it’s partitions resizing first to make room.
It was hot-plugged using it’s SATA into the wire from the DVD as I didn’t have any spare SATA wires! Doh!
The moved data was from disk 0 & disk 1, all relevant stuff going to disk 2.
Deleted all the volumes from Disk 1
I could then set Disk 1 to basic using Windows as per Microsoft instructions.
Moved all user data back to C-Drive volume (I had been in the process of separating data from programs).
Backed up C-Drive volume and system state using Windows 7 Backup tool to new partition ‘BACKUP’ using all of Disk 1
This was in case the following hex stuff failed. It would allow an easy restore by:
Install windows from DVD onto Disk 0
Use Windows backup to reset system state and all the files & programs on the C-Drive on Disk 0
Now used the Hex editor to edit the disk sector information as described above.
REBOOT (fingers crossed!)
WAHAY! It worked.
Removed pseudo partition remaining on Disk 0 to leave unallocated space – I think this was due to the invisible 1Mb database that exists on dynamic disks.
Plans
I’ve now got two new hard drives in the post. When these have arrived and are installed, I’ll use standard tools to move partitions and get user data onto a RAID mirror assembly. This will increase data integrity and give me a better backup. You’d think that outboard backups would be fine, wouldn’t you? Well I bought a Western Digital 1TB Studio Edition which worked okay for a while….
But it ran so hot the eSATA/USB circuitry failed! I dismantled it and found the drive to be okay – this is the third disk, Disk 2 in the screen-shots!
Now, I have a new system with a better, heavy-duty power supply, adequate (and quiet cooling), with the whole thing protected behind an APC UPS which I’ve had for a year. Sticking to basic disks should make backups simpler and the whole thing should be more reliable – certainly more so than the WD Studio thing which is a pile of hot plastic pants.
p.p.s. added 01/03/2012: I now recommend that folks use the free Easeus software, http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm This will fix dynamic discs using a familiar graphical user interface so is way less scary. Thanks to those that pointed this out.
Windows 7 Ultimate Install To say that I’m seriously impressed is an understatement! Having an MSDN subscription confers certain benefits, but for most Microsoft stuff that I have to use, it’s usually an exercise in teeth-gritting somewhere from the banal to the infuriating as I plod on through. My personal experience of Vista comes into...
Introduction This is a quick test to see if the Windows 7 Live Writer facility works. There are a host of formatting options, so let’s see what it’s like? The picture is of Blyth Power Station chimneys when they were knocked down. The significance to myself is that it’s where my father was a Charge...
The Information Tribunal ordered the DWP to name the companies and charities involved in workfare at an appeal hearing this work. A long running war of words has been waging between the DWP and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ever … Continue reading → […]
The DWP are advertising for a News Manager with experience of ‘crisis management’ to take charge of the endless stream of bullshit which pours out of the DWP Press Office. The advert, spotted by @SmithTonyD over on twitter, explains: “The … Continue reading → […]
