[RTC List] PC backup utility: recommendations?

[William Van Hefner]

Dwight,

I have no idea how the Mac software works. Am guessing that it encrypts
the hard drive and stores the encryption key on a piece of hardware
though.

If you are simply interested in making sure that no one stealing your
computer will be able to read anything from the hard drive, there are a
number of simpler (and cheaper) options for this on the PC. The first one
that comes to mind is the open source software TrueCrypt. It can encrypt
specific files, specific partitions or an entire drive using password
protection. It is available for both Windows and Linux, and is free.

Keep in mind, encrypting an entire drive (including the operating system)
will slow down your computer considerably. Most times, you are better off
just encrypting specific files, and leaving the OS files unencrypted. Many
Linux distributions like Ubuntu also have the option to create an
encrypted home directory during initial installation as well.


-- 
William Van Hefner
President - Vantek Communications, Inc.
http://www.humboldtonline.com
e-mail: editor at humboldtonline.com



On Sat, July 25, 2009 9:45 pm, Dwight Winegar wrote:
> Kevin.
>
> You just gave me an idea for Joel and Lynn, with regard to his
> question.  What you spoke of backups for your laptop I immediately
> thought of SoftRAID, which although it is a Mac OS product, the
> concept might have something available on the PC side.  I'm still not
> quite sure just what Joel is trying to do "exactly" since he mentions
> about "booting" from the back-up drive.  However, lawyers have been
> using SoftRAID with their MacBookPros and PowerBooks in case they are
> stolen, and no important data remains on the internal HD.   The way
> I've seen SoftRAID set-up with RAID 1 is that you need the external
> drive to boot.  Steal the laptop, and you still have all of your
> files, and the thief has to reinstall the OS to use it.   I'm
> wondering if such a software scheme exists for the PC.
>
> - Dwight
>
>
> On 25 Jul 2009, at 10:29 PM, Kevin Nelson wrote:
>
>> Until I got a laptop that I often carried around, I didn’t think too
>> much about doing backups aside from the standard USB hard-drive
>> system.
>>
>> But the laptop situation caused me to rethink the situation. Thus, I
>> now use Carbonite on my laptop, simply because it does backups
>> whenever I am using my laptop near a wireless internet location. I
>> have over 100 GB backed up.
>>
>> -Kevin
>>
>> From: peter at linlorlabs.com [mailto:peter at linlorlabs.com]
>> Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 5:40 PM
>> To: Joel Mielke
>> Cc: list at redwoodtech.org
>> Subject: Re: [RTC List] PC backup utility: recommendations?
>>
>> 'Retrospect' has been a player in the backup biz for years.  I
>> haven't tried this version but it might meet your needs:
>>
>> http://www.retrospect.com/products/software/retroforwin/
>>
>> According to their online information:
>>
>> - Disaster recovery - Purchase the Retrospect Disaster Recovery add-
>> on in order to create a bootable disc for Bare Metal Restores on
>> Windows computers (Some editions include Disaster Recovery as a
>> feature)
>> - patented incremental backup technology
>>
>> -Peter
>>
>>
>> On Jul 25, 2009, at 4:29 PM, Joel Mielke wrote:
>>
>>
>> Can anyone recommend a backup utility for a PC running Windows XP
>> (32 bit)?
>> I'm a Mac user, but we also have a PC that we just purchased a
>> Western Digital backup drive for.
>> We want to:
>> Create a bootable drive
>> Update only the files that have changed (deleting, not duplicating,
>> files that have moved).
>>
>> I use SuperDuper for the Mac. It has a simple, elegant interface.
>>
>> thanks for any suggestions,
>> Joel Mielke
>> www.carsonparkdesign.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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