I would be the first to say that we should all be making backups of our CAD data!
Do you think I follow my own advice?
Pffft! No!
Of course I have my excuses!
- My CAD Data isn't use for production, so it's not critical.
- I work in a highly mobile environment, and everything runs on my laptop. That means I 'm not connected to a good backup server much of the time
- I'm too lazy to take 15 minutes to plug in my portable hard drive and copy my Vault Backup over to the drive.
- The most famous, used by many; (wait for it). "It hasn't failed yet!"
Pffft! No!
So if the The Oatmeal's Famous "Tumbeasts" made an appearance and at my hard drive, I was out of luck.
Try passing this excuse off at work. |
One day, I had an epiphany that was worthy of MacGyver.
I implemented it, and thus far it's been working well!
First I had to take stock of my assets.
- I already have a script that backs up my Autodesk Vault database and filestore that contains my CAD data.
- I have a Dropbox account that has more than enough room to accommodate my current backup
- At my home, I have an old retired computer that I use as a data server, which also has plenty of room for my Vault database and filestore.
I created a new script that moves my backup file to a Dropbox folder. In turn, that folder syncs up with my online Dropbox account, which is stored in the cloud.
My Vault Backup in my Dropbox Folder |
BOOM! Backup!
Then, I setup my old data server to sync with my Dropbox account, so now I have a backup at home, as well as on online!
BOOM! Redundancy!
I've been running this system for about a week now, and it's been working pretty well. I've restored from it once already successfully
But just like everything it's got good and bad.
First the good!
- It's a simple and effective backup strategy, especially for the budget minded.
- By using Dropbox, I can sync the backup to multiple machines, they just have to be syncing to the Dropbox account.
- Since this is a cloud backup, there needs to be sufficient bandwidth to support uploading and downloading potentially gigabytes of data.
- Online storage accounts, such as Dropbox, Autodesk 360, and SkyDrive have limited storage capacity (typically a few gigabytes until you purchase more). So monitoring usage can be important, especially as data gets larger.
In summary, this system probably isn't good for everybody, but for a small environment, with limited resources to purchase hardware and infrastructure, it may be exactly the ticket.
P.S. I'm sure there are those of you might be wondering why I didn't use my Autodesk 360 account. The reasons are simple. I tried my Dropbox account first, and I'm too busy (read too lazy) to switch it over. I could just as easily have used my Autodesk 360 account!
I hope this is a tip you might be able to use in your own environment!
Have another idea to create a backup like this on a budget, check out the comment section!
Great post! I backup my Vaults to Dropbox, too using an bat-file and 7-Zip to compress the Data. Thanks to packrat-feature ich can restore every backup.
ReplyDeleteNice! I wondering it it would be possible to zip the files first. Now I know!
ReplyDeleteThanks! :-)