We’ve talked about backup solutions recently, and I got some good opinions on how other people handle such things as off-site storage for their respective companies, but now I want to talk about a slightly different variety of off-site backup storage: the personal kind.
As sad as it really is, my file server here at home has more storage than our main file server at work (1.2TB and 983GB, respectively) [and note that mine is not RAID, while work is RAID5, making up the loss of space there with the same number of drives]. While a good deal of that consists of rips of somewhat easily replaceable stuff (DVDs, software install ISOs, MP3s of CDs, etc.), there is a good bit of original material that wouldn’t be easily (if at all) replaced, should something happen to it (like the house went up in smoke).
Now granted that if the house went up in smoke, the archive of my previous [and much more poorly coded] web projects would probably be one of the last things on my mind. In reality, I would probably be freaking out over where I’d watch my porn that night… Still, at some point after the rich family living in Southern California took me in and let me live in their pool house and bought me everything my heart desired, I would start to miss that archive of previous code, from which I still steal functions and procedures from time-to-time.
So, what do you guys do? Do you do any kind of off-site backups of your personal data? If so, where do you put them? What format of storage? How often is it updated? Let’s remember that I’ve got far tighter budget constraints than our company did (although I whine about spending money less than they do). Also remember that I’m using a residential DSL connection with about 40kb/s of upload capacity, so any kind of internet-based storage would take quite a while to update, depending on the number of changes made on a regular basis.
Some things that I thought about while I was pondering the content of this post, and which may get you thinking in a new direction were:
- CD or DVD-burned copies of vital documents and files
While this would be the simplest and by far cheapest solution, it does have downsides - such as the rumored CD / DVD lifespan problems of late, a relatively low amount of storage space, and backup speed issues. Still, it’s also the most portable and flexible of the solutions. - Tape backup
This is the most expensive and complex solution, but a classic none-the-less. Once upon a time I did have a tape drive (back in ye olden times), but these days they are so expensive (and pretty damn slow) that it doesn’t seem practical for any purposes, much less my home data. Also consider environmental conditions where you’re storing it. At work, our tapes say require a storage temperature between 60 and 90 degrees F. The fireproof box in the garage is probably out during winter nights and summer afternoons. - Hard drive-based backup
This would offer the most storage, speed, and ease of backup. Just plug in the drive via USB or Firewire and start a sync script running to duplicate all my precious data. Unfortunately, there can be some pretty strict environmental conditions needed for storage of a hard drive (albeit perhaps less strict than the tapes mentioned above). Since this is our life-safer copy, we don’t want to risk not being able to access half of it because we left it out in the cold one night.
Those should get you started thinking, if you haven’t already got a solution you think I should check out. If you have bright ideas or any further comments on my suggested approaches above, please let me know…
Freaky - we just enacted another part of our own personal offsite backup last night!
Okay -
Finance program backup to ZIP disk. Daily backup kept in the house, weekly backup kept in locker at work.
Outlook backed up to same offsite ZIP disk above weekly.
Important softcopy documents (including scans of insurance, death, etc policies) to same offsite ZIP disk above weekly.
Just signed up for web hosting, so all digital photos copied to there when additions or changes are made, as well as being on 3 separate hard disks on 2 systems at home. I wont consider putting documents here unless I start encrypting them.
And that’s it. The rest - programs, music, videos can be destroyed without major impact.
Cal: Do you encrypt the stuff you put on the zip disk and keep at work?
I always envisioned a scenario where I finally slug the boss and they escourt me from the building. I go to try and grab my personal backup from my desk and they’re like “wtf are you doing stealing company property?”. Next thing I know I’m not only unemployed, but being arrested for assaulting my boss and sued for trying to steal trade secrets…
I know a lot of people keep some form of backups in a safety deposit box at the bank, but this just seems to be too much trouble to me. I mean, honestly, how often are you going to update those backups? It’s too much of a pain in the ass to get to the bank, get to the box, swap out the disks… If I were going to do something like that, I may as well encrypt the data and dump it on one of the dime a dozen free or paid off-site net storage sites.
Zip disks, however, were not one of the mediums I had considered using, since they’ve pretty much faded away. They should probably be a tad more resistant to temperature variations, opening up a variety of new places to stick backups (glove box / trunk, anyone?).
No encryption, and the disk is clearly labelled with our details.
However I guess we should encrpt it, come to think of it.
Reason for using ZIP disk is that we have had the drive for ages, and have a bunch of disks sitting around. Better to utilise it than have it gather dust. Hopefully the drive won’t fail the same time as the computer packs up so we can restore.
Mind you if the house burned down, we could have fun trying to find a new drive!!!
This topic has caused me to lose sleep as of late. Experience tells me that if backup procedure requires me to do ANYTHING manual on a regular basis, i probably won’t keep it up. I need a [1-time setup periodic validations] type of solution. all of the following options involve writing a backup script and scheduling it. below is the options ive come up with in order of feasability:
option 1: be extra nice to neighbor and then ask them to house a cheapo computer of mine in their basement which is equiped with 802.11G and adequate storage.
option 2: script vpn/backup script to backup datachanges to a work server.
option 3: ask friend across town to house a 120Gb disk in his server so i can script backup of datachanges to it.
option 4: build a environmentally stable box (to house afore mentioned computer) at the other end of my property and run ethernet/power to it.
option 5: rent storage space online. (yea right)
option 6: script dvd-rw backup of data changes and bring to work each day/week and copy off. (will never happen)
Hmm. That’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about trying to con a friend into letting me use his house as an off-site storage location. I don’t know any of our neighbors well enough to feel comfortable asking them if I can stick $1,000 worth of computer equipment in their basement, and had merely been thinking about some kind of corporate arrangement for off-site backups.
Unfortunately, I have more storage at home than I do at work, and wouldn’t be comfortable backing up my personal stuff to a company server anyway (One of these days, I’m going to lose it and slug someone. I doubt they’d let me spend 24 hours deleting all my personal stuff from company property afterwards.).
The problem with the friend’s house backup solution over the net is the speed. I could upload at 40kb/s overnight, but I wouldn’t be able to accomodate large amounts of data. If that’s the only option (which seems to be the case at the moment), I may as well (as I am) pay $5/month for a couple of gigs of storage on some ultra-reliable equipment off somewhere in a data center that will never ever ever die.
I also hadn’t considered an environmentally stable box. I wouldn’t want to leave it out in the backyard or anything, but we have a garage that isn’t attached to the house. If the house were to catch fire and burn, it’s fairly unlikely that anything would make it as far as the garage and torch it entirely as well. If I had something that was capable of sustaining temperatures below freezing and on the high side of 100, I would be set. Unfortunately, I don’t believe your typical disk drive is going to be able to handle such things, so we’re back to some big bucks getting the needed equipment.
I swear, this seems like such a common problem that there should be some insanely simple answer I’m missing. The common computer user with a digital camera isn’t going to have these problems, but there have to be enough geeks out there with 1TB of storage that need to back it up to have come up with an economically feasible solution…
The search goes on…
How ironic that I find this post.
Little over a month ago, my apartment building (3 stories, 12 units) caught fire, burnt up good, and the building was condemed and has since been torn down. Sitting in my apartment was my two boxes with 800gb and 500gb along with a floating USB harddrive. I got REALLY lucky and the larger/newer of the two boxes made it out okay. However, the second box was on its side with the case open. Needless to say it got pretty wet.
My New Years resolution was to do at least a one time backup of critical data on both boxes. Grant it the year isn’t over yet, so I still can back up the one box. I’m a cheap b—— too. I don’t have the dough to shell out for a TB of backup, not to mention even if I did back it up previously to the fire it most likely would have been in the apartment anyhow.
Maybe if I partition my brain I could do my backups straight into my head… Or not…
Please someone post an answer to this silly problem!
Yeah, I’d never have gotten anything out of it. If my luck were bad enough that the building caught fire, it’d have been bad enough to take out every last bit of data.
I was barely able to afford the first TB of space. There’s little to no chance I could manage to scrape up the money to duplicate it all over again, which looks to be the only promising solution at all. Still, finding a place to put it that’s safe from the fire even if I could come up with the money is an even bigger problem. It’s either not far enough away to really be safe, or too far away to be easily accessible / updateable.
You’re damned if you do, but surely damned if you don’t…
i aint used it but take a look at https://mozy.com/
Thanks for the tip, Graham. Mozy looks cool (can’t believe I haven’t heard of it before). Unfortunately, you only get 2GB for free (5GB even if you pay). I’ve got over a terabyte of space, and any solution would need at least 100GB to even come close to being useful for my purposes. That would still cut out a ton of my stuff (like the ISOs of my backed up DVDs and all my music), but at least I’d be able to get the most important stuff backed up (like the ISOs of my programs).
Even looking at something designed for these purposes, like Amazon S3, we’re looking at a huge expense. For the entire terabyte (1024 GB), at their 15 cents per gig per month, we’re talking $153.60 just for the storage. Include a one-time bandwidth fee for uploading it would be $204.80 at 20 cents per gig. At that point, we’re talking a new hard drive every month. That’d make it far more feasible for me to simply duplicate my current setup and find somewhere (still a problem as to where) to put it…
Anyone know of a cheaper solution for massive storage? Everything I’ve found is targetted at the 25gb or lower market, and clearly wouldn’t be viable in the quantities I’m talking about.
Maybe this is a good market for a new startup company. I mean, talk about less than $100/month for a quality (high capacity) dedicated server in a professional data center somewhere, and looks like a quality business model to me…
Ah well, the search goes on…
I’m in the same boat. Run my local office of our firm out of my home and we do video work. Uncompressed HD files are huge. I have about 1TB of long-term, rarely changing stuff, and 1TB of regularly modified files, both of which need backed up (infrequently and frequently, respectively).
The problem I see with the neighbor’s house (which I’ve considered) is hurricanes/tornadoes (I’m in Ohio, and that’s a spring time issue for us - I’ve been very near two in my lifetime). If severe weather could affect your house, it’s likely to affect your neighbor’s, especially hurricanes.
So, I have a server in the basement and I think the only viable (read: affordable) solution is to get 4 1TB external drives and rotate them to a colleague’s house once or twice a week. 2 drives would stay on site and mirror the 2TBs on my server, and then they’d get swapped with the two drives at my buddy’s house regularly. I’d get two identical Pelican cases with anti-static foam, and carry two drives in each. That way I could meet my bud for lunch and just swap cases (Pelican cases really protect from the elements - waterproof, even short exposures to hot/cold). The only thing that would be weird is if we regularly meet for lunch and exchange black equipment cases, it’ll look like a regular drug deal!
I can’t think of another good solution at the moment that’s nearly as affordable - I guess I have to bite the bullet and do it manually. At least I’ll get to see my friend more.
Yeah I have been thinking about this myself alot lately and trying to think ok of some solutions. The way I see it there are 2 issues at play.
1. Theif breaks into house while away and takes every peice of electrical looking equipment.
2. House/property burns down (Here in Australia we dont really have extreme low temperatures to worry about).
There are several solutions i thought of. For 1. i have decided to (although admittedly not yet done) basically embed a storage device in the wall of my house, accessable via a discrete location, connected to the network via the ethernet network connected between rooms and directly to the mains power. From any room there is no indication of what is within the walls however though the network the drive is accessable.
Secondly I am planning an external network drive which is powered through a small solar setup which will maintain an acceptable temperature.
Lastly I have set up a small script which zips & encrypts some of my essential data (finances etc) and periodically sends the data to a friend’s PC (and let him to likewise) and online storage. With encryption I know that the file is secured anywhere and by selectively zipping up only essential files (inc photos) i can ensure the data transfer is as fast as it can be.
Any other ideas/comments?