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Best Home Backup Strategy Now?
jollyreaper writes "Technology moves quickly and what was conventional wisdom last year can be folly this year. But the one thing that's remained constant is hard drives are far too large to backup via conventional means. Tape is expensive and can be unreliable, though it certainly has its proponents. DVDs are just too small. There are prosumer devices like the Drobo, but it's still just a giant box of hard drives, basically RAID. And as we've all had drilled into our heads, 'RAID is not backup.' When last this topic came up on Slashdot, the consensus was that hard drives were the best way to backup hard drives. Backup your internal HDD to an external one, and if your data is really important, have two externals and swap one off-site once a week. Is there any better advice these days?"
I store all of my porn videos and ripped music in the Limewire cloud, and let other people back it up for me. Works great, and I often realize I have backed up songs that I don't even remember ripping!
Cuneiform tablets work well for me. Don't store them in a flood zone, though.
Actually I read the summary and decided it was stupid. Sort of like, "I want to make a ham sandwich. Conventionally these contain bread and ham, but I'm an idiot so I want to make it from dog hair and epoxy resin".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I just can't be bothered with slashdot any more. It's full of dummies with mod points. How do I get off the Internet?
Do I need a megabyte of backup capacity for every megabyte of storage? No, I decide what's important and how long it's important for.
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As an interface to set up a backup system for a moderately adept geek with sufficient focus to set up and maintain a recurring rsync backup, an above average grasp of the layout of their filesystem, and the presence of mind to alter their rsync script as their computer changes over time, rsync is extremely powerful. For everyone else, it's next to useless.
On the other hand, if you thought you could ask on /. you probably match this description...
Bender: "Hey, what's this? Hermes' dreadlocks, and his arm? Leela, I'm shocked! Food goes in the disposal, hair and flesh go in the trash."
Yes, because work is going to complain about the hard drive in my desk drawer.
I also keep a pair of shoes there as well; my manager's never complained about that either.
Unless you work for a fast-food type company, I'd imagine most places are cool about this.
On the other hand, if you thought you could ask on /. you probably match this description...
If you had to ask on /., you already don't match the description.
The adage isn't an admonition not to use
stop making up words.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)
- Linus Torvalds
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
Unfortunately none of these strategies protect my from a major accident like a house fire. I just need to make sure not to do something stupid like fall asleep with a cigarette in my mouth.
You could buy a media rated fire safe.
You'll pay a stiff premium over the price of a safe that only has to protect paper. "Fahrenheit 451" and all that.
You might also consider renting a safety deposit box at your bank.
For porn I'd want instant immolation. Media no more durable than flash paper.
"I want to make a ham sandwich. Conventionally these contain bread and ham, but I'm an idiot so I want to make it from dog hair and epoxy resin".
Leela: And that sandwich you're eating is made of old discarded sandwiches. Nothing just gets thrown away.
Fry: The future is disgusting!
It's further to the post office. What's more it's quite difficult to drive up stairs.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Exactly, this is why my backup only takes up 1.8TB instead of 1.9TB, because I was able to properly identify the stuff that really needed backed up.
Fear is the mind killer.