[Cialug] tornado-proofing your data?

[Jeff Chapin]

In all seriousness, here is what I have done in the past:

Every 3-6 months or so I use tools to archive my files --
1) in the past I used winrar, just because that is what I started with. 
I make 500MB output files, with a decent amount of recovery built in, 
since winrar allows this.
2) I use additional tools to make parity files -- sort of like how RAID 
works. I tend to make enough parity files to allow me to lose a decent 
number of the 500MB files and still recover.

3) I burn a few of the original 500MB rar files, and a few of the .par 
files onto each DVD -- since I am fairly crazy, I tend to burn each file 
onto 2 seperate DVDs in each set. I also throw a copy of winrar and the 
par creator and a little "howto recover" document into the free space on 
each DVD.

4) I leave a copy of these files offsite -- at my parents house.  In the 
past, I also have left a copy of these with my nerdiest friend -- 
someone I believe skilled enough to recover if I am no longer around. 
Now that I am getting a safe deposit box, I might keep a copy there.

Now, in all honesty, this is probably really overkill, but I also only 
do this with my digital pictures -- something that would be impossible 
to recover after a serious fire or disaster, and I would miss them. It 
is work the 4 DVDs a shot to feel decently safe about this. Since I have 
2 copies of each .rar file, I can lose 1/2 the disks to damage and still 
recover, even with the parity files not coming into play. I am 
moderately concerned about bit-rot and having my DVDs become unreliable 
over time.

I may be looking at doing this in a Windows friendly, OSS fashion in the 
near future, possibly even scripting it, and making it so that I have 
less manual intervention, and am more likely to do regular, offsite backups.

Now, if it was a business's data I was worried about, I would work out 
an actually DR plan, complete with offsite data, etc.

Jeff the over-killing-paranoid-freak

Nathan C. Smith wrote:
> Jungle Disk and Amazon S3 storage?
>
> -Nate
>
>   
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: cialug-bounces at cialug.org
>> [mailto:cialug-bounces at cialug.org] On Behalf Of Todd Walton
>> Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 9:34 AM
>> To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group
>> Subject: Re: [Cialug] tornado-proofing your data?
>>
>> On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 10:24 PM, Neal Daringer
>> <admin at c0wzftp.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> is there a way that this could be done? and be economical?
>>>       
>> Off site backup?
>>
>> -todd
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