Dealing With Proprietary Backup Formats

❌ If your backup program writes to a proprietary format, you may not be able to access it decades from now. I'll discuss how you need to prepare.

❌ Proprietary backup formats
Most good backup tools us proprietary data formats to most efficiently backup while simultaneously providing the features of the tool. That’s fine for backing up where the need to access decreases rapidly over time. For longer term archival, using different, simpler tools is a hedge against proprietary formats going away.

Chapters
0:00 Proprietary Backup Formats
1:00 What does it mean to be proprietary?
1:45 Open Source
2:35 Backups are short term
3:30 Archives: for the long term
5:00 Backups and archives
6:40 Creating archives
8:00 Zip files

More Ask Leo!

#askleo #backup #format

[askleonotenboom]

Will you be able to read them two decades from now? Will you want to?

[dave]

The program I use for daily (or weekly) backups to external USB drives is Free File Sync. Simple, file-by-file backup. Can be just updated file (date or size) or full folders or drives.
I just ordered a Synology 923+ for peace of mind! Thanks for your videos, been following you for a couple decades now. I like your presentations, easy to understand and to the point. Keep it up!

[janicebrowne]

Some people like to use a single product to produce daily file backups that also serve as cumulative long-term archives. For example, Bounceback by CMS can detect which local files have been added or changed since the last backup, and simply make a copy on an external drive. Native file format, so can be retrieved & re-read as needed.

[WaschyNumber]

Is the EaseUS Todo Backup Home worth it to be bought and is it reliable for cloning and backups, in the past I use acronis but it had somtimes unusable backups and I couldn't not restore many backups with it and I'm now after many many years looking for a least 99% reliable backup and cloning Programm. 🤔

[MundaneGray]

The ZIP archive format was never proprietary. The file format was released into the public domain in 1989, when the initial version of the PKZIP tool became available.

[JimE]

Thanks again for making me a little smarter. JimE

[NoEggu]

There is a small chance that your software, used to do your backup today, will not run on future hardware or future operating systems.

For example, if you have a 16 bit executable, today's 64 bit operating systems will probably not run that old program -- at least not directly (there are ways to get a 64 bit OS to run a 16 bit program, but it is not straightforward or for a novice).

So if you have some ancient software, you might want to hold on to an old computer and that computer's old operating system, in order to be able to run that old program -- in a pinch. Keep in mind security vulnerabilities, if you need to put that old, outdated computer on-line.

I used to play a game called Lode Runner. It ran from a floppy disk (the original, bendable floppy disks).
I believe that it is an 8 bit program. And it will run at the speed of the CPU (which for that era, ran in Hz (not even mHz). On one of today's computers, the game would start and finish in a split second (assuming you could get it to run). Even on 20 year old hardware, it would run far too fast. I once tried on an old Gateway 2000, DOS 5.0 computer that had a 66 mHz DX2 CPU, from the 1990s. So I held on to an even older PC (so old, it has no hard drive). But it will run the game properly. I also held on to a monitor that has a VGA port, as that ancient computer will not connect to any of today's monitors. So depending on the software, you might have to take a lot into account to ensure you can get it to work.

In general, you can't 100% count on future hardware and future operating systems to run some installation file that you saved.
Some software will contact a permission server. That server might not exist, or might not support your 10+ year old software version that you saved. And do you have your registration codes for any purchased software? Mine are kept in my KeePass password manager.

If something is critically important for you to run, then you have to hold on to the hardware and software that actually runs it. At a minimum, hold on to the downloaded installation file.

[old-moose]

😂 I have some 200 Apple II floppy 💾 disks from back in grad school days. 😀 The local museum has a working Apple II and my disks. 😅