[gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Grant]

I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[wabenbau]

Am Dienstag, 03.03.2015 um 07:51
schrieb Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>:

> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?

I never had a Blu-Ray writer, so I don't know how reliable these medias
are. But I avoid CDs and DVDs since many years because I made the
experience that optical medias are faulty when you really need them.

I use harddisks for my backups and I always use RAID. Harddisks are
much more reliable (as long as you avoid concussions etc.) and also
much faster. 

Greetings
wabe

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 1:00 PM,  <wabenbau@gmail.com> wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 03.03.2015 um 07:51
> schrieb Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>:
>
>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>
> I use harddisks for my backups and I always use RAID. Harddisks are
> much more reliable (as long as you avoid concussions etc.) and also
> much faster.
>

I tend to use old hard drives for this sort of thing as well -
typically btrfs-raid1 now (I like the checksumming, but if your
archive format has such features probably not essential).

If I only had 20GB, though, I'd probably use cloud storage.  Amazon
would only charge $0.20/mo for that on glacier, or not that much more
for reduced-redundancy storage (which is cheaper to restore).  I think
the right choice depends on your disaster scenarios.  The hard drive
sitting in your closet is cheaper, but not so useful when your closet
burns down in the same fire as your PC.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Bob Wya]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1315 bytes --]

I own a BluRay writer. A few years ago I had a serious attempt at BluRay
archival storage. It works - but it's slow (very slow) and expensive. Then
there is the cost / GB - that remains high due to the low volume of BD-RE
media sales...

Now factor in the super high volume of MLC NAND flash SSDs prevalent on
today's mass market. A good SSD will last far longer than the slowly
degrading dye on a BD-RE disc. Just dust off an Intel SSD every 5 years and
to run a level 2 Spinrite scan on it and it could potentially hold data for
decades... No optical media could match that...

All the best,
Robert
On 3 Mar 2015 18:00, <wabenbau@gmail.com> wrote:

> Am Dienstag, 03.03.2015 um 07:51
> schrieb Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>:
>
> > I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
> > somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
> > back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>
> I never had a Blu-Ray writer, so I don't know how reliable these medias
> are. But I avoid CDs and DVDs since many years because I made the
> experience that optical medias are faulty when you really need them.
>
> I use harddisks for my backups and I always use RAID. Harddisks are
> much more reliable (as long as you avoid concussions etc.) and also
> much faster.
>
> Greetings
> wabe
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1729 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am 03.03.2015 um 16:51 schrieb Grant:
> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>
> - Grant
>
>
tape. Used tape drives are cheap. DLT and LTO is as reliable as granite.

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Grant]

>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>>
>> - Grant
>>
>>
> tape. Used tape drives are cheap. DLT and LTO is as reliable as granite.


My goal here is to have something in case all of my online backup
repositories (in various geographical locations) get hacked.  That's
the only plausible scenario I can think of that would result in me
losing my data and I'd like to protect against it.  Would any kind of
disconnectable external drive be appropriate for this?  Would tape be
the best choice?

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Matti Nykyri]

On Mar 4, 2015, at 21:50, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>>> 
>>> - Grant
>> tape. Used tape drives are cheap. DLT and LTO is as reliable as granite.
> 
> 
> My goal here is to have something in case all of my online backup
> repositories (in various geographical locations) get hacked.  That's
> the only plausible scenario I can think of that would result in me
> losing my data and I'd like to protect against it.  Would any kind of
> disconnectable external drive be appropriate for this?  Would tape be
> the best choice?
> 
> - Grant
> 

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Matti Nykyri]

> On Mar 4, 2015, at 21:50, Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com> wrote:
>> DLT and LTO is as reliable as granite.
> Would tape be
> the best choice?

Yes.

I would use tape.

-- 
-Matti

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[wabenbau]

Am Mittwoch, 04.03.2015 um 23:29
schrieb "Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>:

> On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:51:35AM -0800, Grant wrote
> > I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
> > somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
> > back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
> 
>   32 gigabyte USB keys are around $20 CDN, probably less in US
> dollars.
> http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_181&item_id=058767
> 
>   128 gigabyte keys for $80
> http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_181&item_id=069903
> 
>   256 and 512 gigabyte capacities are also available, but they're more
> expensive.  Format a USB key as ext2fs, and it'll handle permissions
> and UID's properly.

Most USB-Sticks are cheap consumer products and IMHO not very reliable.
I had several faulty stick over the years. If you plan to use
USB-Sticks for your backups then buy two of them from different vendors
and copy your data to both of them. 

--
Regards
wabe

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Walter Dnes]

On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:51:35AM -0800, Grant wrote
> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?

  32 gigabyte USB keys are around $20 CDN, probably less in US dollars.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_181&item_id=058767

  128 gigabyte keys for $80
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_181&item_id=069903

  256 and 512 gigabyte capacities are also available, but they're more
expensive.  Format a USB key as ext2fs, and it'll handle permissions and
UID's properly.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Dale]

wabenbau@gmail.com wrote:
> Am Mittwoch, 04.03.2015 um 23:29
> schrieb "Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>:
>
>> On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:51:35AM -0800, Grant wrote
>>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>>   32 gigabyte USB keys are around $20 CDN, probably less in US
>> dollars.
>> http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_181&item_id=058767
>>
>>   128 gigabyte keys for $80
>> http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=11_180_181&item_id=069903
>>
>>   256 and 512 gigabyte capacities are also available, but they're more
>> expensive.  Format a USB key as ext2fs, and it'll handle permissions
>> and UID's properly.
> Most USB-Sticks are cheap consumer products and IMHO not very reliable.
> I had several faulty stick over the years. If you plan to use
> USB-Sticks for your backups then buy two of them from different vendors
> and copy your data to both of them. 
>
> --
> Regards
> wabe
>
>


It would seem that this is a backup to a backup.  I think I read earlier
that the OP already has backups but just wants more backups just in
case.  I guess one can never really have to much, I guess. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Grant]

>>> On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:51:35AM -0800, Grant wrote
>>>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>>>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>>>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>
> It would seem that this is a backup to a backup.  I think I read earlier
> that the OP already has backups but just wants more backups just in
> case.  I guess one can never really have to much, I guess.


The idea is to have an offline backup in case all of my online stuff
is infiltrated.  Should I just connect a USB tape drive, USB hard
drive, or USB flash drive when I want to back up the backups?  Can
tape be rewritten?  If not, that may be the best choice so I can leave
it connected all the time and not worry about it being deleted.

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[wabenbau]

Am Freitag, 06.03.2015 um 09:10
schrieb Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>:

> >>> On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:51:35AM -0800, Grant wrote
> >>>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like
> >>>> to somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of
> >>>> data to back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
> >
> > It would seem that this is a backup to a backup.  I think I read
> > earlier that the OP already has backups but just wants more backups
> > just in case.  I guess one can never really have to much, I guess.
> 
> 
> The idea is to have an offline backup in case all of my online stuff
> is infiltrated.  Should I just connect a USB tape drive, USB hard
> drive, or USB flash drive when I want to back up the backups?  Can
> tape be rewritten?  If not, that may be the best choice so I can leave
> it connected all the time and not worry about it being deleted.

Tape is rewriteable of course. Otherwise it would be a very expensive
backup solution over the time (also depending on the amount of backup
data). ;-)

If media reliability is not most important for you and you already have
some (used) hard drive or USB drive then the costs are zero. If you
wanna have a more robust solution you must spend some money for a tape
drive or a hard disk RAID.

If you wanna use tape, don't buy a DAT drive. Most of them (especially
the cheaper ones) are crap. As Armin already suggested, buy a DLT or
LTO tape.

--
Regards
wabe

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

Am 06.03.2015 um 18:10 schrieb Grant:
>>>> On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:51:35AM -0800, Grant wrote
>>>>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>>>>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>>>>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>> It would seem that this is a backup to a backup.  I think I read earlier
>> that the OP already has backups but just wants more backups just in
>> case.  I guess one can never really have to much, I guess.
>
> The idea is to have an offline backup in case all of my online stuff
> is infiltrated.  Should I just connect a USB tape drive, USB hard
> drive, or USB flash drive when I want to back up the backups?  Can
> tape be rewritten?  If not, that may be the best choice so I can leave
> it connected all the time and not worry about it being deleted.
>
> - Grant
>
>

'connected all the time'? You seem not to know how tape works?

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Grant]

>>>>>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>>>>>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>>>>>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>>> It would seem that this is a backup to a backup.  I think I read earlier
>>> that the OP already has backups but just wants more backups just in
>>> case.  I guess one can never really have to much, I guess.
>>
>> The idea is to have an offline backup in case all of my online stuff
>> is infiltrated.  Should I just connect a USB tape drive, USB hard
>> drive, or USB flash drive when I want to back up the backups?  Can
>> tape be rewritten?  If not, that may be the best choice so I can leave
>> it connected all the time and not worry about it being deleted.
>>
>> - Grant
>>
>>
>
> 'connected all the time'? You seem not to know how tape works?


I've never used tape before.  Does it need to be disconnected or something?

- Grant

Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} offline backups

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Mar 6, 2015 at 1:15 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann
<volkerarmin@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Am 06.03.2015 um 18:10 schrieb Grant:
>>>>> On Tue, Mar 03, 2015 at 07:51:35AM -0800, Grant wrote
>>>>>> I have several encrypted backup repositories online and I'd like to
>>>>>> somehow mirror that offline.  I currently have about 20G of data to
>>>>>> back up.  Any ideas?  Rewritable Blu-Ray?
>>> It would seem that this is a backup to a backup.  I think I read earlier
>>> that the OP already has backups but just wants more backups just in
>>> case.  I guess one can never really have to much, I guess.
>>
>> The idea is to have an offline backup in case all of my online stuff
>> is infiltrated.  Should I just connect a USB tape drive, USB hard
>> drive, or USB flash drive when I want to back up the backups?  Can
>> tape be rewritten?  If not, that may be the best choice so I can leave
>> it connected all the time and not worry about it being deleted.
>>
> 'connected all the time'? You seem not to know how tape works?
>

To be more explicit:  Typically the workflow with tape is to rotate
your media storing each backup on a new tape, with not-in-use tapes
stored someplace safe (often a fire safe for short-term storage, and
off-site for long-term storage - depending on level of paranoia and
willingness to deal with expenses).

I need to look on EBay some time but tape isn't nearly as cheap as
some seem to be making it out to be.  Hard drives have sized up so
quickly that it is no longer common to be able to buy a cheap tape
drive that can store a few hard drives on a single tape.  An LTO-6
tape stores 2.5TB (uncompressed) and costs about $35.  A drive capable
of writing on it costs about $2k new.

Tape makes sense for its longevity, but cost-wise it only makes sense
if you're writing a LOT of tapes.  If you needed to store 10 tapes
worth, hard drives would still be cheaper.  If you had to store 20
tapes worth, the tapes would probably be cheaper.  Obviously if you
can get a great used deal on the tape drive and it is in good shape,
then the economics change.

So, when you're storing on tape it usually makes sense to rotate your
media and not keep overwriting/appending the same tape over and over.
After all, you made the big expense for the drive already, and the
tapes are relatively cheap (though not trivially so).  Hard drives are
a different story, and since hard drives are less durable in general
it might make sense to avoid moving them around more than you have to.

If you really only have 20GB of data and it is really important, it
looks like you can pick up LTO-1 drives for $20 and tapes for about
the the same kind of cost.  Granted, USB sticks are still going to be
cheaper, but the reliability of tape is very good (reliability of $20
used drives, probably not so much but if it fails on a restore you can
probably always buy another $20 drive as long as you can get your tape
out of the thing).

I think a lot of places have been moving more towards hard drives for
backup though, unless it is for archival (write once, save for 10
years).  If I want to save 1000TB to hard disk, I can buy 300x3TB
drives and write my backups at a rate of 300xSATA speeds.  If I want
to save 1000TB to tape I need 300 tapes (much cheaper), and then
either 1 drive stuck writing at 160MB/s (which is way cheaper than the
hard drives), or have many drives which scales up the writing speed
but ultimately becomes more expensive than the hard drives.  The
advantage of the tapes comes if you want to hang onto full backups for
a long time.  There is a reason companies like backblaze are using
hard drives.

I wish tape was a practical option for me, but my backups currently
consume 3.7TB.  I'd much rather have offline tapes instead of a pair
of online hard drives storing only a few days worth of de-duped
backups (using rsnapshot).  However, the pair of drives costs only
$200, and storing that kind of volume using tape right now would cost
me $2100, with the need to swap tapes every time I did a backup (vs
automated nightly backups currently).  The tapes would of course be
far more secure if some malware came along and decided to wipe things,
and a small subset of my data is backed up to the cloud to mitigate
against this and other localized disasters.

-- 
Rich