[johnbryanpeters]

I want off-site backups, about 100 GB currently.

Who's doing what?

How much does it cost?

To what extent do you regard your backed up data as secure?

 

[Nick]

Unless your home is at great risk, why offsite? Storage has become so cheap you could back up 2TB for around $100.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Offsite because fires and other shit happen.

I do irregular disk-to-disk backup, want to get something automated set up and want it to include offsite.

 

[syadasti]

Crashplan has free offsite back support in their client - backup offsite to a friend or family member (give them a external HDD if they don't have any space):

https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Backup/Back_up_to_another_computer_you_own

 

[canadmos]

Robocopy to some disks and rotate through them. Once a week or something put one in your truck or take it to a friends.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Robocopy to some disks and rotate through them. Once a week or something put one in your truck or take it to a friends.

I think I may finally have to cave and pay for some variety of cloud backup. Security, bandwidth use, and cost would be concerns.

 

[johnbryanpeters]

In particular, I'm thinking maybe CrashPlan, at about $150/year for the four systems I would like to back up..

 

[canadmos]

If bandwidth, security and cost are concerns, then I'd say copying to your own disks is still the best solution.

At the very least, you'll know where your data is, how it is protected and how to retrieve it.

 

[StiHacka]

1. make a microfiche of your precious documents
2. attach to a pigeon
3. send pigeon on a round trip around the globe
4. profit?

 

[syadasti]

If bandwidth, security and cost are concerns, then I'd say copying to your own disks is still the best solution.

At the very least, you'll know where your data is, how it is protected and how to retrieve it.

Crashplan lets you do that from site to site on your own (or a friend's) hardware for free, you don't have to pay for their cloud storage.

 

[binary visions]

A few things I've decided about backups:

- If it's not off-site, it's not backed up. I was once burglarized. They took my computer. Yay, backups! Wait, no, they took my external hard drives, too.

- If it's not automated (and by automated, I mean ZERO human interaction, not, "my backup is automated but I need to move my disks once a week"), it's not reliable. It is inevitable that the day you get a failure is the day you're at the tail end of your manual rotation cycle and you just happened to lose some photo that you really liked.

- If the off-site backup medium isn't online (that is, attached to a live computer where failures will be detected), you need to have two copies. Also inevitable, that you will need your backup, and you will plug the drive in, and you will hear click...click...click.

If you're an average user, a copy on your computer and a copy with a verified backup service like Crashplan/Backblaze is enough.

If you have important data, a copy on your computer, a copy on a second disk/external drive, and a verified backup service is enough. This is what I do. I pretty much assume that the chances of two drives failing simultaneously AND Crashplan's datacenter going up in smoke at the same time is slim.

For the paranoid, you can scale further out - one on your computer, a copy on a second disk, an offline/offsite backup, even two cloud providers.

Pay the $5/month for Crashplan's unlimited service. It's easy, it's cheap, it's automatic, it's got great file versioning capabilities, and your data will go into a real datacenter, not your buddy's laptop that he regularly perches his beers on. If security is a concern, you can protect your data with an encryption key, but protect that key with your life because your data will be irretrievable if you lose it.

 

[binary visions]

In particular, I'm thinking maybe CrashPlan, at about $150/year for the four systems I would like to back up..

If the four systems are all in the same house, you could set up automated copies to one single machine that then runs backups. It would save you a few bucks.