alock, good checklist.
I agree, that i would be angry if i lost a few days work because i didn't have raid, or my computer was down becase i sold my outdated parts on ebay instead of keeping 1 spare set for hardware emergencies.
Id also be angry if my aprartment burnt down and i didnt have at least my lifes work saved in my mobile backup.
Id be upset because these situations are mostly preventable.
I hate CD's and will only keep them if thier music cd's. I prefer hard drives. I can ftp my most important files to my website for collaborative projects. But thats limited to 2GB.
RAID of the Paranoid
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Ain't that the truth. I've had two machines where hardware failures lead to data loss, both cases were down to old cruddy hard disks. Compare that to many many times I've had to salvage deleted files both my own and my users'. Human error loses far more than hardware failure.kesv wrote:PS. According to several studies performed by companies
that work in the datastorage business, most datalosses can be followed back to software error or human error.
Tom.
I looked into this thing myself recently. My solution has been to set up an old Cyrix Geode thin client with FreeBSD and rsync. Rsync basically backs up your data over a network, but does it in such a way that it only copies data that has changed.
The upshot of only copying changed data is that it works well even over a slow link. I use an encrypted SSH tunnel over a wireless network to a friends house about 1.5 miles away, where the Cyrix is located.
I also have another Linux machine (Debian) on my LAN which I so TrueImage backups to. Once a week for my system partition.
For my multimedia data, I use DVD-Rs. I don't trust them to last, so I use QuickPAR to make PAR2 parity files. Basically, parity files let you recover corrupt or lost data. Say you have 50MB of parity files, you can recover up to 50MB of lost of corrupt data. I usually make 5% parity data and put it on a different DVD to the one with the actual data on it. So far, I have not had any problems.
RAID is really more about uptime than backup security. Off-site backups are best, and with rsync can easily be done even over a modem if you don't produce more than a few megs a day or data. You could even use wake-on-ring with a modem. You can also do rsync type incremental backups over FTP, so you could use your web space (with encryption) for important documents. Actually, I'm gonna set that up now!
The upshot of only copying changed data is that it works well even over a slow link. I use an encrypted SSH tunnel over a wireless network to a friends house about 1.5 miles away, where the Cyrix is located.
I also have another Linux machine (Debian) on my LAN which I so TrueImage backups to. Once a week for my system partition.
For my multimedia data, I use DVD-Rs. I don't trust them to last, so I use QuickPAR to make PAR2 parity files. Basically, parity files let you recover corrupt or lost data. Say you have 50MB of parity files, you can recover up to 50MB of lost of corrupt data. I usually make 5% parity data and put it on a different DVD to the one with the actual data on it. So far, I have not had any problems.
RAID is really more about uptime than backup security. Off-site backups are best, and with rsync can easily be done even over a modem if you don't produce more than a few megs a day or data. You could even use wake-on-ring with a modem. You can also do rsync type incremental backups over FTP, so you could use your web space (with encryption) for important documents. Actually, I'm gonna set that up now!
mpteach: I don't have line of sight, there is another house in the way but it doesn't seem to be a problem. A good antenna at both ends is the key.
I have only one HD in the Cyrix box, a 4GB Seagate that came out of an X-Box when it was upgraded to 40GB. It's not huge but can store a system partition backup (4GB partition, 2.75GB used, usually about 1.5GB image with compression) plus all my code (400MB ish), documents (35MB) and some other important files. I keep meaning to set up my save games to go on there as well, plus config files for various applications.
The Cyrix was 99p(!) from eBay and came with a 16MB disk-on-module (solid state disk) which was originally going to be a router.
Here's an idea. Members of the SPCR forums could make FTP and rsync services available to each other to for backups. Obviously, there would need to be limits agreed by each person, but with encryption it could be a good remote backup solution.
I have only one HD in the Cyrix box, a 4GB Seagate that came out of an X-Box when it was upgraded to 40GB. It's not huge but can store a system partition backup (4GB partition, 2.75GB used, usually about 1.5GB image with compression) plus all my code (400MB ish), documents (35MB) and some other important files. I keep meaning to set up my save games to go on there as well, plus config files for various applications.
The Cyrix was 99p(!) from eBay and came with a 16MB disk-on-module (solid state disk) which was originally going to be a router.
Here's an idea. Members of the SPCR forums could make FTP and rsync services available to each other to for backups. Obviously, there would need to be limits agreed by each person, but with encryption it could be a good remote backup solution.
I have dozens of buldings in the way so i dont think wireless would work 1.5 miles for me. I guess i need to make frinds with my neighbors 
I want to back up all my files and not just my boot partition. However i do agree with making several images of the boot partition.
For the most critical files i can just ftp them, i have 2.3 Gigs of space on my server and a few hundred MB on my college acount.
I think that i will stick with backup route that i mentioned before, because i do not have a dedicated offsite backup server with enough bandwith or capacity. If i lived on my college campus i woudl probably go your route.
Since my computer is being used for my fathers business data, Raid might be worth it, a few days downtime, or even a loss of 1 days data can be very expensive also.
I want to back up all my files and not just my boot partition. However i do agree with making several images of the boot partition.
For the most critical files i can just ftp them, i have 2.3 Gigs of space on my server and a few hundred MB on my college acount.
I think that i will stick with backup route that i mentioned before, because i do not have a dedicated offsite backup server with enough bandwith or capacity. If i lived on my college campus i woudl probably go your route.
Since my computer is being used for my fathers business data, Raid might be worth it, a few days downtime, or even a loss of 1 days data can be very expensive also.
Sounds like what you need is something like this for Windows:
http://www.drbd.org/
Basically, it's RAID but over a network, so you have the mirrored disk in another machine. 100Mb ethernet would probably be fine for documents, or you could go gigabit. With separate UPSs and some distance between them, you would be pretty much as safe as possible without remote storage.
http://www.drbd.org/
Basically, it's RAID but over a network, so you have the mirrored disk in another machine. 100Mb ethernet would probably be fine for documents, or you could go gigabit. With separate UPSs and some distance between them, you would be pretty much as safe as possible without remote storage.
For those running Windows, you are more than welcome to try my FTP synchronisation program. I wrote this when I couldn't find another program I liked. It can be downloaded from http://www.alock.net. It works by modifying the archive attribute of the local files to indicate it has been backed up so might not work on system files.
I run this on my local server everynight to backup my most important documents to a remote server.
I run this on my local server everynight to backup my most important documents to a remote server.