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Online, Inexpensive and Secure Data Storage?
ThePolkapunk asks: "After years of suffering through floppy demagnetizations, hard drive crashes, CDR bit rot and the click of death, I've become fed up with having to take care of my own backups. Does anyone know of a reasonably inexpensive, secure data storage facility accessible online that can store all of my important files with enough redundancy for me to feel safe?"
Compress everything, encrypt it, and share it on emule as "OSX_X86.iso.
/.
For extra redundancy, post an obscure blog about it, and then submit that blog to
Sage Advice:
;)" - Linus Torvalds
"Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it
"why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
As usual, someone thinks they can have all three.
Here's a hint: Pick two.
GmailFS - The Google File System as discussed on Slashdot ...
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
my_backup_14-6-2005@yahoo.com
my_backup_15-6-2005@yahoo.com
my_backup_16-6-2005@yahoo.com
my_backup_17-6-2005@yahoo.com
my_backup_18-6-2005@yahoo.com
my_backup_19-6-2005@yahoo.com
ad infinitum...
I have found there are just two ways to go.
It all comes down to livin' fast or dyin' slow. -REK, Jr.
You can try these guys: http://www.box.net/ Marc
Check out http://www.evault.com/
Very reasonably priced and they maintain offsite backups of their backups.
One thing to keep in mind is transfer speed. I would have used them but I have 40gigs of data to back up and it would take too long to send daily.
I've recently switched from DLT to external USB drives. They're cheaper, more reliable and easier to restore from than tape.
;) ). I did start working on one, but there are too many things higher on my priority list.
I've been doing backups this way for a few months now. It's also easier to backup. Plug in the usb drive, run rsync, unplug and take offsite. I have a script I run in cron (or manually) that tries to mount it first, and only if it suceeds, runs rsync.
I've been meaning to install another drive at my house to backup a couple servers (just haven't gotten around to it yet), but that'll be similar.. rsync over ssl, run in cron every night.
The one thing this doesn't address that tapes usually do is keeping multiple backups. I was doing this for a while - where I had a directory for I think monday, wednesday and friday - but then our storage space increased and I couldn't fit this on my backup drive anymore. It would just be a matter of buying a bigger drive, or getting another couple enclosures and drives, but I haven't done it yet.
I was playing with using rdiff-backup to make differential backups of just our file shares, but due to lack of a usable web interface I haven't bothered (I don't want to spend time selectively restoring backups for people.. if they can't do it themselves I want no part
Speak before you think
Not sure if that's what you mean or not, But RAID is *not* a replacement for backup. If you don't pay attention and delete a file, a backup should be able to give you that file back. A RAID setup will ensure that the file gets deleted on all the mirrors... :( ) ? Or if the physical location the server is in catches on fire ?
On the other hand if you use an external RAID server to store backups on yep it's not bad. But i'd say that it would be even better to just have a regular ide disk to make backups on, and a remote location you can upload your backups to... RAID is good, but what happens if you PSU goes crazy and kills all the disk in the array (happened to me
So if you can have a place to upload to and it's doable for the amount of data you need to transfer, it'll probably be much cheaper, and much more secure than a RAID array.
Oh sure, it's easy to laugh. But one day, people will not laugh. Weavers unite!