
Ask HN: How do you back up your drives? - antr
I&#x27;m currently going through a meltdown because my Drobo, which is supposed to give users &quot;redundant protection&quot;, has corrupted +4TB of data: years of photos, all my music, all docs that go from way back at university to personal projects, raw video files... everything. I just want to know what HN users use to backup their data, drives, etc. I haven&#x27;t heard good things from Backblaze, Crashplan, etc, so I was wondering if there are other alternatives. Thanks
======
DanBC
I list the stuff that I'd be really distressed to lose (the photos of my
child; My Great Novel;).

That stuff gets archived (zero compression) with recovery data; with PAR2
recovery data as well; it then gets copied to multiple USB sticks and microSD
cards. These get posted out to various family members (who are asked nicely to
keep them somewhere safe) and kept in my firesafe.

Any passwords and serial numbers and etc are printed out, with the name and
URL of the software they're for. A copy of that goes in the fire safe. There
are copies of the spreadsheet on various drives.

All the other stuff is kruft. I do have multiple copies of my music but that's
only because tagging MP3 files is hell.

I'd be interested to hear how the drobo failed.

~~~
larrys
Little tip for the fire safe. YMMV.

Put some cash in the fire safe. If someone breaks into it (thinking there is
money) they will probably be less likely to take other things in the safe or
destroy those items (I mean a hard drive they might leave - obviously they
will take anything of clear value). Assumption also is that the HD is
encrypted.

This comes via a practice a long time ago with cash registers. You leave the
cash register unlocked and put some cash in it. Thief is presumably happy and
doesn't trash the rest of the place.

"Any passwords and serial numbers and etc are printed out, with the name and
URL of the software they're for. A copy of that goes in the fire safe. "

Doesn't seem like a good idea to put plain text passwords (is that what you
are saying) in a place that someone will look thinking there is something else
of value in there.

------
thaumaturgy
Backups are one of our specialties.

First off, if you're in the market for a data recovery on your Drobo, I
strongly recommend getting in touch with Gillware Data Recovery:
[https://gillware.com/](https://gillware.com/). Their prices are very fair,
they have great staff, and they have a system that lets you preview your
recovered data before paying anything. We got a new business client entirely
because his RAID 1 NAS pooped itself and Gillware was able to recover
everything he needed from it.

If you've got a lot of data, online backup services are usually not an option.
My usual advice then is to have a completely separate device that
automatically pulls data from your primary device and stores backups in an
archival format. If you have the time and inclination to do the setup on it, I
really recommend BackupPC for this:
[http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/](http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/). I've
used BackupPC for years for larger-scale backups; it's very reliable, it's not
too difficult to get going, it does deduplication and compression and pooling
and uses rsync (when possible) to reduce network load, it can easily be
configured to send you an email in the event of trouble, and it has a simple
web interface you can check into on a regular basis. I've yet to find a
commercial shrink-wrapped product that does what BackupPC does as well as
BackupPC does it.

The downside of course is that you still wouldn't have offsite backups, so in
the event of a fire or other local disaster, you might still be looking at
complete data loss. If at all possible, try to pick a few of the most
important directories of files, and get those backed up online. I haven't
heard so many bad things about Crashplan or Backblaze, so I'm curious what
you've heard.

------
unicornporn
For every storage drive I have two backup drives. One of them I store in my
home (but not connected to my computer) and one of them is stored encrypted
(FileVault full disk encryption) at my friends place.

I use this to backup:

rsync -vaxXES --delete --backup --backup-dir="/Volumes/backup/__rsync/$(date
+"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S")/" \--log-file="/Volumes/backup/__rsync/$(date
+"%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S").log" \--exclude="__rsync/" \--exclude=".Trash/"
\--exclude=".Trashes/" \--exclude=".Spotlight-V100" \--exclude=".fseventsd/"
\--exclude=".DocumentRevisions-V100/" \--exclude=".TemporaryItems/"
/Volumes/data/ /Volumes/backup/

Sometimes i delete stuff in the __rsync dir manually.

I've tried Crashplan and Backblaze, but they're crazy slow from Sweden.

------
pwg
Local linux machine with three 2T drives (WD Red's), setup in RAID 5 for
redundancy against a drive failing. LVM running on top of the RAID 5 drive
trio to allow slice-and-dice allocation of the space. The LVM backup partition
only consumes 220G.

rsnapshot ([http://www.rsnapshot.org/](http://www.rsnapshot.org/)) from other
machines (they are Linux as well) onto the Linux backup server (so now there
are two physically separate copies, master machine and backup machine). And
rsnapshot provides "point in time" views of the backups.

Periodically rsync the rsnapshot tree to an offsite location with enough space
to hold the 220G worth of backup data.

What I don't do, which you imply you did with your Drobo, is have the only
copy of anything truly important on the RAID5 array only. If Linux md or LVM
corrupts the backup partition I just remake it, and start rsync'ing again (and
pull old snapshots from the offsite). If one drive fails in the RAID5 array,
I'll replace the drive and rebuild the array, but the data should still be
there. If two drives fail in the RAID5 array close on each others heels (so
that the whole RAID array goes away) then this is the same as if md or LVM
corrupted the data.

"Backup" does not mean having "redundant protection" in one device, it means
having plural separate, fully independent, copies such that corruption/loss of
one copy is meaningless to the other copies.

------
ggreer
I think every child should experience a disk failure. After all, it's only a
matter of time before each of us has one. Better to get it out of the way when
we have little to lose.

People replying will recommend many backup solutions. No matter what you go
with, it's important to trust no single party. Your home could burn down.
Dropbox/Crashplan/S3/etc could fail. Media in a safe-deposit box could become
corrupted over time. (This is common with flash-based storage and CDs.) Pick
at least two independent backup solutions.

Also, backups are a lifestyle change. They're something you have to maintain
indefinitely. File systems, I/O interfaces, media formats, APIs, and
businesses all come and go over time. There's no one thing that is sure to
keep your data around for decades.

Finally, most people don't have much data that's actually important. I have
maybe 20GB of stuff that matters to me: photos I've taken, documents I've
written, and a few videos. In terms of value per byte, documents are the
highest, followed by photos, then video. It's much easier to maintain backups
when your data set is small. Music, books, and other mass media can be re-
bought/downloaded.

~~~
pocketstar
>There's no one thing that is sure to keep your data around for decades.

Using paper will keep your data around for decades.

~~~
ggreer
There are many ways in which paper can be destroyed. My mother has no pictures
of her childhood because her home was burned down in a race riot.

And analog media has many disadvantages. Storing, reproducing, transporting,
searching, or modifying analog stuff is really hard.

------
ricardobeat
I recently found myself with most of my data - accumulated over a 10-year
period - in a single drive, and decided it was time to do something about it.
My takeaways:

\- Avoid Backblaze unless you have your external drives connected at all
times, files are erased after 30 days if not seen by the app.

\- GDrive is the cheapest, but can't backup external HDDs at all.

\- Arq/Glacier or Tarsnap is probably the safest archival you can get, but can
be quite expensive depending on your usage pattern.

\- Crashplan, as Backblaze, focus on 'devices'. They are best suited to people
who don't have lots of files outside of their computer. Crashplan has a
terrible reputation for losing customer's data.

In the end I went with Bitcasa[1] and am quite happy so far. It works the way
I want it to: not necessary to mirror all data locally, can throw files adhoc
at it, is accessible anywhere, decent web UI, mobile apps. Price is fair
(€8/month for 1TB) and speeds are decent. It's the best I could find, still
keeping my HDD backup in a closet just in case...

[1] [http://l.bitcasa.com/XFLTXjG7](http://l.bitcasa.com/XFLTXjG7) (with my
referral code)

------
geekam
Not very happy with this but I have 2 (1T) hard drives which I mirror via
rsync and back up on those.

I have 1 (1T) hard drive at work, to have an off-site backup.

Plan to use Arq for important files to back on Glacier.

I'd change the two hard drive system to a 4 bay RAID setup using Synology etc.

\----

I was thinking of buying Drobo but I guess I was always scared of their
"secret sauce" and getting stuck with recovery if anything happened to it.

~~~
ja27
That's similar to what I do. I have a pair of 2TB bare SATA drives that I
rotate offsite. I got two different brands to try to minimize the
possibilities of them both failing at nearly the same time. I used to use
Synctoy on Windows to back up to them but now it's either cp or rsync from my
MacBook. I do need to do this more often and I really should upgrade to bigger
drives now, but they hold the stuff I'm most worried about losing. What I'm
most worried about is if my original source files got corrupted, I don't want
to back them up over top of good copies.

I've tried online backup services and was really disappointed by the
throughput. I think it took me nearly 5 months to do an initial backup on
Crashplan and that didn't even include my photo archive, VMWare images, etc.

I've tried using services like Flickr as photo backup but the retrieval
process is brutal. There's no good way to bulk retrieve photos from them.

I do use Dropbox to sort of back up anything I'm currently working on but they
don't retain history past 30 days without paying for Packrat. Plus I've soured
on them due to privacy concerns.

I do use BitBucket for almost all of my source code and I've been pretty happy
with it.

I do use Time Machine on an old 1TB drive for my main system (MacBook Pro) and
that's actually been pretty damn good. The handful of times I've needed to
recover a file lately, I've been able to get it from Time Machine in a couple
minutes with little hassle. I do need to get a newer, bigger drive for that
sometime.

~~~
geekam
>> I got two different brands to try to minimize the possibilities of them
both failing at nearly the same time.

Wow! I forgot to mention but I do this too! Thank you! My wife has called me
paranoid of the highest order and now I can point to this comment and feel
better that I am not the only one.

>> I've tried online backup services and was really disappointed by the
throughput

Yes. I have been disappointed with all of these services.

>> Flickr as photo backup but the retrieval process is brutal.

Yes. I tried apps like Flickery etc but it is just not worth it.

>> I do use Dropbox

Nice idea. I have some files on it but I only use Dropbox (the free version)
for files that I need on-the-go for anywhere-access.

>> I do use BitBucket for almost all of my source code and I've been pretty
happy with it.

Same here. Bitbucket for some private random experiments and projects, Github
for things that I don't care about.

>> I do use Time Machine on an old 1TB

Actually, Time Machine is the only decent backup utility I have ever found.
Ever. The ease of use is just mind-blowing. I remember more than a decade ago,
when my only chance was to wipe out the system and reinstall the OS or to keep
a partition or separate drive for home/data. And with newer OSX, Time Machine
can back up to as many drives as you want, which makes it easy for me to take
actual direct backups on multiple drives.

On top of it, privacy is such a big concern. Then, it usually becomes a pain.
I tried [https://www.aerofs.com/](https://www.aerofs.com/) too but then left
it because it was too buggy. I will have to try it again.

------
dewey
Servers:

\- Configs and small important files:
[http://www.tarsnap.com/](http://www.tarsnap.com/)

Laptop:

\- 2 x TimeMachine

\- Amazon Glacier with Arq (Weekly, just important files)

\- External Disks mirrored to same model with CarbonCopyCloner

------
nrr
I live laptop-only, and I buy my disks in triples. I do this even with SSDs
because they, despite being solid state, are similarly flawed just like their
spinning rust kin. Instead, their exhibited failure modes are less
electromechanical and more simply "the universe is doing silly things to my
data." (See also: solar flares, etc.)

The other two disks get crammed into USB enclosures, and I use rsync to copy
data around in a manner very similar to jwz's
[http://www.jwz.org/doc/backups.html](http://www.jwz.org/doc/backups.html).
With USB 3.0, this is very fast.

That keeps me from experiencing a catastrophic data loss scenario, which is
step one. It also solves a work continuity problem wherein I would otherwise
be left now with the problem restoring from backups. Here, restoration is
literally a matter of swapping disks and rebooting.

Do I actually lose data? Well, yeah, but I've put an upper bound on it that is
livable: I lose at most a week because the disk in my drawer at work gets
swapped out every Friday for the one I keep at home.

Some caveats: I don't use encryption at the level of my OS's VFS layer (yet),
and I don't use RAID. I also don't use non-standard configurations like HFS+
with case sensitivity, btrfs, ZFS, etc.

I keep most sensitive data (think private keys) elsewhere. Those are backed up
by way of dumping to hardcopy and storing with my tax information. I can OCR
the ASCII-armored representations later if I need to, and it makes choosing a
fire safe easy since I don't need one that's rated for digital data storage.

Now, this unfortunately doesn't solve the problem of storing historical copies
of things, and I'm trying to find a way to accomplish that sanely without
having to resort to alien technology like Plan 9's venti and fossil or vendor
lock-in à la Time Machine, or rsyncing to dated directories.

------
heyalexej
I have a very simple folder structure in my /home/ directory.

    
    
      ├── Code    
      ├── Dirty                                                            
      ├── Downloads                                                        
      ├── Media                                                            
      │   ├── Books                                                        
      │   ├── Music                                                        
      │   ├── Pictures                                                     
      │   └── Videos                                                       
      ├── Projects                                                         
      └── Scripts 
    

I try to keep it very tidy because otherwise I would create a mess. "Dirty"
and "Downloads" are working like /tmp, except they're getting wiped every 5
days [1]. Everything except "Downloads" and "Dirty" is backed up daily,
incrementally and encrypted with s3cmd [2]. Some Inspiration here [3].
Sometimes I delete old stuff manually with s3cmd or from the S3 backend.
Dotfiles and bootstrap scripts are stored on Github and Dropbox, so are
serious projects. I also keep track of installed packages to be able to
restore state on a new machine [4]. I'm not very emotional about restoring my
machine. With a fast internet connection it takes me like 20-30 minutes to
completely restore a wiped machine.

[1] [http://askubuntu.com/a/20831](http://askubuntu.com/a/20831) [2]
[http://s3tools.org/](http://s3tools.org/) [3]
[http://www.triatechnology.com/encrypted-incremental-
backups-...](http://www.triatechnology.com/encrypted-incremental-backups-to-
amazon-glacier-in-linux/) [4]
[http://askubuntu.com/a/137991](http://askubuntu.com/a/137991)

------
rikkus
You haven't heard good things about Crashplan? I have heard of one incident
(reported on the web) where someone's data was lost at Crashplan HQ. But no
system is infallible. It's generally excellent. It Just Works, it's cheap,
fast, unobtrusive, flexible...

My rules whenever anyone asks about backup:

1\. Use backup systems, not file storage. Copying files somewhere is not a
backup system. You could delete or corrupt files and never notice. Backup
systems keep historic copies of files.

2\. Use at least three backup locations. For example: Local hard drive,
machine in a different building, the cloud. CrashPlan lets you do this, for
example.

3\. Test your backups regularly. It's boring, tedious and tricky, but it's
less painful than losing your photos.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Is losing your photos really THAT painful?

The best photos are usually backed up on Facebook/etc. anyway.

------
fernandotakai
* work and dotfiles are on github

* personal projects are both on github and on tarsnap

* my pictures are on google drive and on tarsnap

* my music goes into google music (even thought now i'm using spotify now)

everything else is either on google drive or in any other kind of cloud
service.

------
hfreire
I've been using Degoo for a while. They encrypt all your stuff and spread it
around the globe.

You get the first 100GB for free + 50GB when you invite friends.

[http://www.degoo.com](http://www.degoo.com)

~~~
chdir
Caution : bad ratings on WOT :
[https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/degoo.com](https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/degoo.com)

~~~
Yrlec
Co-founder of Degoo here. I've tried to address the concerns the reviewers at
WOT had but unfortunately they refused to change the factually incorrect
statements in the reviews. For instance, they claim that we are inactive and
only collect e-mails but you can see at our website that we are very much
active. You can see our discussion here:
[https://www.mywot.com/en/forum/20714-degoo-
com](https://www.mywot.com/en/forum/20714-degoo-com)

I'd love to answer any questions or concerns you might have about our service.

------
carbocation
Locally, I use TimeCapsule on a standalone drive networked over my router.
This happens automatically when I am on my home network.

I also duplicate things to Google Drive. This happens automatically when I am
on any network.

~~~
larrys
"I use TimeCapsule on a standalone drive networked over my router."

Doesn't protect against a fire. Or someone who swipes the router and/or the
data source.

Suggest either an offsite backup or a fireproof hard drive (iosafe for
example) to backup the backup. (TC is funky with attached drives or at least
that is what I have found when trying to use an attached drive on an airport
extreme). (Of course someone can also swipe the fireproof hard drive).

~~~
carbocation
I agree that TC is funky with attached drives.

Also, I don't care (much) about old versions of my personal data. If I did,
this would be an unacceptable backup solution because fire/theft of my TC
could wipe it out, as you mention. But between my TimeCapsule and my Google
Drive, it strikes me as unlikely that my laptop, my TC, and my Google Drive
will fail me all at the same moment. If so, I would be SOL.

------
ArkyBeagle
It might be worth having a set of n humble USB drives, one of which is in a
safety deposit box ( cycle through them ) with a weekly copy of everything on
the RAID.

I set n at 2, and substitute a cheap "fire safe" for the safety deposit box (
I know, I know... ) . I don't know that I will build another RAID when this
one goes. I have yet to pull anything off it.

But my primary copy of things is all still on my main machine, un-RAIDed. For
legacy software reasons I won't bore you with, that's still a Win7 box.

------
mrgriscom
Crashplan. Off-site backups. Works great on linux. Saves old versions/deleted
files forever. Multiple devices for cheap. Set it and forget it.

------
sandis
Amazon Glacier for stuff that can't be redownloaded or reproduced - personal
photos and videos, mostly.

Time Machine for documents and projects - those usually live in Dropbox or
Github/Bitbucket as well.

I don't bother with backing up OS/configuration, since it takes no more than a
day to get a clean OS and applications to a state where I'm feeling at home.

------
Errorcod3
I bought a external drive and backup all my computers to that. Better yet if
you can store it in a water/fire proof safe.

You could also look at setting up a NAS.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-
attached_storage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network-attached_storage)

I don't' trust any backup source that is not my own.

------
davidbarker
I currently use Backblaze, and backup to S3 using Arq. Most of my work is
stored on Dropbox, too.

------
msherry
Time Machine to a local Synology Diskstation w/RAID, plus Backblaze. Will also
chime in that I have nothing but love for Backblaze -- every time I've needed
them (small files only, never a full restore yet), they've worked flawlessly.

------
neals
Carbonite.com

I have 1263776 files or 582GB backed-up for only $60,00

[http://imgur.com/GiSjWkn](http://imgur.com/GiSjWkn)

All servers, laptops and desktops I run occasionally put their files onto my
main-desktop disc and everything gets uploaded to carbonite.

~~~
alok-g
Per the website FAQs, it seems the $60 plan includes only data from "Users"
folder and specific file types. Is there a way to back up other locations, and
all file types?

I have all my data in a separate partition, reaching 1.5 TB. With say 2 MBPS
upload speed, it seems it would take about three months for the first upload.

Also, did you face any issues with data limits from your ISP for the first
upload?

~~~
neals
It might be because I have a 5 year old subscription and that other rules
apply, but I pay the $60,00 and backup everything from .txt, .php, .cpp, many
gigs of .avi etc. (I would never get to 500gb otherwise)

No trouble from my ISP. Being from the Netherlands, I obviously have a 100/100
fiber connection. So it really isn't that much.

------
kooshball
I really want to setup something that's easy to use for my parents. Does
anyone have any suggestions? Crashplan seems like the easiest choice. Does
backing to to glacier with arq require any technical expertise after it's all
setup?

~~~
dewey
No, it's all automated and works fine without checking up on it. The only
thing you have to do from time to time is updating Arq. You could also enable
mail notifications so you'll get notifications if Arq reports any errors.

------
owenwil
What have you heard bad about Backblaze? I backup my two machines there and
have nothing but praise for them. It pushes up new files as soon as they are
saved and they can post you a hard drive with your files if you need to do a
restore.

~~~
Spooky23
You need to be careful with their excluded file lists. On the past they have
changed them and its easy to miss whatever notification they send.

Also, in my experience their throttling sucks. If I get back from traveling
with a bunch of data like pictures or video, it crushes my upstream bandwidth
and disrupts VoIP.

That said, for the price, it is an excellent service, and their restore
mechanism works well.

------
izacus
I use Crashplan with two destinations: their cloud and Crashplan instance on
my home NAS. This mitigates fire risk and keeps restores fast since I can just
restore data from NAS instead of waiting for full restore from their cloud.

------
quaffapint
I want to keep everything local. So I backup my important stuff to a usb drive
that is inside a waterproof/fireproof case with a usb connector designed just
for such a thing.

------
pfg
I keep all important files on Google Drive. Drive is syncing with my NAS,
which is pushing a backup off-site to Amazon Glacier daily.

Using TimeMachine on my laptop as well (for convenience).

------
k-mcgrady
>> "I haven't heard good things from Backblaze"

I've got nothing but praise for Backblaze. Been using them for about 4 years
and it's worked flawlessly.

~~~
ricardobeat
Except it doesn't really keep backups for external drives, unless they are
connected to your machine at least once every 30 days.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Didn't know that as I only use one internal drive, no externals.

------
robinhoodexe
Time Machine for main backup (everything) Dropbox for documents (also nice to
be accesible on my iPhone) Bitbucket (for dotfiles)

------
Spooky23
Easiest: Backblaze Cheapest for most people: Arq Nerdiest: rsync.net

