On 8/22/2025 12:03 AM, Tim wrote:
On Thu, 2025-08-21 at 20:48 -0600, home user via users wrote:
I had one desktop only. A semi-annual OS upgrade pretty much destroyed
the OS. Subsequent attempts to re-install, then install, the OS wiped
out the rest of the hard drive. A local friend gave me a used desktop
(windows-10) to use until I can get a new desktop. It was that
windows-10 desktop that (probably) slaughtered the final back-up from
the Fedora desktop. Once I get that new desktop, it will be the only
one I have.
For people that want to upgrade over the top and keep existing data
(preferring to have to re-import from a backup), I think the simplest
solution is a two drive PC.
One drive is your OS and programs, the other drive is your data.
It's easier not to stomp over your data during a new operating system
install (or upgrade over the top) if it's on another completely drive.
Easier than trying to avoid messing up data in partitions or folders on
the same drive. Even easier, still, if you unplug the data drive
during the critical process of OS installation.
I started out doing things that way. My OS drive was smaller and a
different brand than the data drive, making it very easier to correctly
pick the right drive during an install.
I'm planning for the new desktop (for which I want the better back-up)
to be dual boot: Fedora + one other t.b.d. Linux distro. I don't know
if that matters. If it matters, the purpose of this thread is planning:
the new desktop needs to have enough bays(?), power, space, cooling, and
so on. I am anticipating 2 SSDs. Whether I should put both distros on
the same SSD and use the other for personal data, or one distro +
personal data per SSD, I don't yet know. I'll have to include what you
said above in my considerations.
[using a NAS]
I do not understand how what you're suggesting would help.
Bottom line, I need the back-ups to be to removable media.
Well, I didn't have that crucial bit of information. But a networked
system is unpluggable, and therefore technically removable. Likewise,
drives can be swapped in and out of some NASs.
My apologies:
It did not occur to me to include in the original post that I have a
stand-alone desktop - only one, no laptops/notebooks, no cell phones, no
routers, no network/LAN/WAN/WiFi. There is one ethernet connection via
phone modem.
And depending on your backup technique, and size of drive(s) in a NAS,
it's quite feasible for a NAS to have Monday's backup on it, separate
from Tuesdays, separate from Wednesday's, etc.
Another useful aspect of network storage, is that it can be always
connected, and backups can be automated, and it can be located in a
different room or building. Giving mitigation from forgetting to do
backups, being temporarily unavailable to do them, thieves ransacking
an obvious room full of goodies, fires, etc.
A NAS can be a standalone box of harddrives, or it can a standard PC
that you just use as a fileserver somewhere.
Being not an IT professional, this seems complicated to me. I'll dig
into it, but I'm not optimistic. I need simple.
--
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