Re: [gentoo-user] Safeguarding strategies against SSD data loss

[Alec Ten Harmsel <alec@alectenharmsel.com>]

On 10/27/2014 05:24 AM, Mick wrote:
> I'm starting a new thread so as to not hijack the one about alternative 
> kernels, but continue with something Volker raised.
>
> On Sunday 26 Oct 2014 23:25:50 Volker Armin Hemmann wrote:
>
>> as others have written already: ssd.
>>
>> With a caveat: if an ssd dies, it will die suddenly. Without a warning.
>> Usually 5 minutes before the start of your weekly or monthly backup run.
>> And that is first hand experience.
> I haven't yet started using SSD and have wondered what sort of a system should 
> I set up to guard against such instantaneous catastrophic failures.  I am 
> interested to hear what strategies people deploy to avoid data loss with SSDs, 
> especially on laptops that don't have the luxury of raid redundancy.

All the data I have on my laptop is either:

* Version Controlled
* Rsync'd from a server
* Not important

My laptop doesn't have an SSD, but it's old and probably about ready to
die in general. All of my documents are version controlled - git - and
therefore "automatically" backed up. I rsync other files around, like my
music and some software, so that's all backed up as well.

>
> With spinning drives I use tar and rsync at regular intervals.  There have 
> been a few rare cases where a drive failed without prior notice - the last one 
> after a reboot.  In such cases I am prepared to live with the risk of some 
> data loss, on machines where raid is not an option.
>
afaik tar and rsync should continue to work for SSDs. The more places
the data is in, the better. If you regularly rsync text (say /etc), I
would consider version control.

Alec