Dinggus Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 What's the best way to keep files safe, but also secure? Cloud servers can get hacked (correct me if I'm wrong) and hard drives could always crash and data would be lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+primortal Subscriber² Posted January 26, 2012 Subscriber² Share Posted January 26, 2012 I personally prefer local storage with a backup to an RAID array. I don't trust the cloud for either privacy; though i can encrypt the data or availability of the cloud. When thinking about cloud storage you gotta ask about what happens to my data if you go out of or sell the business. What about if they crash what happens to my data? Didn't Amazon S3 have an issue last year and people lost data? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dancedar Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Both. As long as you have 2 copies ie original and a it doesn't really matter how you store it. mudslag 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
44MLX Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 External hard drive maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dinggus Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 I'm just getting tired of having a hard drive after hard drive. I have 2x2TB and multiple portable externals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Princess Katie Pixie Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Cloud storage is just a hard drive on the net, someone can easily hacked your information if the servers got hacked. I prefer local storage because it is more secure. The only problem is just don't lose it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahorsepip Veteran Posted January 26, 2012 Veteran Share Posted January 26, 2012 best would be tape drives, expensive as hell but they can cover very big amounts of data and have a long lifetime :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps69 Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 It also all depends if your wanting to access your data away from your home too. Both Cloud and external hard drive have pro's and con's, it's just trying to weigh them both up and striking a happy balance. Personally I've got both, through Pogoplug, and 3x1TB external drive, but they are in the house. So if there is a problem with fire or theft I could be stuffed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted January 26, 2012 MVC Share Posted January 26, 2012 "What's the best way to keep files safe, but also secure?" As already mentioned it comes down to having multiple copies of the data on different systems, depending on the importance of the file(s) and what loss of files would mean. And what your backing up against would point you to how best protect yourself from loss of said files - the more things you do to prevent loss and from what is going to come with a cost, be it in hardware, time in backing up, cost of storage, etc. etc.. First thing I would do is classify the importance of the files your storing.. To be honest if something can be replaced in some way you need to determine if it even warrants backup - maybe raid is enough, which is not really a backup but can mitigate cost in replacement/restoring of file on hardware loss. For example if your files are rips of your movies/music and you have the originals - or the originals could be repurchased with insurance money on case of fire or theft. Maybe storage on some array with parity that reduces having to restore from originals on single failure of one HDD is enough protection for you? If the files are non replaceable or can not be created again. For example pictures/movies of your sons first birthday is something that could never be replaced or recreated. Depending on the worth of these files to you would determine the level of cost in effort and $ that you place on making sure these files are never lost. Your resume is something that can fairly easy be recreated, a spreadsheet of your assets again with effort can be recreated -- to me these files may not warrant any sort of backup at all. But man those pictures/movies are priceless and can never be replaced with any amount of insurance money, etc. I currently have for example videos of my granddaughter on my main system, on my file server and on my media box - so that is 3 different systems in my home. Along with backup of these files sitting on the shelf on DVDs. Now this should cover me for sure in case of accidental deletion of files on one system, crash of even all three systems. And maybe even theft - would the theft really take all 3 devices and the dvds on the shelf? Maybe, Maybe not - so you have to weigh that risk and determine if that is good enough for the value of the files to you. Now for me, this does not cover fire/flood/tornado -- so I also have duplicates of the DVDs that I give my son to store at his place. So this should cover natural disasters unless of course say chicago got nuked or something ;) I also have copies of these files on my web hosts backup storage, and lower quality copies on web server that are accessed by friends and family. Which are clearly outside the Chicagoland blast area ;) So I am fairly sure a full blown **** storm would have to happen for me to loose these files. I feel fairly safe in not loosing these files - even if my webhost shutdown, still have copies, even if lost everything in house - still have the files. Now only thing have to worry about is keeping media format and storage current. Not too many years down the road those DVDs might be as easy to read as a 5.25 inch floppy ;) .mp4 **** there might not even be anything around that can play those files. So as years pass will have to move to newer disks, move to new media formats and more than likely at some point will have to translate them to a completely different file structure. Cloud storage can play a great part in your backup plan. So what if company goes out of business - its a backup, you should have your original copy or even multiple local copies. I don't see that as an issue - now security of said files might come into play sure, depending on what they are. But to be honest if someone hacked my online storage and accessed my grand daughters videos -- not that big a deal.. But if that is a concern to you then sure encrypt the files. Just make sure you have backups of what is needed to decrypt. You mentioned a growing number of disks -- what is on said disks? Is it really something you need, or that even warrants backup? Maybe you can just do some house cleaning or archival of some data you do not access on a regular basis. Or invest in larger disks or array with parity to store your data so its simpler to maintain, etc. Just make sure you have MULTIPLE copies in different locations for the data you do not want to loose! To me cloud storage is just another copy of the files in the overall backup plan. It clearly is not the ONLY copy of said data. Lighthalzen 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dinggus Posted January 26, 2012 Author Share Posted January 26, 2012 As of right now, it's just documents for work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+BudMan MVC Posted January 27, 2012 MVC Share Posted January 27, 2012 You have TB of "documents" for work?? Are you pasting bmp into ppt files or something? Just really curious how many documents you would need for even 1TB of info.. And what they are that would eat up such space. Just throwing this out there -- but if they are large PPT files, I use to have to this back in the day when users tried to store 500MB ppt files -- I would shrink them down by correctly placing the images into the thing and it would get down to like 1 or 2MB ;) As to backup of WORK files?? The company should be doing that -- is this your own business? If not screw backup. What is lost if you lost all of the files? Is it skin off your nose? Or just too bad for the company that should be providing you with means of backup. Unless of course this is your company and your business -- than happy to help you work out the best possible backup plan. Because it does not sound like that is what your doing currently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger H. Veteran Posted January 27, 2012 Veteran Share Posted January 27, 2012 3, 2, 1 is what i've heard is the best way :) 3 copies (Original and 2 copies) 2 seperate mediums (HDD/DVD/Tape) 1 offsite (Cloud) I keep looking for a way to backup my homeserver but I just can't afford the costs just yet. I've just been thinking to put a server at my GFs place in Germany and that'll be my cloud. LOL That way she can backup to hers there and it mirrors to my system and my backups mirror to her system in Germany. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted January 27, 2012 MVC Share Posted January 27, 2012 My personal backup method goes as followed Important Files on C and D are backed up nightly to S Important files on C and D are (excluding Video files) also backed up to carbonite. Important Files on C, D, F and G are backed up to 2, 1TB external hard drive(s). One stays in my Office and one goes in my safety deposit box at the bank. Those drives get rotated once a month. Important files on D:\tech files (important documents) also get backed up to DVD once a month and put in the safety deposit box. A drive image of my 80GB SSD boot drive is also saved on both 1TB backup drives. My roboform passwords (250 of them) get backed up to S, the 2 1TB hard drives, Carbonite and burned to a DVD also get a hard copy printed out and put in the safety deposit box. My Quickbooks company files, gets backed up to S, the 2 1TB hard drives, Carbonite, burned to a DVD, backed up to quickbooks online backup server, and a corruption prevention copy (incase all my backups become currupt) gets backed up once a week to drive C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PNWDweller Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 I am glad I am not the only who rethinks their backup solution every now and then. :) I am guilty of not using the Cloud for Backups, but have been mighty tempted lately with my ISP's new clouddrive 'unlimited' storage etc for $5/month. Downside - they don't have a good Mac interface so not buying just yet. A few years ago, I said to myself and others 'When the price of a 4gb thumbdrive goes down enough, then I would set them up to hold most important data.'. Not so much anymore these days. Even though a typical thumb drive or card can be cheap enough to rely upon, I wouldn't call it fool proof. Nothing IMHO is really unless you are going to include redundancy. I have fallen victim WAY too many times in the past of backing things up to a different Hard Drive. Well...let's just say - mechanical things fail and sometimes too often. Like others have said - a cloud drive is really a hard drive just on the web in a fancy interface for accessing your files. What is their insurance policy and redunancy plan? How can one be sure the files aren't going to be lost in the even of flood, fire, missile attack etc...I know of a few web hosts that actually have their servers in old missile silos the government built during the cold war. I used to rely on CD's, but those wore out after a few years. (Store bought - bargain price meant lower quality I learned the hard way). Same with DVD's, but have had some fail after just a year. So, what is my current backup medium? Sadly, my external hard drive. Mind you though - that nothing of great importance is there except for family photos. The rest can pretty much be re-obtained. So...my Wedding Photos are in the bank safe deposit box along with various legal documents (Birth cert, Certain ID cards etc..). My wife works at the same bank so we can easily get our item(s) as needed. I went through a panic a month or so ago when I thought I had accidentally erased over my family photos (made a clean mirror copy of my system hard drive) and had overwritten them. Sadly, I did. HOWEVER, lurking around in a pile of DVD's that I had filed away - I found them. Lucky to have that happen. So, I do sit here contemplating my next storage move for said files. Online through my web host? (I have a VPS and host my ownself), Bite the bullet and bootcamp into Windows or Virtualbox it at least just so I can archive them into the Charter Cloud Drive? Not certain yet. One thing I do know, is I am going to have to get very serious about redunancy. :) My employer, uses tape drives for their backup of their data. I have no clue what goes on them just know they trust it for their most essential data. For concerns of privacy and hacker data harvesting - It isn't too hard IMHO to create a super strong password and encrypt your data before offisite backup to the cloud. TruCrypt is amazing with the Yubikey. Also, w/o the Yubikiey, is very amazing as well. You combine said password with a key file or two that you only know, and before you know it, even the strongest and fastest system can't penetrate the defenses of your encryption. Only downside to this is - you forget the password - you are pretty much hosed as there are no 'backdoors' with TruCrypt or at least which have been found over the years. I think on Dropbox or Box.net (can't remember at the moment), I have an encrpypted file or two laying around just balking at the potential hacker's. Nothing of great importance mind you, but just made when i was testing things out several months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerowen Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 I have always had a local server with two external hard drives. One for primary usage, and one for backups, of equal or greater capacity. (I usually just do a differential backup for my personal files, since all I need is to make sure I have a copy of the latest version) I usually change the power settings so that the hard drives spin down when they're not in use. That's why occasionally when you click a link I've posted to something on my personal server, there's a 2-3 second delay before it loads. This helps the hard drives live longer. The reason I go with external hard drives is that the computer that's been acting as my server for the past couple of years has two fans, one on the CPU, and one on the case, so I don't really want my hard drives inside the case cooking one another. I hate the whole "cloud" movement. It has its uses, but I just can't get past the lack of trust for somebody when I don't have physical access to my data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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