Best way to backup your Hyperspin HDD(s)

[Metalzoic]

I bought a Seagate Backup Plus 5tb drive to do this, but so far I'd say it's a slow piece of ****. So I'm looking for advice on the best way to do it.

What/how do you guys back up your own drives? In my case it would need to be external usb 3.0 since I have no way to add more internal drives.

[ninja2bceen]

I use Wd for less chances of crashes. I think an SSD options are good maybe?

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[Metalzoic]

You use WD (western Digital?), but how do you actually do the backup? Is it a WD drive made specifically to backup like mine, or is it a normal drive and you use some software program for the backup?

[ninja2bceen]

Oh, ya it's not raid or anything. I just copy folders when I'm happy with them after each small project. There are sync software there that some folks use. Sync toy might do it but I think there may be better options. I do this manually though

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[Metalzoic]

Pretty sure it's going back. After 17 hours it was still only at 54% and had seemed to be locked up with no further progress. So I canceled that backup and tried to delete the files which was a battle of it throwing errors telling me rom names were to long to transfer to the recycle bin to delete (which doesn't bode well for ever having to actually restore files back). Finally got that cleared up and restarted the backup process after making sure it's drivers/software is up to date (it already was) and it's plugged into USB 3.0 (already was). It breezed right up through 8% in good time and then just stopped. It's been stuck at 8% for 2 hours and 24 minutes now (which is exactly how the last backup started out).

I just rebooted the cab to see if that does anything, but as near as I can tell it's a real POS.

[iNTiGOD]

When you are backing up large amounts of data yes it is very slow. I use a seagate external drive but to speed up my backups I only copy new/changed files using rsync. If you need help let me know.

[ninja2bceen]

Yes folders take time to copy. Do one folder at a time to speed things up like do database folder, then emulator folder, thenhyperlaunch roots

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[Metalzoic]

Well it's still sitting at 8%... I'll give it through tonight to see what it does. If it's still acting up then I'll exchange it for the Western D 6tb backup drive and see how that goes.

[Metalzoic]

Yes folders take time to copy. Do one folder at a time to speed things up like do database folder, then emulator folder, thenhyperlaunch roots

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It doesn't exactly seem to work that way. You choose which drive/partitions you want to backup, how often to back them up then hit go and it does the rest.

[newoski]

I use Mirium Reflect. Works perfectly every time

[Metalzoic]

AH... don't use the internal software.......

Just use it through windows explorer and copy like any other HD - do NOT USE the Seagate backup.

Well part of what I wanted it for is so that it will automatically back up just what has changed when I run it, which the software does. The other thing is that trying to drag and drop something just gives the circle-slash no symbol and won't allow it. Did you have to format yours to get it to allow explorer drag-drop?

[Metalzoic]

Interesting. I stopped the backup again and in all those hours it had only transferred 46 gigs. Crazy slow. So I did a test and drag n dropped 40 gigs using explorer and it transferred that same amount in only 14 minutes. What the hell? That Seagate software sucks...

[Metalzoic]

So what about this (been doing a bit of reading). It looks like windows 7 has all this backup stuff built right into it.

What if I make a mirror backup image of my C drive (OS and all) and then also of my main Hyperspin drive (which is all roms/utilities/ media/emulators etc...).

That way everytime I change anything or add roms, emus etc... it automatically builds an identical backup that I don't have to police and it's always up to date.

Or I could also set it up as a straight backup that isn't mirrored, but a scheduled snapshot of all my files (although this doesn't look like it will backup any system files or settings which is a bummer)

Or I could do it your way and just drag n Drop my files manually. Problem there again is no system/OS files and it will only be as up to date as whenever I remembered to do it.

[justice999]

Interesting. I stopped the backup again and in all those hours it had only transferred 46 gigs. Crazy slow. So I did a test and drag n dropped 40 gigs using explorer and it transferred that same amount in only 14 minutes. What the hell? That Seagate software sucks...

 

What do you expect? To backup 5Tb in 1 hour?

 

I use SyncBack Free to backup my 4Tb HDDs with USB3 dockstation. Well it takes 4 to 10 hours to backup each HDD depending of the type of files. I need 4hours to backup Remux/Bluray Iso and 10 hours for my HyperSpin folders, just because it contains many little files and folders.

 

The first time you do a backup, it must takes time, then SyncBack will only remove/backup updated files depending on windows date (or hash files, you choose).

 

What is your transfer speed? You should start with that.

[Metalzoic]

What do you expect? To backup 5Tb in 1 hour?

No, but it took it over 4 hours just to backup 40gigs. If I manually transfer that it only takes 14 minutes so for some reason it was running really slow.

I want to leave this backup drive attached so I don't think I'll mirror it, but use the backup built into Windows 7 to do a weekly continuous backup so it's up to date. Thanks for the help.

[justice999]

It was probably hashing every single file.

[Metalzoic]

Well, 28 effing hours into it's full Win 7 backup it failed. After 28 hours it was only at 54%.

Apparently the external Seagate HDD had an I/O blip and disconnected which stopped the entire process. It gave me the option to continue, but picking that started it over from the beginning. I'm about to take this Seagate drive outside and light it on fire.

Can anyone explain to me the difference between an actual backup and just dragging/dropping files like Mystul does? A search isn't really answering that question for me. Why does a backup take 24+ hours and not even be close to done, when if I drag n drop those folders they all transfer in 1/10th the amount of time?

[damageinc86]

Maybe just usea program that makes an image of your hard drive, like macrium or something.

[regocolm]

Hard to say the answer to that, maybe its just overloading the buffer. all i know is i fu**** up two drives doing a complete backup. took over 24 hrs and stopped on 83%.

Drag and drop just took a few hours. the image option that @damageinc86 mentioned will also work well. but with a 5tb full of ''god knows how much time and effort'' il stick with drag and drop. just my 2 cents

[kylecp1979]

I have a seagate drive and I formated it cause it was taking forever using the packed in software to backup. I just copied and pasted my data over. I don't have it setup as a backup it is my main hyperspin drive now.

[ScoobaSteveo]

I create a Virtual Hard Drive (VHD) in Windows 7 for many things...backing up HS & RL included. Works like a champ for those using external or network HDDs.

Instructions and info:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee872416.aspx

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[Krakerman]

I am using a 6TB WD MyBook Duo and Synchredible which does all the work in the background and only updates the files that I have updated or added to my system everytime I startup my PC.

[Johnny80]

I use Mirium Reflect. Works perfectly every time

[Johnny80]

Did you mean Macrium reflect? I couldn't find the other one.

[FrankyRizzo]

I actually purchased a NAS device setup with RAID6 for my Arcade.  So basically If I populate all 8 slots I can have 2 drive failures at the same time and nose no data.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Network-Attached/dp/B0078RETQE

 

with iSCSI my computer reads the NAS as a local harddrive and all HS and games are on the NAS.  If I format My PC everything is already setup and just need to setup things like Daemon Tools.  I have all 4 network ports populated back to my network switch so I get great transfer speeds.  Its also great because this way I can use the arcade on my CAB I am building or any other computer on the home network.  Its overkill.  But I have lost hard drives in the past.  Never more than 1 at the same time.  But still losing a harddrive can set you back months / years when building your collection back up. Whats nice is if 2 drives failed.  I lose no data.  Get replacement drives.  Pop them in and it starts rebuilding the volumes automatically.  As far as speeds go.  Using this network NAS I noticed goes just as fast as my internal drives because of all 4 network ports being  populated.... However a SSD does work faster than the NAS.  But most people dont have 24tb of SSD drives in their pc haha.  So I will deal with the small lose of speed.  Its also great for bar cabs.  because you cant fit so many drives inside one.