--- In Marc Myers <> wrote:
>
> I think if you rely on any one media to safely store your files you are
> likely to be disappointed. Archiving is more a process than a media at this
> point. It is not so much the media as how often one makes copies. I'm sure
> you know that in professional IT environments they make incremental backups
> each day, keep all incremental backups for a month or so and then make a full
> backup. A copy of the full backup is taken off site and archived. More
> recently, the files are spread over a cloud. The entire cloud is backed up.
> For my own part at home, I keep all media on a RAID-5 array. This way any one
> drive can fail without a problem. I also periodically back off the critical
> files either to an external hard drive or DVD. These I ask a friend to hold
> for safe keeping. Last, every couple of years I've purchased large storage, I
> copy all the files to the new drive but keep the old one until it fails.
What you have just clearly demonstrated is that there is more than one way to
skin that cat. I think the key considerations are that you protect the data in
a way that you understand how to retrieve it. Having used Linux extensively
since the late 90's, I keep a raidserver with many services (ftp, ssh,
webserver, mysql database) running on my network at home. I keep all of my
critical files archived on my main Linux machine, and keep it synchronized with
the raid array on the server using rsync (
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/rsync ) over a gigabit network. That is
reasonably fast.
I also have two servers at my business location that keep critical data on
them. I have written scripts that archive the critical data from my office by
tar.gz-ing them (unix version of zip), and then ftping them to each other and
then my raid array at the house -- starting at 3:00 AM while I sleep (usually).
Since my home files are photos, recording, video, transport over a network
isn't feasible, so I use a removable hard drive to solve the location problem.
The key concepts here are that you must know how to recover from failure of one
data backup. In the case of a raid drive, you must know how to reconstruct
that drive from the ground up should one drive fail. You must watch the drives
regularly, and have to know what you are doing to be able to reconstruct the
raid. Even the drobo arrays, easy raid setups, etc. in the Windows world can
fail. Since raid5 is striped, it is very subject to catastrophic failure.
Unless you need the speed (local machine), raid1 offers better protection
(simple mirroring). It is just slower.
Second, I keep an offsite location. In any backup scheme, the two key
principles are how do you recover from failure and how do you recover from
location disaster.
Most of us don't need that level of protection, but as we move more and more
into digital centered lifestyles and hard copies of pictures are rarer, this
becomes more important.
Plus, you'd hate to lose that one great recording you prize so much ;-)
I'm not sure users here are familiar with this device:
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?S=1268&ID=1642
It basically turns a 3.5" SATA drive into a removable storage device. It's
sort of a card reader for a normal sized hard drive. That is one of the best
devices for removable storage I have ever used. It's hot pluggable (power off
before removing the drive!!). If you handle the drive correctly, keep the
anti-static cover, that device alone used with two hard drives, one for home,
one for off location, you can have a very effective, yet simple backup scheme.
1Tb hard drives are cheap right now and both of my Black-X drive readers were
about $60. So, for say $260 you have a twin 1Tb backup drives and the safety
of offsite protection.
That is my quick and dirty recommendation that is the minimum protection.
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