I lost my data trying to back it up • Hacker News Board

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#51

Post by AdmiralAsshat » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

rikkus wrote: post #43

NKosmatos wrote: post #27

Sorry for your loss. Here are my two cents... For complete system backup on Windows use Acronis [0], on MacOS use Carbon Copy Cloner [1] and on Linux Clonezilla [2]. Also never forget the 3-2-1 rule of backups [3], 3 copies, 2 local copies on different mediums and 1 copy offsite (cloud, remote) :-) [0] https://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/ [1] https://bombich.com/ [2] https://clonezilla.org/ [3] htt…

I use Code42 CrashPlan[0]. This has clients for MacOS, Linux and Windows and it's been flawless since I started using it years ago for personal and business use. Going by the names and the descriptions I've read, the overloaded term 'backup' only applies to Carbon Copy Cloner and Clonezilla in the sense that they make a copy of your storage, so don't protect against corruption (such as ransomware, or you accidentally…

CrashPlan for personal use no longer exists. Only the business license remains.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#52

Post by olavgg » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

newscracker wrote: post #49

olavgg wrote: post #10

Getting backup right is extremely important, that is why you need proper tools. For the last 10 years I have been using ZFS snapshots and replication. I keep 180 days with snapshots on the remote backup and 30 days for the local. I use it to take backup of virtual machines, different databases including "running", sql servers. And of course important files, documents and photos. I've also configured a daily mail with…

What exactly do you do to verify that whatever you backed up was indeed backed up bit-for-bit and that the backup medium didn't just report success even though it didn't get some data stored correctly? Do you verify every backup using some tool? If yes, how long does that take? The reason I ask is because so many sites talk about the benefits of backing up regularly, using backup rotation and retention policies, etc.…

ZFS has checksums, so you get a message if some bits are off. Backups has to be verified regulary, there is no exception even with ZFS.

For example once a week I fire up a PostgreSQL instance on my remote backup server by cloning one of the snapshots and then I use pg_dump so I also have a "traditional" backup of the database. I do not spend time on verifying this dump though, as the ZFS snapshot already worked fine :-) But I sometimes use the dump to test new hardware or a new PostgreSQL version.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#53

Post by pnutjam » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:14 PM UTC

olavgg wrote: post #10

Getting backup right is extremely important, that is why you need proper tools. For the last 10 years I have been using ZFS snapshots and replication. I keep 180 days with snapshots on the remote backup and 30 days for the local. I use it to take backup of virtual machines, different databases including "running", sql servers. And of course important files, documents and photos. I've also configured a daily mail with…

If the article writer didn't have 2 copies of his data, he didn't have a backup. I keep a running linux server that all my desktops, phones, and other devices back up to, it's a sort of home NAS. I have a 2nd internal drive that gets mounted and all the important photes and less personal stuff gets rsynced to it. My main drive is XFS, but the backup drive is btrfs. I use btrfs to maintain snapshots and unmount the drive when it's not in use.

I also take that same set of important stuff and rsync it to a cloud server. I have a TB "storage server" from Time4vps (affiliate link: https://billing.time4vps.eu/?affid=1881). I then use borg to backup my more sensitive personal data to my cloud server and 2nd drive.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#54

Post by tracker1 » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

Raid is not backup... Your data isn't backed up unless there are at least 3 full copies in 2 physical locations. I have to admit I'm slightly paranoid about it... 20-something years ago I was working in tech support for iomega (mostly os/2 and jazz calls). Nothing taught me the importance of true backups more than that job.

I do leverage a few things though... for the most part, I keep stuff on my nas. Projects are in git remotes as well as several local copies. Serial numbers, access keys etc are encrypted and stored in dropbox and copied to google drive.

These days since most of my work is in source control, I'm less worried about that aspect. That said, however, RAID is not backup.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#55

Post by rlpb » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:21 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #9

There's now way he could have possible known simply booting the Ubuntu live disk would do this. He could have done that without any consideration to doing a backup. However regular tried and true backups are the way to go, preferably automated. My worst horror story wasn't really mine. I did desktop support in my first job. The library had their own system and their own support arrangements but I had a good relations…

There's a collision here between Ubuntu trying to do the right thing automatically (that's part of Ubuntu's design philosophy AIUI) and the author's need to have nothing done at all.

I think the Ubuntu live image is therefore unsuitable for this kind of work. What was needed here is a more specialist "rescue" system image that has a "forensic" mode. For example, Finnix has this: https://www.finnix.org/Forensics

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#56

Post by tomatocracy » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:33 PM UTC

shifto wrote: post #44

zaarn wrote: post #18

I think the moral of the story is; always use software RAID. Hardware RAID (even fake ones like Intel) are time bombs, either you have fun configurations like this or the controller dies and no replacement exists. Unless you'd absolutely need a HW RAID, I'd go for a Software RAID that mounts and works natively in Linux. I can put the harddrives into a fully foreign computer and it would work.

Depends on the use-case really. I use raid (if any) for performance reasons, so I prefer hardware raid with a nice controller and some lots of spindles where flash is not an option. I would never implement this with a software raid solution for reasons.

Likewise. If it’s not offline, verified and off-site, it’s not a backup.

Raid is useful for availability as well as performance though.

Also while we’re discussing raid, the price/gb of a mirrored set of larger disks vs a raid 5/6/10 of smaller disks (for the same total capacity) is always worth checking - usually comes out in favour of mirrored pair in my experience which also has better performance (especially when resilvering) and resilience and lower energy costs.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#57

Post by wang_li » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #33

olavgg wrote: post #10

Getting backup right is extremely important, that is why you need proper tools. For the last 10 years I have been using ZFS snapshots and replication. I keep 180 days with snapshots on the remote backup and 30 days for the local. I use it to take backup of virtual machines, different databases including "running", sql servers. And of course important files, documents and photos. I've also configured a daily mail with…

Is it safe to backup a database by just straight copying its files? Wouldn't it be better to use a specific backup tool, e.g. pg_dump for Postgres or mongodump for Mongo? (Hopefully you've tested recovery procedures, because as the saying goes, "your backups are only as good as your last restore")

> Is it safe to backup a database by just straight copying its files?

ZFS snapshots are atomic. Recovering from a snapshot is the same as recovering from a loss of power. All serious databases don't acknowledge commits until either the transaction log or the container is synced to disk and can handle an unexpected loss of power/reboot/system crash without significant data loss.

However, it is absolutely better to put the database into some kind of backup/write-suspend mode when taking the snapshot.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#58

Post by tomschwiha » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

mnw21cam wrote: post #48

tomschwiha wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume by incrementally is meant to have a base backup and store the difference in between. Personally I prefer full backups - they feel more complete.

I have a server with 300TB of data. Incremental is the only way that my backups are going to be able to run every night. But also, there are different styles of incremental. Some are dodgier than others.

I agree for this volume of data incremental is the best choice.

My projects so far ranged from 1-100GB so a full daily backup is quite quick done and its more easy to recover compared to applying incremental backups individually.

Well, always choose the right tool for the task.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#59

Post by EForEndeavour » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #46

The last time I lost all most of my data was when I tried upgrading Ubuntu to the next major version using the upgrade manager in Ubuntu. I thought that since the UI was so friendly looking, it must be the safest route. WRONG. It was the second time that I trusted Ubuntu's UI for doing something critical. Never again. Now I always back up all the files I need onto an external drive and then I install the OS from scra…

Definitely don't even trust the command line. I'm as big of a threat to my own data as a poorly designed upgrade manager.

Re: I lost my data trying to back it up

#60

Post by cik » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 4:06 PM UTC

I back up all my personal data from each associated desktop via SpiderOak. Personal server data I rely on a combination of rsnapshot, rsync, and SpiderOak.

I also rsync to an external drive bay that I swap out weekly.

At the end of the day, every single machine in my network of things, including my desktop can light itself on fire - and I don't care. If my office or house is bombed, I don't care. Now - if my city were bombed.. I'd argue that I probably have other fish to fry.