Ask Slashdot: Best On-Site Backup Plan?

An anonymous reader writes "I know most people use backup services in the cloud now, off-site, but does anyone have good ideas on how to best protect data without it leaving the site? I'm a photographer and, I shoot 32GB to 64GB in a couple of hours. I've accumulated about 8TB of images over the past decade and just can't imagine paying to host them somewhere off-site. I don't make enough money as it is. Currently I just redundantly back them up to hard drives in different rooms of my house, but that's a total crapshoot — if there's a fire, I'd be out of luck. Does anyone keep a hard disk or NAS inside a fireproof safe? In a bunker in the cellar? In the detached garage? It's so much data that even doing routine backups bogs the system down for days. I'd love suggestions, especially from gamers or videographers who have TBs of data they need to back up, on what options there are with a limited budget to maximize protection."

Comments

Offsite != cloud

[flaming error]

There are offsite options besides the cloud. I shuffle hard drives between work and home. If you work from home, you could do the same at a friend's house or something.

Re:Offsite != cloud

[networkBoy]

I do this.
Whenever I finish a project I make two copies onto notebook sata drives. One in my media vault (a mechanics tool chest with drawers that happen to be the right size) for reference, and the other to the bank deposit box. A deposit box that holds ~30 2.5" sata drives is $25/year.

If there is even an event that takes both the bank and my house out at the same time, then I have vastly bigger problems.

For active work I do snapshots onto a drive and my working set is on a mirrored volume.
-nb

Re:Storing locally will cost you more, not less...

[sirwoogie]

Uhh, he did say 8TB worth of data. Not knowing his internet connection, this is still pretty much out of reach for most residential services except extreme FIOS connections. If you factor in caps it could take a long time. For example, lets be generous and figure he has a 350G/mo cap. Even at this rate for 8 terabyes it would take nearly 2 full years to get it to the cloud without exceeding the cap. That's just for the upload. Same amount of time for the download. Now let's also say he didn't have a cap, and also had a great connection at about 50Mbps (which most of us don't in the US). That would take over 16 days full line rate accounting for overhead just to get it up there, same amount back down. If you had an unmetered Gigabit line, that might be one thing. Sounds like he's a starving artist with low budget. Gotta work with the requirements. I think sneakernet an array to a friend that you trust that lives far enough away from you or take them to work (if you don't work at home) are the best options.