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…
Suggest a Blog!
I subscribe to what I would consider quite a few blogs (78 in fact, according to NetNewsWire). While I can quickly get bogged down in the amount of information coming in every day (for example, if I took a few days off reading blogs to get other things done), there are a lot of similar times (like now) when I look at my reader over and over and wonder ‘where’s the news?’.
So, loyal readers, what blogs do you read? I’m looking for techy-related ones. Maybe some PHP, MySQL, Javascript, etc. related ones. Systems Administration, web hosting, that kind of stuff. You know all the crap I talk about here? That’s the stuff I like to read too. I usually don’t get into personal blogs unless they’re outrageously funny or I have some kind of personal connection with the people writing them.
I also don’t generally like reading the biggie blogs, particularly the tech-related ones. Let’s face it, Engadget and the like all have a lot of material every day, and most of it is crap or totally uninteresting to me. Anything really worth a read will get pegged on Digg within a few hours, and I’ll read it there (along with a couple thousand other visitors). It’s just not worth wading through all the noise, when others can do that for me more effectively (think along the lines of ‘Greatest Hits’ albums).
Any recommendations, ladies and gents?