Advice on external backup of a Linux server.

[Paul Howarth]

On Wed, 2005-02-09 at 17:43 -0800, Rick Stevens wrote:
> Arthur Pemberton wrote:
> [snip]
> >>
> >> You could even swap between a few external drives so that you have a 
> >> USB drive in use, one on the shelf, one in the safety deposit box, one 
> >> home, one in the car, etc. Get as crazy as you like. :-)
> >>
> > Interesting idea. However. What if something goes wrong in the chasis, 
> > for example, power surge, all teh HDD's go? no?
> > The prob I have I have with the USB solution is that it requires user 
> > intervention.
> 
> ANY backup solution requires user intervention unless you're backing up
> to something offsite.  You have to rotate your tapes, change CD-R or
> DVD-R or swap the hard drive (USB, firewire or hot-swap) and take the
> backup media off site if you want safety.
> 
> If you leave the media near the system being backed up, you aren't
> secure.  I recommend to clients that, whatever media they use, AT LEAST
> get a fire-rated document box (about $100) and put the media in it.  If
> the building burns down or an earthquake occurs (both real possibilities
> here in Southern California), at least the backup will probably survive.

I recently bought a firesafe for the backup tapes at work; one thing to
bear in mind if you're going to buy one is that a safe described as a
"document safe" may not as fire-resistant as a safe described as a
"media safe"; the latter will maintain a lower internal temperature and
for a longer time, given the same external conditions. This is important
because media is damaged at lower temperatures than paper documents.

Paul.
-- 
Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>