Re: Backup question

From: Winged (Winged_at_nofollow.com)
Date: 06/30/05 

Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 00:51:40 -0500

Moe Trin wrote:
> In the Usenet newsgroup alt.computer.security, in article
> <cv1ap2-nj6.ln1@anonymizer.com>, Phil wrote:
>
>
>>Actually, a USB or Firewire external hard drive is fairly cheap (per Mb),
>>easy to connect when needed (just plug it in - no skills required) and easy
>>to replace should *it* go wrong.
>
>
> Minor disadvantage - only one backup.
>
>
>>The chances of both your main drive and the external drive failing at the
>>same time is remote (though not impossible if caused by, say, a nearby
>>lightning strike - I speak from experience).
>
>
> Power supplies and perhaps disk controllers can also cause common
> problems. We always back up to a different system just for this reason.
> In the case of tapes, the tape drive is located on a different computer
> to avoid the "common point of failure",
>
>
>>Once a week or once a fortnight, this external drive gets swapped with
>>one stored at a friend's house just down the road (so if we get a flood
>>or earthquake then I'm fucked - but as we live on a hill in Normandy, both
>>are unlikely).
>
>
> If the hill is high enough and far enough away from the beach, the tidal
> waves won't get you, but watch out for those herds of rabid yaks, and
> the tourist drivers. It's always something.
>
> Old guy
Perhaps I don't understand well enough. I have used all of the methods
described in previous posts at one time or another. Recently I bought a
200 GB USB drive for backup for an 80 GB drive. I usually do a full
backup on a separate tape device every 6 months or so that a store in a
detached shop where I live.

Even if I were not using VMs I could store at least 3 complete backups
on the 200 GB Maxtor drive. The drive cost was about $125 on sale.

Using VMs makes backup chores much simpler for me as I only store the
base image configured with the VMware (side note I have the VMs on a
second drive in the box). In this configuration You need only backup
the base system when you patch then run a cron once a day looking for
VMs that have changed since last backup then backup the VM only if it
has changed. (Note: for those concerned about recovery of secretive
files VMs are a good solution since once the are gone someone "might"
determine a VM had been there after the free space was over written but
getting to the data within the VM I believe would be very problematic,
of course I might be wrong on this)

In reality I store the previous 2 copies of the VMs because space has
not been a serious issue (to date)since all but 4 of the VMs are Linux
flavors. The VM files can be compressed considerably before achieving
(usually more than 50% depending, my graphics VM do not compress as
well due to many of the files are already compressed). Currently I the
backups require about 100MB total for both copies. I store video clips
on dvd-rws they don't compress and they are huge files.

Perhaps someday my house and my shop may disappear in a twister, and I
would most regret losing code and pictures, but at that point I figure
to have many other higher priority concerns. I guess I will continue to
knock on wood for continued luck.

Winged

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