Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#1

Post by jamesknelson » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:24 AM UTC

Hi HN,

After seeing all the news about lost data recently, I need to get my arse into gear and get an automated backup set up properly.

I'm using a Mac, so I looked into the Time Capsule. That said, if one of the data loss scenarios is a well-written ransomeware worm, it feels like the Time Capsule is going to be just as vulnerable as my main machine.

What approach would you recommend to back up data, with both hard drive failure and ransomware in mind? I'm open to cloud based solutions if that actually makes more sense.

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#2

Post by serverguy » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:41 AM UTC

For Desktop Backups, I think backblaze.com should do the Job.

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#3

Post by liareye » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:44 AM UTC

https://www.arqbackup.com

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#4

Post by Mathnerd314 » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:45 AM UTC

Just stick it all in Google Drive, pay the $2/mo for 100GB or $10/mo for 1TB, done. It stores the last 100 versions of each file so ransomware shouldn't be a problem, although apparently there's no way to restore a folder at a time, you'd need to do it individually for each file...

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#5

Post by 2bluesc » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:48 AM UTC

I use borg[0] to create local space efficient encrypted backups and rclone[1] to mirror the archives to Google Drive. I wrote a short script to automate it and schedule it to run every night.

[0] https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

[1] https://rclone.org

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#6

Post by whitepoplar » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:48 AM UTC

liareye wrote: post #3

https://www.arqbackup.com

Arq is such a wonderful piece of software. If you go this route, I'd say to go for Amazon Cloud Drive as Arq's datastore--it's $59/year for unlimited data.

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#7

Post by 5_minutes » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:50 AM UTC

Have all my data on Dropbox with revisions activated, and having that backedup by Crashplan. You'll have double automated backups and 0 hassle managing it.

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#8

Post by tuxxy » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:53 AM UTC

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #4

Just stick it all in Google Drive, pay the $2/mo for 100GB or $10/mo for 1TB, done. It stores the last 100 versions of each file so ransomware shouldn't be a problem, although apparently there's no way to restore a folder at a time, you'd need to do it individually for each file...

My solution for ransomware is to have a canary file.

Write a script that automates the backup and hardcode a known SHA digest of the file (I like to make it a photo). Before the backup happens, compare the SHA digests. If they match, go ahead with the backup.

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#9

Post by sidmitra » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:54 AM UTC

I used to use Crashplan which had unlimited storage and was fairly cheap(like 4$/month or something) for a family plan.

You might want to check it out. https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/features/

Also it was one of the few services that had a client that worked on Linux

Re: Ask HN: Secure automated backup?

#10

Post by sidmitra » Sat, May 13, 2017, 4:58 AM UTC

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #4

Just stick it all in Google Drive, pay the $2/mo for 100GB or $10/mo for 1TB, done. It stores the last 100 versions of each file so ransomware shouldn't be a problem, although apparently there's no way to restore a folder at a time, you'd need to do it individually for each file...

Is there a good linux client? I couldn't get the ocaml client to work well enough.

I'd even be fine with even a one-way backup that backs up my entire ~/ (excluding some specified dirs/files) as snapshots. I don't need even need the two-way sync.