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Ask HN: How do you do data backup?

6 points by justadudeama ↗ HN
I currently store most of my data on an unlimited Google Drive system that my school provides, but I am looking to move to something more redundant. Do you guys have backup applications? S3? Something of the like? I am curious.

7 comments

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surds
I would not want to store everything on a Google Drive. If something happens and Google (or some other company with multiple services) blocks my primary address, all my data can go with it.

I'd prefer a dedicated backup service. Personally, I use Backblaze for backing up my PC. Still have to set up a process to back up my other devices on to my PC, so that Backblaze automatically takes care of it.

Actually, I am also looking for an option to clone my Google Drive elsewhere, perhaps to Box/Dropbox due to the same concern as above.

sekh60
I store my data in a five node ceph cluster via CephFD, backed up to a ZFS RAIDz2 array on another box (pull backups) and also to crashplan for my off-site backup.
aglionby
I store my important documents on Google Drive, and have tarsnap back up that folder twice a day. Code gets backed up to private repos on Github.

In the past I've used Backblaze and can really recommend it -- good interface and reasonable pricing for unlimited storage.

crispinb
I generally like 2 backups of my data (one each on and offsite), and one bootable backup of my system drive for quick disaster recovery.

Which specific options to use for each depends on many factors (budget, OSs, how often you're connected to a lan etc), but I've been very happy with Backblaze for offsite. It's unfussy, relatively cheap, and I've found it ultra reliable.

My current onsite solution (for a macbook) is Carbon Copy Cloner over ethernet to a Raspberry Pi with a large external HD. I also use CCC for my disaster recovery backup (to a local SSD over USB).

Rjevski
I don't backup, I keep all the stuff I care about in a reputable cloud (iCloud, Office 365) and that's it. My machine is pretty much a thin client - if I ever loose it, I'd only need like 30 minutes to set up a new one with my cloud accounts and get back to work. I religiously try to keep as little local "state" as possible on the machine for this exact reason.
drdrey
Crashplan, but I'll need to find a replacement as they are discontinuing the home edition
hodl
I use an external HDD and keep it in a drawer at work. If something needs backing up sooner it goes in dropbox.