Darn, I was hoping this would be an article about organizing one's files. I was really in the mood for reading about that, then spending the rest of the morning reworking my own system.
How I store my files
11–20 of 144 posts
Re: How I store my files
#12Can someone point me to the flaws of my method? I simply use Google Drive.
Me and my partner have multiple devices (tablet, iPhone, Android phone, multiple Mac and Windows laptops) and we just sync folders to our desktop. We just store everything we don't want to lose in Drive. We share folders we both need. Photo's we take on our phones are automagically backed up in the cloud, music and movies are streamed.
My house can burn down overnight and we won't lose any valuable data.
Re: How I store my files
#13Something tricky is how to bootstrap restoration of backup. If you have lost "everything", how do you get it back?
For example, if you use borg to backup remotely via ssh, you will need ssh keys as well as a passphrase for the encrypted backup. Where do you store those to make sure you have them if your computer is gone? What I did was create a self-extracting restoration script, which embedded everything needed. This is also encrypted, and synced to many places. The idea is, as long as I have the passphrase for that, it takes care of the rest.
Re: How I store my files
#14Can someone point me to the flaws of my method? I simply use Google Drive. Me and my partner have multiple devices (tablet, iPhone, Android phone, multiple Mac and Windows laptops) and we just sync folders to our desktop. We just store everything we don't want to lose in Drive. We share folders we both need. Photo's we take on our phones are automagically backed up in the cloud, music and movies are streamed. My hous…
Although I'm not sure of the rate, people have reported getting banned from google services without notice for seemingly no apparent reason. And there is little recourse to unlocking their account.
It's something I personally don't worry about, but something to consider when relying on their services for backing up data.
Re: How I store my files
#15Every good backup practitioner has an origin story. That one time they lost data to a clicking HDD, or to a scratched CD, or to a typo. The pain of never getting that data back. Galvanizing pain that catalyzed a resolution never to lose data again.
Never trust someone (including yourself) to truly look after your data unless they know this pain first hand.
Re: How I store my files
#16[deleted]
Re: How I store my files
#17Can someone point me to the flaws of my method? I simply use Google Drive. Me and my partner have multiple devices (tablet, iPhone, Android phone, multiple Mac and Windows laptops) and we just sync folders to our desktop. We just store everything we don't want to lose in Drive. We share folders we both need. Photo's we take on our phones are automagically backed up in the cloud, music and movies are streamed. My hous…
The flaw is that you depend on Google. You can not trust them at all, for anything. You can use Drive as a redundant fifth backup either for data that you’ve encrypted yourself or for things that you don’t mind being public, but not as the only place that has your data. Things that could very well happen: you get locked out with no recourse; people at Google browse your data; your data gets mined; your data gets lost; Google messes up and other people get access to your data; Google gets a subpoena and those photos that you thought were perfectly normal are now evidence of a manufactured crime.
Re: How I store my files
#18I also have a ZFS NAS and a separate backup server for the NAS that only gets turned on once a week. I disagree about his recommendation to avoid encryption. I keep the NAS and backup server drives encrypted. It’s not a big deal to unlock the drives at boot with a password and I’ve never had any issues with it. If someone breaks in and steals one of the servers, at least they won’t have access to years of all of my documents backed up.
This author’s setup looks good, but I think most people would get burned out by the complexity unless you really like managing servers, automating things with scripts, and navigating the little quirks that pop up with the hardware and software involved.
A complex solution isn’t necessarily better if you find yourself not investing the time needed to maintain it. I think most people would be better off trusting one of the online backup services rather than spending thousands of dollars building and maintaining a pair of backup servers. If you’re worried about losing data, signing up for two separate backup services could still be cheaper than building and running two separate NAS servers.
Start with easy backup solutions first to get something going. Then consider the more complicated options later.
Re: How I store my files
#19>Not only does encryption during data recovery make everything much more difficult, but should you pass away, your family members might not have the skills required to access the data
Uh, trust me, that's a good thing.
Re: How I store my files
#20My approach is 6 years old and I use Time Capsule. The best ever solution for me. You set it up and you don't case anymore. It's Apple specific unfortunately. Don't know if there is a similar solution for Windows.