Quietest Automatic backup solution

[logscool]

I recently built a nice quiet pc and now need a quiet/silent way of backing it up. I would like to use some sort of external drive with as fast a connection as possible (I have both usb 3.0 and esata on my computer). I would be using some sort of automatic backup method that would backup a few times a week I would also like to have a method of manually running the backup when needed.

Because it would only need to run a few times a week i would like it if i could somehow have the drive only turn on for these backups and be shut down the rest of the time.

I would want at least 500Gb of storage but if i was going to use a desktop drive i would go for 1Tb. It would also be good to not be too expensive.

[HFat]

What you want is not quite possible (that I know of). A true backup is not connected to the computer you're backing up.
So your options are:
-settle for something that's not a true backup: SPCR's storage reviews have tables with hard drive measurements, choose a low-power hard drive and a fanless enclosure whose controller spins down idle drives
-settle for a backup procedure that requires manual intervention (see above)
-backup over the network (can be slow or expensive depending on how you do it, silent)
-use a tape library (expensive, no model comes close to being silent so far as I know)

[logscool]

-settle for something that's not a true backup: SPCR's storage reviews have tables with hard drive measurements, choose a low-power hard drive and a fanless enclosure whose controller spins down idle drives

This is what i was thinking of not sure what you mean by "true backup".

-backup over the network (can be slow or expensive depending on how you do it, silent)

Also something i considered but seems much more costly and slower.

Does anyone know of any good external enclosures for either desktop or laptop drives that spin down when not in use, do not make alot of vibration noise, arefanless, and have either Esata or USB 3.0

[HFat]

Like I said, a proper backup is not hooked up to your system ready to be overwritten or fried at a moment's notice.

I've got an enclosure that's not particularly good but let me look at it... the only distinguishing marking on it is "barvo-t". There are many of these cheap enclosures. Spinning down drives and being fanless ain't rocket science. But the drive needs to be low-power or it could overheat badly. You don't need something that's good at dampening vibrations because you can dampen them by putting the enclosure on a fluffy object.

Network backups don't have to be expensive. I paid a good bitl ess for my used NAS than the cost of a drive of equivalent capacity. You can also recycle an old PC as long as it has wake on LAN. Or you can do peer to peer backups. I'm sure there are other options still. All of them have advantages and disadvantages.

[MikeC]

One thing to remember is that while a fast connection is very useful the first time you create a backup, the rest of the time, with incremental backups, it doesn't matter as much -- that's assuming you backup regularly (like once a day -- or at least once a week). If you want it to be completely automated, then the backup has to be on 24/7 (unless it's sophisticated enough to wake itself up just for the backup job, then go back to sleep. I don't know of any that smart.) An older PC w/ a new drive dedicated for backups on the network and your choice of backup software would work fine for this.

[HFat]

Assuming your backup server supports wake on LAN, it simply can be woken up by the client's scheduler. Shutting it down afterwards could be less trivial depending on the software you're using.

[logscool]

I do not want to use an old computer as it would consume allot of power.

I am not completely clear on whether spinning down hard drives in an external enclosure while connected is possible if so that is what i would like to do. This would be ideal with a WD 1TB green drive.

[HFat]

Unless drives spin themselves down, my enclosure does spin them down automatically. But it idles for quite a while before doing so. Many others do the same I think... and there are probably still others who don't. It might also be possible to spin down drives manually through eSATA... depending on your software/OS. Or your OS might do it automatically, hardware willing.

A backup server that's only switched on briefly shouldn't sip much electricity... though it might (some stuff needs to be kept awake for wake on LAN to work). You never know.

[logscool]

Does anyone know how i might set up an esata drive to not turn on at startup, only spin up when needed, and then spin down after a set amount of time?
I know i can set hard drive spin downs under windows power management settings. However that is a setting for all hard drives not an individual drive.
I am running windows 7.

Edit: Made a seperate topic for this here viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60514.

[b_rubenstein]

... If you want it to be completely automated, then the backup has to be on 24/7 (unless it's sophisticated enough to wake itself up just for the backup job, then go back to sleep. I don't know of any that smart.)

WHS with Lights Out only installed on the server would do just that. Wake up the server to do the backup, which would then wake up the client do the backup and then put both to sleep again.

Another thing to keep in mind about WHS is that it is designed to do bare metal restores of a client. If the HD dies, put in a new HD, boot off the install CD and restore the PC from the server.

All WHS PCs should have at least 2 HDs installed, because of the way that WHS stores data.

Also, anyone putting a fast video card into a WHS to make it a game box/server is a fool unless you're running WHS and the games out of different VMs. WHS is really not intended to be running apps. That's why it only creates a 20GB partition for the OS.

[MikeC]

Also, anyone putting a fast video card into a WHS to make it a game box/server is a fool unless you're running WHS and the games out of different VMs. WHS is really not intended to be running apps. That's why it only creates a 20GB partition for the OS.

No one has suggested this. Our build used W7.