Backup Strategy for a Quick Evacuation Emergency

[bradly1101]

[links below are informational, not advertising]

We all do backups which is great. I have a system that ensures no loss of data even if I suddenly have to run out of my burning, flooding, or earthquake damaged apartment.

If you use a portable USB/eSATA/FireWire drive to backup, it can be grabbed fairly quickly in an emergency with all your docs, pics, programs,..., but not quickly enough for me.

I went a step further, I can imagine not having time to unplug things. Along with my eSATA portable drive that’s always connected, and would take a bit to unplug from power and the PC (in that time I could burn to death), I added a removable drive dock that I can put a bare hard drive into, do my backup, then store that bare drive in a plastic case that I keep by my front door so my whole digital life can be grabbed in less than one second on my way out. Two backups are of course better than one too.

The links below are not for advertising purposes. Total: $110 for 2TB external, portable disaster recovery of my digital life:
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The bare drive dock I've been using for a long time:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005UA3I72/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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A good bare drive.
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Desktop...=1515447625&sr=1-1&keywords=2tb+wd+hard+drive
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Bare drive carrying/protective case:
https://www.amazon.com/ORICO-Protec...15448119&sr=1-1&keywords=3.5"+hard+drive+case
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[oynaz]

That does not protect against theft or fire, for instance.

I think that an off-site solution is a better alternative for a second backup (provided you have a good internet connection, of course). Crashplan unfortunately seems intent on removing everything that made their solution awesome, but Backblaze seems good.

 

[bradly1101]

That does not protect against theft or fire, for instance.

I think that an off-site solution is a better alternative for a second backup (provided you have a good internet connection, of course). Crashplan unfortunately seems intent on removing everything that made their solution awesome, but Backblaze seems good.

$10/mo. isn't bad for Backblaze (I have two PC's backed up). For the twenty-one years of data/progs. I own that would have been a bit over $2,500. Offsite is the best. I wonder how long the initial backup would take.

 

[fastamdman]

Couple things that I want to mention. First off, there is nothing on a computer, NOTHING, that is more important than your life or the life of others. With that said, there are at times important and valuable information on computers that we would rather have if possible. Coming from a person who has lost EVERYTHING in a house fire and I do mean EVERYTHING, materialistic things can be replaced. Will my baby shoes ever be replaced...no. Will the pictures ever be replaced...no. But my life also can't be replaced. In a life and death situation, you shouldn't be thinking "ok I have to run to the door and grab this, before jumping out the window (because the hallway is on fire).". You should ONLY be thinking about yourself. If you have data that is so crucial that it has to be backed up, it shouldn't be backed up in your own home.

You can back up data on a friends machine, you can back it up to a family members machine. Depending on the size of data you have, that would be an ABSOLUTE keep, you can simply buy a few USB drives. Grab a 256gb flash drive and put everything that is crucial on that. If you need a larger drive, buy a larger one, or buy several. This way you can do the following. Give one to your friends, family, gf, whoever it may be. You can wear one around your neck or put it in your pocket every day. Put it on your keychain if you would like. But regardless of what you do, having OFF SITE storage is always going to be the safest. If possible have multiple backups. Go to your parents place, toss in a hard drive or flash drive and back things up there. If you are worried about friends or family getting into your flash drive, encrypt it and password protect it. Even backing it up online can be dangerous. Things online can be hacked, a server fire could eliminate your data if they don't have proper redundancy etc.

So many people are more worried about the past than they are the future. Not everything can be replaced, but we also don't need everything that we have. That is why we have memories and others have memories. Will I ever see the picture of my first steps again? Nope, but my mother can tell me about it. Your life is more valuable than any materialistic objects or digital data you have. You might think that you have that extra second or two or three to grab whatever you need and you MIGHT....But it's that one time where you don't have that extra second and your life is taken from you, or almost taken, that you realize how stupid it was to worry about it.

Simply back up everything off site, period. There is nothing wrong with redundancy in case of hardware failures. But in cases of life and death situations, you should never have to slow yourself down and think "don't forget to grab the external hard drive by the door". Because as I said above, what if the door isn't your exit? I don't care if you live on the 18th floor of a building, you still MIGHT have to quickly leave out the window in a bad fire. Just food for thought and my opinion. Hopefully what has happened to me, never happens to you. I wish you the best OP.

 

[bradly1101]

Couple things that I want to mention. First off, there is nothing on a computer, NOTHING, that is more important than your life or the life of others. With that said, there are at times important and valuable information on computers that we would rather have if possible. Coming from a person who has lost EVERYTHING in a house fire and I do mean EVERYTHING, materialistic things can be replaced. Will my baby shoes ever be replaced...no. Will the pictures ever be replaced...no. But my life also can't be replaced. In a life and death situation, you shouldn't be thinking "ok I have to run to the door and grab this, before jumping out the window (because the hallway is on fire).". You should ONLY be thinking about yourself. If you have data that is so crucial that it has to be backed up, it shouldn't be backed up in your own home.

You can back up data on a friends machine, you can back it up to a family members machine. Depending on the size of data you have, that would be an ABSOLUTE keep, you can simply buy a few USB drives. Grab a 256gb flash drive and put everything that is crucial on that. If you need a larger drive, buy a larger one, or buy several. This way you can do the following. Give one to your friends, family, gf, whoever it may be. You can wear one around your neck or put it in your pocket every day. Put it on your keychain if you would like. But regardless of what you do, having OFF SITE storage is always going to be the safest. If possible have multiple backups. Go to your parents place, toss in a hard drive or flash drive and back things up there. If you are worried about friends or family getting into your flash drive, encrypt it and password protect it. Even backing it up online can be dangerous. Things online can be hacked, a server fire could eliminate your data if they don't have proper redundancy etc.

So many people are more worried about the past than they are the future. Not everything can be replaced, but we also don't need everything that we have. That is why we have memories and others have memories. Will I ever see the picture of my first steps again? Nope, but my mother can tell me about it. Your life is more valuable than any materialistic objects or digital data you have. You might think that you have that extra second or two or three to grab whatever you need and you MIGHT....But it's that one time where you don't have that extra second and your life is taken from you, or almost taken, that you realize how stupid it was to worry about it.

Simply back up everything off site, period. There is nothing wrong with redundancy in case of hardware failures. But in cases of life and death situations, you should never have to slow yourself down and think "don't forget to grab the external hard drive by the door". Because as I said above, what if the door isn't your exit? I don't care if you live on the 18th floor of a building, you still MIGHT have to quickly leave out the window in a bad fire. Just food for thought and my opinion. Hopefully what has happened to me, never happens to you. I wish you the best OP.

Great stuff. It's all really out of our control. I like the flash drive idea, those can go anywhere. I have photos that I never want to lose and odds are that my demise will precede their's. Data and purchased, downloaded programs are indeed less important than life. And if I survive a disaster it's an opportunity to start fresh (like getting a new phone and saying "no" to re-installing all the crap from my last one). My favorite images are already on The Cloud in various sites (I don't really need the high-res RAW files), and old programs that can't be re-downloaded have available replacements. Fears about disasters are fed by so many who have gone through them around the world as my TV shows me. And it has an off button. So do my fears.

 

[XavierMace]

Yeah, if your data is so important that you're concerned about grabbing a drive in the middle of an emergency, you should be backing up onsite.