October 4, 2013
The meeting was called to order at 7:44 p.m. by President Chuck Horner. See Lola Hunter at the ticket table, for raffle tickets, door prize tickets, and 3" x 5" cards to write questions for discussion/answers at the end of the Meeting. Get at least one $5 raffle ticket for this month's raffle prize, SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 32 GB Flash Drive.
Chuck introduced new member Dick Dixon. He heard about PCC through the San Leandro eWaste facility, where he works.
There is a new principal at Hayward Adult School. Chuck has talked with him several times. They will explore PCC moving back to HAS.
Sally has cards to sign up for Gene Barlow's newsletter. She also has order forms for True Image and Disk Director. No shipping cost if you order at the meeting.
SIG Announcements
The Spectacular Linux SIG meets the last Saturday of most months at 2 p.m. at the Smith's. Jan has been unable to attend many Main Meetings this year because of family responsibilities. This month the plan is to look at Ubuntu 10. If you are interested in attending, be sure that Jan has your current email so you can get late-breaking announcements.
Chuck announced that on October 21 the Mobile SIG will be revived. It will meet in the same room as the Main Meeting at 7:30 pm. They plan to continue meeting on the 3rd Monday of the month.
Presentation:
Via Skype, Gene Barlow discussed the importance of regularly backing up your hard drive. He has presented to PCC many times, both in person and via webinar. Tonight's topic is Picking the Best Backup Approach. Computers are used for so many functions, they become the center of our lives. Many important files reside on our computers.
It is possible for a virus to slip through our anti-malware software and kill a computer. A good backup means you can return to operation quickly without losing data.
RAID Mirror Backups: two physical hard drives inside your computer. When one hard drive is changed, the backup drive is immediately changed. This seems like a good idea at first glance. When one hard drive fails, the system can continue running on the other hard drive. This scheme keeps a business server available to customers without a break. This only works for hardware failures. Only about 20% of hard drive crashes are caused by hard drive failures. A RAID system very carefully duplicates a software failure to the other drive, causing both to fail at the same time.
File Backups: This is a utility. You provide it a with a list of files on your hard drive to copy to an external drive. They do not back up applications or operating system files. And if you forget to check an important file, it won't get backed up.
Online Backups: (Cloud Backup) Your computer backs up files to a server via the Internet. The advantage is that the online server is off-site, so that if your computer is damaged your files are still available. But this is still a file back up system. Backing up to the Cloud is very slow. And you must pay for the space to store your files.
Clone Backups: This system copies one disk to another disk. It does back up the entire drive and it is a physical item you can hold. The disadvantage is that it uses an entire drive. And it is important to have a minimum of three hard backups in case one of the backups is bad. Furthermore, many people do not like to open up their computer to swap the backup drive in and out.
Image Backups: Compress the backup so that you can store many backups on a single drive. It backs up the entire hard drive. You can retrieve individual files or Restore the entire drive. The only disadvantage is that it takes an extra step to Restore. But this is likely to be faster and easier than opening up your computer and swapping physical drives.
True Image can do Image Backups, Clone Backups, Onlike/Cloud Backups. If you want a remote backup, it is not necessary to pay. Get a second hard drive to make a backup and store it off-site.
How often should you back up? Large businesses back up every few minutes; small businesses should back up daily. Gene backs up his working data files daily, his photo hobby files weekly, his program files are backed up monthly in synch with Windows updates. He backs up his entire computer quarterly.
Gene summarizes the True Image geek-speak manual for his customers. His 15 page Quick Start Guide provides pictures and clear descriptions
How do you recover from a hard drive crash?
- Replace the damaged hard drive with a new one
- Attach your most recent backup.
Attach external Hard Drive with Image
Boot from True Image CD to Restore
To restore a file:
- Attach backup hard drive
- Run Windows Explorer
Copy desired files onto main drive
Questions:
Don Trimble asked about the frequency of Acronis updates. They are annual, with details listed on Gene's Web site when the new version is announced.
Sally Holt asked how True Image is different from Windows 7 Backup and whether it works in Apple. It works in Windows and Linux, but not Apple. Windows Backup has many fewer features and is much less flexible.
Gene ended by talking about organizing your hard drive. The basic structure is organized around partitions, which are formatted. Why would you want to partition your hard drive? Your C drive is the most vulnerable because Windows is the most likely to fail. While some viruses attack all hard drives and partitions, many focus on the C drive. You also have more flexibility in backup schedules and can select which partitions to back up when. He keeps everything except Windows and applications in a Data partition: email, favorites, databases.
Acronis Disk Director makes it easy to manage partitions. It is important to keep the System Partition on the same physical drive as the C drive. Disk Director provides a clear graphical interface of the operation. Gene has a Starter Guide for Disk Director also.
Any questions about organizing your hard drive? Chuck asked if you can back out if you change your mind. Gene explained that you can use the back button before you Commit Button. You can use Disk Director to change the drive again.
Andrew Tews asked how many partitions you can have in Windows 7. You can have 3 or 4 primary partitions on a drive. You can have as many secondary partitions as you want.
George Kornbluth asked about using Disk Director in Windows 7. He had found a partition type that it did not recognize. Gene suggested leaving it alone or contacting the drive manufacturer about their proprietary use of a partition.
Acronis Drive Monitor will watch your hard drive and report unusual situations. When unusual activity is reported, you can prepare by making a back up or taking other pro-active steps.
Gene's Web site – http://www.ugr.com.
Sally Holt has True Image and Disk Director for sale. Drive Monitor can be downloaded from the Acronis site.
There was a question about building a laptop. Because each component is proprietary, people do not build laptops the way desktop systems are built by users. When buying a laptop, you can specify some components such as hard drive size.
Dick Dixon brought up the problem of planning and organizing programs. He initiated a discussion of the need for long-range planning.
Thank you to George Kornbluth for taking care of refreshments.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:52 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Bayle Emlein, Secretary
