So, I haven’t implemented any automation for this process. I’m currently maintaining six hard drives for backups, a decision prompted by a recent scare where I had to resort to the third drive in the sequence to achieve a complete data restoration.
I manually update perhaps one image per week, which is then encrypted onto the drives using Cryptomator.
Consequently, I’ve stopped regularly updating the secondary M.2 drive in my machine, as encrypting the images is a more straightforward process. I’ll probably just format it and bring it into service if the other drive fails, given that it’s an identical 990 Pro. This brings to mind that I have six of these: https://www.kingston.com/en/external-ssd/xs1000-external-solid-state-drive - do you foresee any potential issues with these drives?
While I possess all the necessary hardware to set up a NAS, it’s hardly time-consuming to connect a drive via USB and create an image, a task that takes merely a minute or two.
I am taking daily backups via Macrium to my local SSDs. These backups used in case of something wrong goes with the OS. My important files are backed up into the cloud providers, so even if I lose my disks, I won’t lose anything anything valuable, apart from time that I am going to spend to restore my data.
So, I’m in the same boat. My most critical data is indeed encrypted across multiple cloud services in case some catastrophe were to strike, ensuring I can perform a clean installation and regain access to my accounts. The images are from Windows, and following the last issue, I’ve made a concerted effort to verify that the OS is in perfect working order, as I strongly suspect the previous problem stemmed from the system not being fully functional before I created the images.
Thanks for the tip. I’m now running a daily clone to that M.2 drive with Macrium. It seems like a proper piece of software. It takes 37 seconds to clone.
I don’t back up my OS because nothing important is stored locally. The vast majority of the data is game files that can be redownloaded quickly on a 1Gbps link. I don’t back up my phone and laptop for the same reason.
It’s meaningless to backup app files that can be easily redownloaded again. Everything that I care about is backed up to the cloud somewhere and I never do full backups of the OS.
For me, it’s predominantly music that consumes space in my backups, even though nowadays one can stream in full PCM quality from services like Qobuz and Tidal. Nevertheless, if I find an album I appreciate, I purchase it. And with a collection exceeding 250,000 tracks, the prospect of downloading them one album at a time holds absolutely no appeal. The operating system itself only occupies around 100 GB.