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Affordable and Safe Data Protection Practices?
cfreeze asks: "With the recent fire at the University of Twente, I started to think 'Are the steps I'm taking to backup my home network sufficient?'. The first thing going through my mind was the need to mail a set of recent backup discs to a family member. I feel this is a good first step, but due to the distances involved it may prove to be impractical. The second was a small hidden personal safe that is fireproof. What steps are you taking?" If you are interested in truly protecting your data, you have to realize that making backups is just a start. Next comes protecting those backups from floods, fires, and other catastrophes that might occur. What do you do to protect your backups?
Back up your data by posting it in slashdot comments. Sure it might have NOTHING to do with the story but who cares people poost goatcx.se links too.
ALso FP
What do you do to protect your backups?
:(
I use the squirrel method, hiding my data on the drives of unsuspecting dupes all over the internet.
Unfortunately, I can't remember where all of these bits are, so if my primary system gets messed up I am going to be dataless
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
That's nothing compared to what happened to the Univeristy of One through the University of Nineteen. Let's hope they realize their mistakes with the release of the University of Twente-One
I have CowboyNeal hold on to my offsite backups.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
For instance:
Grocery list:
Pad your data into some porn movie and you will have loads of copies floated around the internet.
Most tape backup programs have a verify setting too, but that takes so long.
/dev/st0 with /dev/null. I think GNU tar actually has code that detects when it is writing to that device to make things so even faster.
I found it even quicker to replace
You're new around here, aren't you?
Then you play the little exhange game. Your data for my data. You want your shady finacial records, I want my porn. Or is it the other way around?
Ooops! In my other post I forgot about my porn!
I keep multiple copies of that on 5.25, 3.5, CD, DVD and punchcards hidden throughout Northern Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. My home copies are on 2 identical RAID 5 systems backed up to compressed Exabyte tape librarys (one in my apartment, one connected wirelessly to my garage on the same property but 3 buildings away). The apartments have a sprinkler system, so the RAID and Exabyte cabinets are tented with plastic. Working on an archive for my vehicle that backs up through an 802.11a connection whenever I park in the garage.
It was just my defense contracting work I was talking about here
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
What about all the people who used the "Nimda Distributed Backup Plan"? Infect all your machines with Nimda and let it send your files out to dozens of people around the world on a regular basis.
I just stack all my 3.5" floppies on my 21" monitor so I can run out with my data in a hurry. I also store all my CDs face up in the greenhouse outside so I can't miss them in the bright sun.
I was going to say that my karma is excellent so this wouldn't happen, but I see my original comment has been modded down already, so pardon me for a moment while I go hide my latest backups under the garden shed...
I wish there was "no sig" checkbox on submission
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
Sure, they may not be insured, but odds are next to none that both the backup that you keep at your house, the current running version of things on your lan and your bank are ALL going to go the way of the dodo on the same day.
Earthquake
Tornado
Flood
Riots
Nuke Blast
Bio/Chem Attack
Asteroid
EMP Attack
Bad Backups
OK, so it's still not likely. Even just making the list I felt like a card carrying member of the Tinfoil Hat Cabal. Living in LA, I could see at least of three of those wiping out my data. Add a fourth if Jack Bauer can't stop that nuke.
If you care about your data enough that you'd miss it if your town turned into a smoking hole, store a copy a few hundred km away for safekeeping.
1) Create false identity
2) Buy plot of land in extremely rural area close to Canadian border. Use false identity, pay cash.
3) Build small, subterranean concrete bunker (10' x 10'). Install water-tight safe in bunker. Camouflage bunker, make it tamper-evident.
4) Visit with data periodically.
You now have a safe place to store things. Safe from fire, flood, and most importantly from the government. Since you bought the land with false identification, they can't shake you down for what you have stored there, unless they know about it. It's close to the border, so you should be able to get the contents fairly easily from the other side of the border -- or get the data as you go OVER the border.
OK, so its not convenient and illegal, but hasn't true safety and privacy always been that way?
I periodically broadcast all my data to Vega. That way, if I ever have a catastrophic destruction of all the data, I only need to send a faster than light ship towards Vega far enough to recieve the last broadcast. If someone ever gets a sleeping virus into the system... I just send the ship a little futher and get an older backup.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
One fellow, who was paranoid about the permanence of magnetic media, even kept a copy of his raw data on punch cards (cartons of them).
I put mine on Kazaa as [tmd]8mile.(ftf).ts.(1of2)_COMPLETE!!1!
Who said P2P doesn't have substantial non-infringing uses?
Yeah, that's what I do to. I have found if I jsut cp everything I need to /dev/null the data transfer is SUPER fast. I haven't needed to recover anything yet, but the speed at which I can back up my system is so fast that I can afford to do full backups several times a day. It must go to a spot on my hard drive platter that is near the spindle and can spin really fast - but I'm not a kernel hacker so I'm not really sure.
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
If your backup media are small enough and your pockets are big enough, a reasonable place to keep off-site backups is in your pocket. I can fit CD's into a pocket of the fishing vest I habitually wear, for example. Encrypt any data that you want to stay secret if you're mugged.
This is the safest place I know. No woman (unfortunately) or man (thankfully) will ever venture there.
1) when placing your media in the fireproof safe pack so that it'd survive a good fall.
2) put the fireproof safe in a blasting shell of sorts surrounded by some explosives with a high ignition temp...
3) you're done! when the fire engulfs the shell your safe is in, the safe itself will be shot outside... your media/backups will be safe & unmelted!
Data protection measures should be comensurate with the risk.
Is it 100Gb of a.b.p.e or will your livelyhood be destroyed?
If your house burns down, making sure you still have copies of your "disgusted from Tunbridge Wells" complaints to Channel 5 will be the least of your worries.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
get a grip. How could a person possibly have non-work related data that was truely THAT important that was more than, say, a meg? You know how much TEXT is in a freakin meg? That's right - a million characters :P
I'm just as paranoid as the next unix admin...ABOUT IMPORTANT DATA...you know, like the data at work that my company has many millions of dollars coming up with. The research equiptment can be replaced, and the public databases can be recovered eventually, but there's some sets of data that is ultra important. But that's REAL data. Just because your computer has a 120Gb drive now doesn't mean you really have backup issues.
can anyone actually justify this nonsense? Can someone please enlighten me as to why a person would have more than 5 megs of data that they'd need to save in case of emergency? You know...data that you'd be worried about melting? Birth certificates can be replaced fairly easily really, especially when the government knows your house was swallowed by a 500' gorilla that ate your whole town. When that happens, the last thing that you'll need to worry about is your freakin bank statements. Your bank doesn't exist anymore, remember?
yeesh
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Oh for the love of God, we're talking about someone's personal home backups. Im pretty sure no one needs daily copies of all their data at 300 mile seperated bank branches. Who are you that your data is that important, Jesus? I think the original question of the article was based around home backup methods. If you own some massive business in the WTC, trust me, youll have better alternatives. A place I know takes a set of tapes down to salt mines in Kansas City every single day, where they're practically oblivious to every kind of catastrophe that leaves most of humanity intact. If this is for home, just dump your drive once in awhile to some CDRs or DVDRs and put them at work or something. Trust me, I lived through a fire in my home (total loss, not just some kitchen fire), and the last thing I was concerned about was my mp3s. What about your wife's wedding dress? What about your pets? Children? All your legal documents? What are you doing to do, keep your grandpa's world war 1 pocket watch in a kryptonite box in a vault at NORAD? Shit happens. If youre one of the 98% youll probably go through life without a single catastrophic disaster, if you have one, we'll, youll pick up the pieces and start over and you'll realize pretty quickly how really little mose of those 0's and 1's mean in the grand scheme of things.
If you have some REAL important shit at your house, chances are it doesnt change daily. Burn it to CD and send a copy to grandma for Christmas once a year if it makes you sleep better at night, but keeping 10 copies of everything across 300 miles of bank safes, and spending $1000 on a firesafe to protect $2 in JPEGs, its all just really retarded when you actually go through a loss like that.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Since most safes are designed to keep the temperature below that which will damage paper, I just uuencode all of my data and print it all up. Now I just need some more $$$ for a few more safes. (that paper really takes up a lot of space, maybe I should use BOTH sides of it.)
My carefully laid out program for backing up my data consists of these two steps:
1. If I have no space left on any harddisk, burn some of it to a CD.
2. Ehhh... ok, not two steps...