Ask Slashdot: Best On-Site Backup Plan? 326
An anonymous reader writes "I know most people use backup services in the cloud now, off-site, but does anyone have good ideas on how to best protect data without it leaving the site? I'm a photographer and, I shoot 32GB to 64GB in a couple of hours. I've accumulated about 8TB of images over the past decade and just can't imagine paying to host them somewhere off-site. I don't make enough money as it is. Currently I just redundantly back them up to hard drives in different rooms of my house, but that's a total crapshoot — if there's a fire, I'd be out of luck. Does anyone keep a hard disk or NAS inside a fireproof safe? In a bunker in the cellar? In the detached garage? It's so much data that even doing routine backups bogs the system down for days. I'd love suggestions, especially from gamers or videographers who have TBs of data they need to back up, on what options there are with a limited budget to maximize protection."
Fireproof Hard Drive (Score:5, Interesting)
http://iosafe.com [iosafe.com]
Storing locally will cost you more, not less... (Score:3, Interesting)
in the short run and in the long run. Also, storing locally does nothing to protect you from flood, fire, theft, etc... Backblaze is $5/mo, unlimited storage. I'm sure there are others with similar/better deals. What's a NAS inside a fireproof safe going to cost?
A couple options (Score:4, Interesting)
First, going strictly by your requirements, I would suggest either a fireproof safe or fireproof drive enclosure. I don't have experience with the enclosures, but the safe itself should be able to handle your normal everyday fire and protect your data.
However, I'd suggest that you don't store your safe at your location at all. Surely you have a friend or someone you know that would let you borrow a few square feet of their basement for the safe. This would create a physcial barrier that would enhance your securiy if not always convenient. I'd also recommend a second copy somewhere else if this data is that important to you.
Remember that as with (almost) anything else, there is a cost-benefit tradeoff. I'm not convinced that a "cloud" based solution is your best bet anyway. But a simple, low tech solution seems to be what you need anyhow.
Re:Delete, delete, delete (Score:4, Interesting)
Or don't delete them, but sort them into tiers and do a less reliable back up for them, and send the critical stuff offsite.
prioritize, or you will drown in data.
Re:Offsite != cloud (Score:2, Interesting)
Came here to say this. You can usually work a deal with a credit union for like $50/year. Granted, they won't guarantee your data won't be lost should they have a fire Speaking of fires,,,, don't waste your money on a fire safe.
UNless you're prepared to pay through the nose for a data certified safe, it's not worth it....
disk platters lose their magnetism very easily in a fire, even if the safe doesn't get hot enough to burn paper, you're very likely lose your data
You should also consider finding a friend in the business who might want to do harddrive exchanges... you keep one of his and he keeps one of yours, and you swap them out for another one every month or whathave you.
And finally, as difficult as it would be to do this, you need to take a long hard look at your portfolio, and consider deleting some of them ( sacrilege I know )
or compress them to some other advanced lossless format ( 7zip LZMA maybe? )