Backups isn't real until it's restored
don't be like me folks
Backups Aren't Simple
101–110 of 207 posts
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#102> There are two types of people: those who have suffered a catastrophic loss of data, and those who will. This is an empirical claim, but is it grounded in reality? 99% of people don't backup, and that's probably the right choice because the risk is low, they can't meaningfully improve their restoration rate themselves and they don't care enough about their data to classify its loss as catastrophic. When a person hea…
> 99% of people don't backup
This depends on your viewpoint. Using gmail for example is an implicit backup of your e-mails. Uploading your pictures to Facebook the same. The move from local, private compute and storage to the cloud solved this issue for many to a degree that it is now less important.
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#103There are four times in my life I have suffered regrettable data loss incidents. The first was when the telephone pole outside our house was struck directly by lightning. Not only was it the loudest thing I have ever heard, the current surged through the telephone line, into the internal fax modem, and fries everything within its vicinity. I was 10. I did have backuos, but only only floppy and they didn't cover every…
>I now shoot 2 cards simultaneously A very lovely change over the last 8 years or so lol. I came up in film during the DSLR revolution. 5D2’s/7D’s/Rebels (i series) years. 8bit 420 nasty aliasing recording on single cards and praying baby. Magic lantern booted on those same SD’s!
Magic Lantern was awesome. I still have raw video sequences I shot on a 5D mkiii
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
For digital media we really need a good stable archival storage solution. Nothing on the market right now for ordinary people.
There's plenty of backup services and cloud solutions. The article mentions Borg and Restic, others like Backblaze are more consumer friendly. Which needs do you have that aren't met by any of these tools?
> backup services and cloud solutions
online backup should not be your primary method of backup, you're one billing, identity theft, financial issue, or health issue away from getting your backup nuked
do you have PBS clout? if not good luck https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2026/08/pbs-s...
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I've been weary of using rewritable media for some time now as a consequence I briefly considered using bluray disks as a backup for my photos and other critical docs. But getting a decent bluray burner seems not so easy these days with most production winding down. Next best thing looks like the "object lock" feature on object store services that prevents deleting objects for a certain time.
> Next best thing looks like the "object lock" feature on object store services that prevents deleting objects for a certain time. Lol, no. "As of today we are closed. Goodbye." Especially considering what giving even a two weeks now considered "generous".
This is for backups. The threat here is that random ware uses your backup script to delete/encrypt the backups too. With object lock the api key the script has can only add data.
The probability that the object store goes out of business at the exact time your own copy dies is insignificant.
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also have the same fuji. Digital cameras are still in the stone ages. I think Tony Northrup covered it well. Nothing has changed since digital cameras came to market, the workflow is still the same, copy files from a card to PC. They aren't connected to the internet, they don't have automatic syncing to cloud for backups or sharing, fuji doesn't even have a gps chip built in to store the location (only works if con…
In some senses it's good. That feature list just says "use a smartphone then". No thank you. It's everything that a camera should not be. GPS is useful, but not wifi. I don't need my camera becoming another IOT always online telemetry device. They're one of the few electronic devices built to last. Imagine needing fingerprint unlock on a camera, and for what? Prevent others from viewing your photos? Changing your set…
> Also copy from card to pc is the best possible workflow
So turn off the camera, open the memory card slot cover which is flimsy 1mm prong, eject the card, insert it in the reader (if you have SD reader) or fiddle the microSD first from the convertor and then insert, copy, (insert microSD to SD convertor), open up slot cover, insert the card.
Surely beats just connecting the camera to the WiFi (which it does have anyway) and downloading through SMB. Suuure.
S9900 from 15 years ago had a built-in GPS receiver (and absolutely unneeded and never updated POI system). P1100 needs a smartphone for GPS for whatever reason - and app doesn't work 5 times from 5. But the latter is on me, I knew what I would get when I bought Nikon.
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Next best thing looks like the "object lock" feature on object store services that prevents deleting objects for a certain time. Lol, no. "As of today we are closed. Goodbye." Especially considering what giving even a two weeks now considered "generous".
This is for backups. The threat here is that random ware uses your backup script to delete/encrypt the backups too. With object lock the api key the script has can only add data. The probability that the object store goes out of business at the exact time your own copy dies is insignificant.
No object lock API would help you if the business where you rent the service is going out of... business. With all your data - and you are without.
Or even fancier - just changing the price for the egress.
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#1083 rules of backup (don't remember where i read this)
- do several backups (not using the same hardware brand or host if you do it online)
- check your backup (if something was wrong, you have another backup from the first rule)
- do not store your backups at the same place (if your place get flooded or burn, it will be pretty handy)
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would hope they have some feature for automatic backup to your phone over bluetooth or such today.
Bluetooth is slow. The transport is 3Mbps at max, if you subtract all the headers from different layers, you may have like 1.5-2Mbps practical transfer speed.
Sounds like the "or such" wins, but even with bluetooth speeds that means you're backing up 1-5 photos per minute and that helps a lot.
Re: Backups Aren't Simple
#110I really like ZFS snapshots with offsite pull-mode sync using Jim Salter's sanoid/syncoid [1]. ZFS is the base for all OS/filesystems on top of it. If you have a good system for organizing ZFS datasets, and separating ephemeral from persistent data (e.g. [2]), then this is 90% of the backup requirements already fullfilled. [1]: https://github.com/jimsalterjrs/sanoid [2]: https://du.nkel.dev/blog/2026-05-16_rootless_d…
Agree!