Disaster Proofing Routine

[Orthodoctus]

After numerous clean installs, and boot drive failures, I've started taking some precautions to avoid losing important files and performing clean installs of the OS. Here's what I do:

• Sync my personal files using FreeFileSync.
• Create restore points periodically (once a week using Task Scheduler) and prior to installations. 
• Clone my boot drive using Macrium Reflect once a week.

I suppose you can add another step, which is uploading all that to a cloud storage but, that's a lot gigs right there. So, I'm curious as to what steps some of you take to avoid losing data?

 

I'd like to think that these steps make my system (almost) foolproof, unless my computer dies, along with my backup drive, and the servers that hold my data fry as well, but at that point I'd worry more about who's trying to kill me.

[Vitalius]

I have a backup setup to my FreeNAS server in my home over a CIFS share using AOMEI backupper's scheduled full system backup option using the incremental setting. 

There are better options, such as Bacula-sd, Syncthing, crashplan, and owncloud, but I haven't bothered to figure out or set up those options yet. One day... maybe. If this solution ever fails me perhaps. 

Aside from that, I don't mind. As long as I don't have to redownload all my games (literally 1.2TB of stuff, all legit, my steam library is huge and I prefer to have all of them at my finger tips), I don't mind reinstalling and installing the programs as I need them. 

If my backup solution works, and it always has so far, it's as simple as installing the base OS, then pulling all my files from the server to their designated locations. 

[ShadowCaptain]

Backup all files to a raid 10 server, which in turn backs up to cloud

[LogicalDrm]

To avoid unneeded reconfig on most programs, save config files from AppData also.

[Orthodoctus]

I have a backup setup to my FreeNAS server in my home over a CIFS share using AOMEI backupper's scheduled full system backup option using the incremental setting. 

There are better options, such as Bacula-sd, Syncthing, crashplan, and owncloud, but I haven't bothered to figure out or set up those options yet. One day... maybe. If this solution ever fails me perhaps. 

Aside from that, I don't mind. As long as I don't have to redownload all my games (literally 1.2TB of stuff, all legit, my steam library is huge and I prefer to have all of them at my finger tips), I don't mind reinstalling and installing the programs as I need them. 

If my backup solution works, and it always has so far, it's as simple as installing the base OS, then pulling all my files from the server to their designated locations. 

That's a nice setup, but too beefy for me. I took a glance over AOMEI and I think I should give it a try. I hate re-installing everything really (games and otherwise) from fetching them (my connection isn't that fast) to the required restart after some installations.

 

 

To avoid unneeded reconfig on most programs, save config files from AppData also.

The boot drive cloning takes care of that.