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I Nearly Lost All of My Data

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Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#61

Post by kryogen1c »

x220 wrote: post #6

>I don’t know what happened for sure, but I think it may have been a power surge that fried the boards on both the Synology and the USB, as they were plugged in to the same socket. He didn't have a surge protector? Sweet Jesus. I don't plug my backed-up PC into anything not surge protected.

Surge suppression isn't all it's cracked up to be. I work in an MSP and the number of electrically fried components behind Enterprise grade UPSs is pretty astounding.

I'm not saying it's worthless, but it's not silver bullet. You must plan for failure.

Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#62

Post by 1kGarand »

I see some terrible backup strategies here.

1. Backups should not be on a single drive. 2. Backups without checksums will result in corruption. 3. Offsite is a must. 4. Unencrypted off site backup means someone already copied your data. 5. Encrypted offsite backups should have forward secrecy. So different keys for each file and keys file gets backed up encrypted.

My backup strategy: File server runs zfs raidz with Daily/weekly/monthly snapshots on disk.

Snapshots get copied to 2 external drives, zfs mirrored.

Files get encrypted and uploaded to backblaze using my custom software. Nothing fancy, just standard authenticated encryption (chacha20poly-poly1306) but with per file key management and argon2.

Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#63

Post by 300bps »

x220 wrote: post #37
timthorn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surge protection isn't a big thing in the UK these days. You can get arresters but it's really rare now to hear of computer damage as a result of mains spikes.

Yeah but don't you think having a raid array but not having a surge protector is missing the forest for the trees?

I re-read the article twice and didn’t see him mention he didn’t have a surge suppressor. Did I miss it or are you assuming that he didn’t have a surge suppressor?

As others have said, electronics can get fried by power surges while plugged into even commercial grade surge suppressors. Home grade surge suppressors provide even less protection.

Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#66

Post by zepolen »

pmlnr wrote: post #53

- SSD + HDD in laptop, this latter for storage, because it actually tells me, if it's unhappy and about to die, unlike the m.2 ssd. The cost of this is to have an older laptop, in my case, a thinkpad x250. - synced to home server, which, at this point, is a thinkpad x201 on an ultrabase with 2 disks - it has built-in ups, called a battery - all of this synced to off-site rented server in Germany - irreplacable photos…

Synced how?

Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#67

Post by Retric »

sbov wrote: post #47

> What are the chances of both a 4 disk RAID failing AND a USB drive at the same time? Probably close to 100% if your house catches on fire.

Probably closer to 10%. House fires rarely completely destroy the house and cars are often somewhere else.

Wildfires for example often destroy homes, but generally allow most people to evacuate.

Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#68

Post by tiernano »

mikeash wrote: post #49
derekp7 wrote: post #13

The best solution I found as an alternative to an off-site copy is to set up a USB drive and something like a Raspberry Pi in my car. When I pull into the garage, the house server senses it and syncs new data to it. This can be supplemented further by having it auto sync to a computer in your office whenever you pull into work. Add in some monitoring so you can get a phone alert if any of the synced copies are more t…

That’s on-site way too often for my tastes. If your house burns down while your car is in the garage, there’s a good chance you’ll lose the backup too. Adding a computer in your office fixes that, but why not just send your backups to it over the internet instead of using this ad-box vehicular transport protocol?

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes travelling down the highway...

Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#69

Post by tempestn »

kryogen1c wrote: post #61
x220 wrote: post #6

>I don’t know what happened for sure, but I think it may have been a power surge that fried the boards on both the Synology and the USB, as they were plugged in to the same socket. He didn't have a surge protector? Sweet Jesus. I don't plug my backed-up PC into anything not surge protected.

Surge suppression isn't all it's cracked up to be. I work in an MSP and the number of electrically fried components behind Enterprise grade UPSs is pretty astounding. I'm not saying it's worthless, but it's not silver bullet. You must plan for failure.

Yep, I've had a PSU get friend by a power spike even though it was plugged in through a surge protector. Like you say, I'm sure it helps, but it's not perfect.

Re: I Nearly Lost All of My Data

#70

Post by Something1234 »

Retric wrote: post #67
sbov wrote: post #47

> What are the chances of both a 4 disk RAID failing AND a USB drive at the same time? Probably close to 100% if your house catches on fire.

Probably closer to 10%. House fires rarely completely destroy the house and cars are often somewhere else. Wildfires for example often destroy homes, but generally allow most people to evacuate.

I have to agree with the guy above. House fires often leave a significant bit of the house structure alone. I also feel that a decent number of scenarios where my house would burn down would be when I'm not there.
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