- May 19, 2011
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As a result of this thread:
forums.anandtech.com
It has occurred to me that maybe I need to think about my longer-term backup sets a bit more thoroughly. For the vast majority of my (important enough to be backed up) data, I'm cycling between 3 backup sets, updating one set per month, backup media is encrypted HDDs and one backup set per HDD. For longer-term backups I have:
1 yearly updated backup set (encrypted HDD), independent from the 3 already mentioned.
An encrypted HDD with datestamped backups of specific bits of data (e.g. documents, photos). For specific bits of data this can go back years (I recently replaced the ancient 400GB drive I used and had been deleting some older backups off it and decided that it was better to use a spare bigger drive instead).
I keep track of my backups in a spreadsheet.
On Linux I use veracrypt then rsync to transfer the data to the drives, and for the datestamp backup drive I'm compressing files. Oh god, I've just thought of another thread I can start on that sub-topic
These are all just personal data backups, I don't do OS image backups because I figure the OS can be easily replaced.
So my question is, when have your longer-term backups come in handy? For me, the last time I lost important data was just over twenty years ago, I had an IBM DeathStar drive and no backup system to speak of. The worst loss was my old college data. One other scenario I encountered was a customer had a particular spreadsheet that hadn't been looked at in about 4 years but was still important, and at some point along the way the file had become corrupted. The customer's backup system didn't help as the backup sets were cycled often enough to all include the corrupted version, but we got lucky as I had stowed a separate backup when I migrated their stuff from an old PC to their current one. I realise that at the end of the data no backup strategy is perfect, so unless you have tonnes of money to throw at the problem then there's always a small chance that some scenario will slip through the net.
As a side note I was pondering whether using 25GB BR discs to act as ancient backups for particularly important bits of data is a good plan but most importantly whether it's really worth it. They're easy to store a lot of and use up a lot less space than their counterparts, and 25GB will currently house say my entire music or photo collection. The fact that I'm considering optical for this isn't that relevant I guess (hence the new thread), because I have spare older HDDs I could use for this purpose, but I guess using a different backup media makes me slightly happier rather than relying on one system for most of my backups.
Question - Pondering optical media value/usefulness these days
I always keep a stock of DVD single layer (4GB) and CD blank media as they're incredibly cheap to put a small amount of data on, and rewriteables are handy for quick jobs. When I decided to get a BR drive for my PC, I thought I may as well spend a bit more and get a BR writer drive as it might...
forums.anandtech.com
It has occurred to me that maybe I need to think about my longer-term backup sets a bit more thoroughly. For the vast majority of my (important enough to be backed up) data, I'm cycling between 3 backup sets, updating one set per month, backup media is encrypted HDDs and one backup set per HDD. For longer-term backups I have:
1 yearly updated backup set (encrypted HDD), independent from the 3 already mentioned.
An encrypted HDD with datestamped backups of specific bits of data (e.g. documents, photos). For specific bits of data this can go back years (I recently replaced the ancient 400GB drive I used and had been deleting some older backups off it and decided that it was better to use a spare bigger drive instead).
I keep track of my backups in a spreadsheet.
On Linux I use veracrypt then rsync to transfer the data to the drives, and for the datestamp backup drive I'm compressing files. Oh god, I've just thought of another thread I can start on that sub-topic
These are all just personal data backups, I don't do OS image backups because I figure the OS can be easily replaced.
So my question is, when have your longer-term backups come in handy? For me, the last time I lost important data was just over twenty years ago, I had an IBM DeathStar drive and no backup system to speak of. The worst loss was my old college data. One other scenario I encountered was a customer had a particular spreadsheet that hadn't been looked at in about 4 years but was still important, and at some point along the way the file had become corrupted. The customer's backup system didn't help as the backup sets were cycled often enough to all include the corrupted version, but we got lucky as I had stowed a separate backup when I migrated their stuff from an old PC to their current one. I realise that at the end of the data no backup strategy is perfect, so unless you have tonnes of money to throw at the problem then there's always a small chance that some scenario will slip through the net.
As a side note I was pondering whether using 25GB BR discs to act as ancient backups for particularly important bits of data is a good plan but most importantly whether it's really worth it. They're easy to store a lot of and use up a lot less space than their counterparts, and 25GB will currently house say my entire music or photo collection. The fact that I'm considering optical for this isn't that relevant I guess (hence the new thread), because I have spare older HDDs I could use for this purpose, but I guess using a different backup media makes me slightly happier rather than relying on one system for most of my backups.
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