Best archival storage

[Maus02]

MR. TechTips,

So I’m a small business owner and I have to keep a copy of emails and other records.  Thankfully I can scan paper docs to PDF.  Then con to this is I have a lot of data to sort or categorize but where to store it?

 

my question is for long term storage what should I do? After 6 months or a year for taxes...I really don’t need to look at it unless I need to pull up an old contract or communication thread.  
 

should I place it on an external SSD, external Hdd - traditional plater style ( I like LaCie) or a USB Key like Corsair survivors which I love for travel or dvd or cd. 
 

my concern then is how long is the data good for or what’s the life span of the storage device. I have heard cds and DVD’s fail after a number of years depending on quality.  USB keys need to be plugged in and data copied on and off the device and may have so many read writes and similar with hard drives, I have heard platers may be better than ssd. 
unfortunately I can’t afford the digital micro fish system...
 

so what is the best solution?

 

the assumption is to archive place on a shelf, box or safety deposit box and only access to update or store more data or review the occasional doc. Though it may be better to have a USB key or drive for each year. 
Really just need for audit or lawsuits cya purpose.  I have already scanned several filing cabinets worth of docs.

 

so what is the best log term storage media and what maintenance is needed? 
 

Most of this does not need to be on or in the cloud for security purposes. 

 

thanks for the help.

[Electronics Wizardy]

How much data are we talking about?

 

All storage will fail after long enough, so the big thing is keep a lot of copies.

 

Id look at cloud storage, should be much more reliable than and single drive. Look at amaon, google, and microsoft as there the biggest, and won't go down any time soon.

[DarkEnergy]

If you plan on putting data on something and won't touch it for years, don't get any sort of solid state drive. I've read that just sitting unused they can loose data over time. I recommend putting the data on something like a hard drive (a few actually) and having one of these drives not near the business (offsite backup). The best solution is something I didn't know about until I just did some searching, called an "M-Disk." It's apparently some sort of long term archival DVD. 

[AZ Hobo]

M-Disc ----> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC

[RayLeech]

For long-term archiving, I use a combination of M-Disc and removable drives. I also never remove the originals from either my primary machine nor the copies on either NAS.

 

I make frequent backups to removable hard drive (usually daily, but never longer than weekly). When I can fill one, a copy of new files to MDisc. One copy stays on site, one copy to a safe deposit box, one copy to another off-site repository.

 

The copy left on the local machine is for fast, easy access. The two NAS copies are for convenience (too lazy to walk to the safe). The on-site backup in the safe so I can recover quicker than waiting to get access to the bank / off-site repository. Obviously, if all else fails, off-site rules.

 

Why MDisc / Hard Drive? MDisc come in 4.5Gb - 100Gb, far too small to store my archives but longer shelf life. The drives (4T - 8T) hold my entire archive on fewer/faster media, making them easier to recover with the downside they are less shelf-stable. The MDiscs require many media be reloaded for a full recovery so are my least-favored choice.

 

It all boils down to what are you saving, how quickly do you need to retrieve it, how long do you want to keep it (want is sometimes longer than need), and how sad will you be if you cannot get it back.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

20 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much data are we talking about?

 

All storage will fail after long enough, so the big thing is keep a lot of copies.

 

Id look at cloud storage, should be much more reliable than and single drive. Look at amaon, google, and microsoft as there the biggest, and won't go down any time soon.

I agreed with all of this except the choices for cloud storage. I trust all three of those choices about as far as I can spit upwind in a class 5 hurricane.

19 hours ago, DarkEnergy said:

If you plan on putting data on something and won't touch it for years, don't get any sort of solid state drive. I've read that just sitting unused they can loose data over time. I recommend putting the data on something like a hard drive (a few actually) and having one of these drives not near the business (offsite backup). The best solution is something I didn't know about until I just did some searching, called an "M-Disk." It's apparently some sort of long term archival DVD. 

I'm pleasantly amazed for a change that people actually got it right! This advice is dead on except possibly for M-Disc. M-Disc is for long term archival but it's limited in capacity, up to 100GB maybe. Also, optical disks, such as M-Discs, are slowly becoming obsolete and it's getting harder to find drives and the media for them. If using M-Discs, be aware that they will need to be upgraded to newer media someday.

 

The same happened with floppy discs that people tried to access after the hardware needed to access them became pretty much unavailable, causing people to lose data. This will also happen eventually happen with M-Discs and even HDDs.

 

SSDs will lose their charge over time, the amount depending on the type of SSD, how full the drive is, how old it is, and how much of its write life has been used. For long term static archival, you would be better off with HDDs. However, if the SSDs can be powered up and read every now and then, the frequency depending on already mentioned criteria, they can hold their data for years.

1 hour ago, RayLeech said:

For long-term archiving, I use a combination of M-Disc and removable drives. I also never remove the originals from either my primary machine nor the copies on either NAS.

 

I make frequent backups to removable hard drive (usually daily, but never longer than weekly). When I can fill one, a copy of new files to MDisc. One copy stays on site, one copy to a safe deposit box, one copy to another off-site repository.

 

The copy left on the local machine is for fast, easy access. The two NAS copies are for convenience (too lazy to walk to the safe). The on-site backup in the safe so I can recover quicker than waiting to get access to the bank / off-site repository. Obviously, if all else fails, off-site rules.

 

Why MDisc / Hard Drive? MDisc come in 4.5Gb - 100Gb, far too small to store my archives but longer shelf life. The drives (4T - 8T) hold my entire archive on fewer/faster media, making them easier to recover with the downside they are less shelf-stable. The MDiscs require many media be reloaded for a full recovery so are my least-favored choice.

 

It all boils down to what are you saving, how quickly do you need to retrieve it, how long do you want to keep it (want is sometimes longer than need), and how sad will you be if you cannot get it back.

This a solid backup scheme! RayLeech gives excellent reasons for why he uses it. I do something different from RayLeech and DarkEnergy (who also has a good backup scheme) but the common thing all three of us do is we keep our data in three different places (mine is actually anal but I'm a coward).

 

For data to be reasonably safe, it must exist in three different places. Usually, this means on the computer, on an onsite external backup drive (or other medium), and on an offsite external backup drive (or other medium). For a backup to be a backup, it must be kept disconnected from the computer, powered down (in the case of an HDD, for example), and stored out of sight of the computer.

 

One medium that wasn't mentioned is tape. Tape has an almost infinite shelf life, the only caveate being the hardware needed to write to and read the tapes needs to be maintained over the period of time the tapes are kept. Also, while tapes aren't all that expensive, the hardware needed is. Still tape is very practical when one has huge amounts of data to archive.

[Electronics Wizardy]

23 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I agreed with all of this except the choices for cloud storage. I trust all three of those choices about as far as I can spit upwind in a class 5 hurricane.

who would you trust in cloud computing then?

 

Those are the biggest could providers by far, Id guess they host around 50% of the internet combined. There about as trustworthy in the cloud computing world as you can get.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

18 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

who would you trust in cloud computing then?

 

Those are the biggest could providers by far, Id guess they host around 50% of the internet combined. There about as trustworthy in the cloud computing world as you can get.

Size is meaningless when it comes to quality. Right now, there are not any affordable cloud storage providers I would trust. it's far safer and less expensive just to store data on your own drives, preferably both onsite and offsite.

 

The only affordable cloud backup (not the same as cloud storage) I would trust is Backblaze and I can't use them because they do not directly support Linux.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Size is meaningless when it comes to quality. Right now, there are not any affordable cloud storage providers I would trust. it's far safer and less expensive just to store data on your own drives, preferably both onsite and offsite.

 

The only affordable cloud backup (not the same as cloud storage) I would trust is Backblaze and I can't use them because they do not directly support Linux.

backblaze supports linux, you can mount and use b2 on linux systems.

 

Cloudl storage works fine for backups.

 

And id say s3 is pretty darn afforadable, a lot of companies are using it for backups, and this is a great use for glacier.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

 

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

backblaze supports linux, you can mount and use b2 on linux systems...

True, but it's not what I would call affordable, especially for the amount of data I have.

 

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...Cloud storage works fine for backups...

No, it doesn't. First, cloud storage is not the same as cloud backup. Storage is just that; storage. You have to upload the data. if you want it encrypted, you have to do that yourself. Most, if not all, affordable cloud storage websites are poorly secured (Google is the worst since it actually snoops through your data for its own use and to sell to others) and are often subject to disappearing with little to inadequate warning (especially the freebies). The cloud storage sites that are reliable and safe charge by the amount of data you store and, if you have very much, it will get expensive pretty quickly.

 

A good cloud backup service will put software on your computer that will automatically upload new and changed data to the service's servers, encrypting the data before it leaves the computer. Anytime you delete data on the computer, the service will keep it for a certain amount of time before also deleting it (it's called Versioning), usually 30 days.

 

Good cloud backup services usually have far better security, both cyber and physical, than the cloud storage sites.

 

18 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...And id say s3 is pretty darn afforadable, a lot of companies are using it for backups, and this is a great use for glacier.

S3 and Glacier are Amazon and I do not trust Amazon for anything (except to buy ebooks; they haven't figured out how to screw that up yet)! Also, those are cloud storage plans and cloud storage is not the same as cloud backups. Cloud backups are more than just cloud storage. Businesses that use cloud storage sites are also using business plans that cost more to get the reliability and security they need and use their own software that manages the uploading and encrypting of data before it leaves the computer.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

S3 and Glacier are Amazon and I do not trust Amazon for anything (except to buy ebooks; they haven't figured out how to screw that up yet)! Also, those are cloud storage plans and cloud storage is not the same as cloud backups. Cloud backups are more than just cloud storage. Businesses that use cloud storage sites are also using business plans that cost more to get the reliability and security they need and use their own software that manages the uploading and encrypting of data before it leaves the computer.

amazon is by far the biggest cloud host. Why don't you trust them? They have very good uptime, and have been in operation for a while now.

 

OP is a buiness, they can get the buiness plans, and take advantage of all of those features.

 

 

1 hour ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

True, but it's not what I would call affordable, especially for the amount of data I have.

The probelm with something like the backblaze backup app is the model only works if people don't backup that much storage, b2  is much better for a buiness setup.

 

1 hour ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

No, it doesn't. First, cloud storage is not the same as cloud backup. Storage is just that; storage. You have to upload the data. if you want it encrypted, you have to do that yourself. Most, if not all, affordable cloud storage websites are poorly secured (Google is the worst since it actually snoops through your data for its own use and to sell to others) and are often subject to disappearing with little to inadequate warning (especially the freebies). The cloud storage sites that are reliable and safe charge by the amount of data you store and, if you have very much, it will get expensive pretty quickly.

 

A good cloud backup service will put software on your computer that will automatically upload new and changed data to the service's servers, encrypting the data before it leaves the computer. Anytime you delete data on the computer, the service will keep it for a certain amount of time before also deleting it (it's called Versioning), usually 30 days.

 

Good cloud backup services usually have far better security, both cyber and physical, than the cloud storage sites.

Yes cloud storage is made for backup uses. You use a program of your choice to manage backups, like veeam, and then s3 or simmilar is used for the backend storage. You don't let the cloud privider manage.

 

And you don't get random deletions from s3, they just don't do that, if you pay for the space and it meets tos, it will stay there

[Lady Fitzgerald]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

amazon is by far the biggest cloud host. Why don't you trust them? They have very good uptime, and have been in operation for a while now...

I've already said why I don't trust them. Size has nothing to do with quality.

 

4 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...OP is a buiness, they can get the buiness plans, and take advantage of all of those features...

From what the OP says, he is a small business. Business plans are expensive. Small businesses usually can't afford business plans.

 

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...The probelm with something like the backblaze backup app is the model only works if people don't backup that much storage, b2  is much better for a buiness setup...

Sigh! Wrong. Check out Backblaze's unlimited plan for yourself since you don't seem to believe anyting I say. B2 is better but costs one heck of a lot more.

 

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...Yes cloud storage is made for backup uses. You use a program of your choice to manage backups, like veeam, and then s3 or simmilar is used for the backend storage. You don't let the cloud privider manage...

You still don't get it. Most individuals and small businesses don't have the knowledge, and, often, the time, to manage their own cloud backups nor can they afford to hire IT personnel. Again, affordable cloud storage sites are NOT as secure as good cloud backup services.

 

16 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...And you don't get random deletions from s3, they just don't do that, if you pay for the space and it meets tos, it will stay there

Sigh! You need to pay attention to what you are reading and quit "reading" your preconceived notions into what you are reading. I said nothing about random deletions anywhere, let alone on S3. The only deletions I referred to were ones that were made on the computer by the operator of the computer. I said that most backup plans (NOT storage plans) will delete data from the backup (not stored data) that was deleted from the computer after a certain period of time. This is what they are supposed to do since a backup is supposed to be a copy of the data on your computer. Some plans will keep data that was deleted for longer periods. Backblaze normally holds data deleted from the computer for 30 days but you can pay extra to make that indefinitely.

 

Since you can't be bothered to pay attention to what I'm saying, I'm through here. I wish the OP the best of luck finding something that meets his needs.

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Sigh! Wrong. Check out Backblaze's unlimited plan for yourself since you don't seem to believe anyting I say. B2 is better but costs one heck of a lot more.

Umm, yea its unlimited, but if everyone stored 10tb+ it won't be that cheap. It assumes most people won't store much data.

9 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

From what the OP says, he is a small business. Business plans are expensive. Small businesses usually can't afford business plans.

 b2 is priced per tb, and that way you don't get banned from breaking tos on a 'unlimited' backup system. For a small buiness, b2 is affordable for the average amount of storage.

 

10 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I said nothing about random deletions anywhere, let alone on S3. The only deletions I referred to were ones that were made on the computer by the operator of the computer.

thats what snapshots are for, and basically every cloud probider offers that.

 

11 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I've already said why I don't trust them. Size has nothing to do with quality.

You said you don't like them because of pricing, but thats nothing to do with trust. Those companies are the most reliable way to store large amounts of data on the could. You pay more for them than b2, but you get more features aswell.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Umm, yea its unlimited, but if everyone stored 10tb+ it won't be that cheap. It assumes most people won't store much data.

 b2 is priced per tb, and that way you don't get banned from breaking tos on a 'unlimited' backup system. For a small buiness, b2 is affordable for the average amount of storage...

So what? How many small business are going to have 10TB+ of data? Small businesses data amounts are not all that large. And how would having a lot of data on an unlimited plan break TOS? You are comparing apples to kunquats.

 

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

thats what snapshots are for, and basically every cloud probider offers that...

Again, apple to kumquats.

 

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...You said you don't like them because of pricing, but thats nothing to do with trust. Those companies are the most reliable way to store large amounts of data on the could. You pay more for them than b2, but you get more features aswell.

There you go misquoting me and quoting me out of context again. You seem to have a penchant for making apple to kumquats comparisons. Since you can't comprehend what I am saying (or just don't want to), here are a few websites that go into security problems with S3.

 

https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2019/11/08/exposed-private-amazon-s3-bucket-exposure/

 

https://devops.com/top-5-aws-security-mistakes-leaky-s3-buckets/

 

https://www.upguard.com/blog/s3-security-is-flawed-by-design

 

There are more about recent problems plus there are incidents from farther back but if you don't get the point by now (or just don't want to), you never will.

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

So what? How many small business are going to have 10TB+ of data? Small businesses data amounts are not all that large. And how would having a lot of data on an unlimited plan break TOS? You are comparing apples to kunquats.

 

Again, apple to kumquats.

 

There you go misquoting me and quoting me out of context again. You seem to have a penchant for making apple to kumquats comparisons. Since you can't comprehend what I am saying (or just don't want to), here are a few websites that go into security problems with S3.

 

https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2019/11/08/exposed-private-amazon-s3-bucket-exposure/

 

https://devops.com/top-5-aws-security-mistakes-leaky-s3-buckets/

 

https://www.upguard.com/blog/s3-security-is-flawed-by-design

 

There are more about recent problems plus there are incidents from farther back but if you don't get the point by now (or just don't want to), you never will.

What would you use to backup a small buiness to the cloud? 

 

Who do you trust?

 

Everyone these days seems to have some secuirty issues, and you don't really have anyone you fully trust.

 

If I was to backup a small buiness Id get something like a synology nas, use their software that pulls backups from a server or workstations, then sycs it with b2 or s3 or your favirote cloud provider.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

42 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What would you use to backup a small buiness to the cloud? ...

Since I'm on Linux now, nothing. I would continue to solely depend on multiple onsite and offsite backups. If I was still on Windows (which will never happen) or using Mac (again, never happen), I would use Backblaze to supplement onsote and offsite backups. I would never, nor would I ever recommend, using only a cloud backup.

 

42 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...Who do you trust?...

For what? I would trust Backblaze if it was cost effective, which it is not for Linux. I do not trust affordable cloud storage.

 

42 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...Everyone these days seems to have some secuirty issues, and you don't really have anyone you fully trust...

True but some are more trustworthy than others. There is no point in using something that isn't at leat reasonably trustworthy.

 

42 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...If I was to backup a small buiness Id get something like a synology nas, use their software that pulls backups from a server or workstations, then sycs it with b2 or s3 or your favirote cloud provider.

Most small business could neither afford all that nor have the knowledge to do all that. Hiring someone to manage all that would also be cost prohibitive.

 

Apparently, you haven't ever run a small business. I have, once by myself and the other time I had up to four independent contractors working for me so I also had to deal with payroll and IRS paperwork (including generating W9s and 1099s). The amount of paperwork generated for two years amounted to only 26MB.

 

When I worked for a convenience store, the amount of paperwork (most not on paper, btw) generated per day for the store, including payroll for up to five employees per day (ten total per week), etc. amounted to only around 40 or 50MB a day. That's less than 20GB a year.

 

If it had been an independent store, it would have been moronic to pay for what you proposed, even if the store owner had the knowledge to set up and manage all that. I would have used local backups at the store, run twice a day (not snapshots, either: folder/file syncing is faster and more efficient). The POS (Point Of Sale) computers and the office computer would be running a RAID 1 to protect against drive failure during the day before the backups can be updated as well as running a cloud backup (probably Backblaze; the cloud backup would be strictly to supplement the other backups during the day). The POS computers (one or two) would be synced with the office computer (no need for a NAS). I would use a small SSD (more reliable than USB flash drives) to carry home the day's transactions to update the offsite backups I would keep there. I would also keep a set of offsite backups in a safe deposit box at a bank or credit union and update those whenever making a bank run.

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Apparently, you haven't ever run a small business. I have, once by myself and the other time I had up to four independent contractors working for me so I also had to deal with payroll and IRS paperwork (including generating W9s and 1099s). The amount of paperwork generated for two years amounted to only 26MB.

I run It for a small business, and have worked with a few more in the past.  We have about 500gb of data now.

 

13 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

Since I'm on Linux now, nothing. I would continue to solely depend on multiple onsite and offsite backups. If I was still on Windows (which will never happen) or using Mac (again, never happen), I would use Backblaze to supplement onsote and offsite backups. I would never, nor would I ever recommend, using only a cloud backup.

 

What do you use for offsite backups? I am using a synology nas now, I found swapping hdds to be a hassle and just doesn't go as intended. But for these file sies, cloud backups really make a lot of since casue so little space is used.

14 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

If it had been an independent store, it would have been moronic to pay for what you proposed, even if the store owner had the knowledge to set up and manage all that. I would have used local backups at the store, run twice a day (not snapshots, either: folder/file syncing is faster and more efficient). The POS (Point Of Sale) computers and the office computer would be running a RAID 1 to protect against drive failure during the day before the backups can be updated as well as running a cloud backup (probably Backblaze; the cloud backup would be strictly to supplement the other backups during the day). The POS computers (one or two) would be synced with the office computer (no need for a NAS). I would use a small SSD (more reliable than USB flash drives) to carry home the day's transactions to update the offsite backups I would keep there. I would also keep a set of offsite backups in a safe deposit box at a bank or credit union and update those whenever making a bank run.

I use a bit different of a setup, as all the files are stored on the main server with redirected user fileser, so there is no reason to backup the workstations, I can just have them log into anouther system and keep working.

 

I do a backup to a external hdd on the server during the day, and a sync to a offsite nas.

 

 

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I run It for a small business, and have worked with a few more in the past.  We have about 500gb of data now...

All that for only 500GB?

 

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...What do you use for offsite backups?...

4TB Samsung 850 EVO bare drives, same as I use for my onsite backups. I have twenty backup drives for five data drives (one set of four for each data drive: two of each set are onsite and two are offsite). They and the two antistatic foam "egg crates" I made for them fit nicely in a desk drawer and in my safe deposit. I use a small Pelican case to transport them (each "egg crate" fits easily into the case and I just swap egg crates between home and my safe deposit box). I use SSDs for the backups because HDDs were destroying my old back and shoulders lugging them between home and my safe deposit box. I was also running out of room for them at home and in my safe deposit box.

 

Keep in mind I'm not running a small business now, though. For a small business, I would be using smaller SSDs (probably no more than 1TB) and only two for the onsite and each offsite location (the two drives at each location would be duplicates). I would use my home computer to update the offsite backup drives. I would use a single, small SSD in an enclosure to transfer data from work to home. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

All that for only 500GB?

Yea. It doesn't seem overkill to me. And I like it automated. 

 

I also think we have more workstations from your buiness from the way you were talking. We have around 30 workstations with around 40 users. We also have to meet secuirty requiremts by gov.

 

3 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

4TB Samsung 850 EVO bare drives, same as I use for my onsite backups. I have twenty backup drives for five data drives (one set of four for each data drive: two of each set are onsite and two are offsite). They and the two antistatic foam "egg crates" I made for them fit nicely in a desk drawer and in my safe deposit. I use a small Pelican case to transport them (each "egg crate" fits easily into the case and I just swap egg crates between home and my safe deposit box). I use SSDs for the backups because HDDs were destroying my old back and shoulders lugging them between home and my safe deposit box. I was also running out of room for them at home and in my safe deposit box.

 

Keep in mind I'm not running a small business now, though. For a small business, I would be using smaller SSDs (probably no more than 1TB) and only two for the onsite and each offsite location (the two drives at each location would be duplicates). I would use my home computer to update the offsite backup drives. I would use a single, small SSD in an enclosure to transfer data from work to home. 

 

Just curious have you seen any data loss issues due to the drives being powered off? 

 

I stopped doing the rotating hdd swap cause they were doing that when I got there and there had been months where no one rotated the drives, and I didn't want that to happen again. People forget, and I can't always been onsite, so I wanted something automated, and a offsite nas was the best solution.

 

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...I am using a synology nas now, I found swapping hdds to be a hassle and just doesn't go as intended. But for these file sies, cloud backups really make a lot of since casue so little space is used...

 

I never had a problem swapping drives. Cloud backups do make sense as long as you can get a reasonably priced plan. I would use a cloud backup only to supplement an offsite backup due to the time required to download large amounts of data from the cloud. 

 

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...I use a bit different of a setup, as all the files are stored on the main server with redirected user fileser, so there is no reason to backup the workstations, I can just have them log into anouther system and keep working.

 

I do a backup to a external hdd on the server during the day, and a sync to a offsite nas...

 

As long as a computer, NAS, external drive, etc. is powered up and connected to the computer in some way, it is redundancy, not a backup.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

As long as a computer, NAS, external drive, etc. is powered up and connected to the computer in some way, it is redundancy, not a backup.

What would be the best way to do this with a offsite nas or cloud?

 

I have it so it pulls backups, and the storage server has no control of the backups. If the server was to be comprimised, an attacker couldn't get any way to destroy the backups. If ransomware were to happen, the backup would have the version before and after the attack happened. 

 

I also have a onsite hdd I swap out with anouther for the what if everything plugged in dies.

 

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

25 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea. It doesn't seem overkill to me. And I like it automated...

The problem with automated backups is they have to be kept powered up and connected to the computer at all times, opening the opportunity for data to be lost due to accidental deletions (unless all deletions go to a trash can or versioning folder) and malware. A "backup" is not a backup unless it is kept disconnected from the computer, powered down, and stored out of site of the computer.

 

25 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...I also think we have more workstations from your buiness from the way you were talking. We have around 30 workstations with around 40 users. We also have to meet secuirty requiremts by gov...

We had radically different business. 40+ emplyees is pushing the upper end of small business. In my first business, I was the only employee and that was way back before home computers were common.The second business had up to four employees (singers) and they did not use computers; only me.

 

25 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

...Just curious have you seen any data loss issues due to the drives being powered off?..

Nope. I refresh the drive just before taking them to my safe deposit and just after I bring them back home. I could go far longer without refreshing them but I have them here already so why not just do it. it doesn't take long I don't have to remember when it was last done.

 

25 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

... stopped doing the rotating hdd swap cause they were doing that when I got there and there had been months where no one rotated the drives, and I didn't want that to happen again. People forget, and I can't always been onsite, so I wanted something automated, and a offsite nas was the best solution.

That sounds like both a managerial issue and a employee performance issue.

 

As a manager, you do not want to micromanage--you have employees to do the bulk of the work for you--but you need to delegate the job to an employee with a backup employee aasigned to take over when the first employee is not available. It's then your job to make sure it is getting done. If the employee assigned to do the job can't do the job, replace the employee with one who can. It sounds harsh but you are running a business, not an employee charity.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

18 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What would be the best way to do this with a offsite nas or cloud?

 

I have it so it pulls backups, and the storage server has no control of the backups. If the server was to be comprimised, an attacker couldn't get any way to destroy the backups. If ransomware were to happen, the backup would have the version before and after the attack happened. 

 

I also have a onsite hdd I swap out with anouther for the what if everything plugged in dies.

 

 

If the compromised backup is on the same drive or machine with the other backups they will also can (and probably will) be compromised. If a power surge blows through any surge protection you have, any drive connected to the mains will be fried.

 

Before connecting a backup drive to the computer to update the backup, you first need to make sure the computer hasn't been compromised. Only one backup drive of a set should be connected to the computer at a time so you will have one or more other backups to fall back on should the backup drive get compromised.

 

Back when I still used a cloud backup service, I also had offsite backup drives since downloading everything from the cloud would take forever (and, if enough data is involved, may even exceed monthly limits of your ISP). If I ever lost everything onsite, I could quickly recover most of my data from the offsite backups and the data that had been added or changed since the offsite drives were last updated could then bemore  quickly recovered from the cloud backup since there wouldn't be as much to download.

 

Since I no longer use a cloud backup service, if I put critical data onto my computer that can't be otherwised replaced, I'm heading to my credit union to swap drives at my earliest opportunity.

 

 

[RayLeech]

Quote

Cloud Backup

My biggest problem with commercial cloud is not so much archiving data TO the cloud, its retrieving data FROM the cloud after an 'event'. As the number of files / gigs of data increases, it becomes less attractive as my first choice of recovery. Especially if my gigabit fiber is no longer viable, and I'm pushed to share someone else's 5 meg or 20 meg connection.

 

If you're not looking at a huge volume, its a fine choice so long as it is not your only choice.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

1 hour ago, RayLeech said:

My biggest problem with commercial cloud is not so much archiving data TO the cloud, its retrieving data FROM the cloud after an 'event'. As the number of files / gigs of data increases, it becomes less attractive as my first choice of recovery. Especially if my gigabit fiber is no longer viable, and I'm pushed to share someone else's 5 meg or 20 meg connection.

 

If you're not looking at a huge volume, its a fine choice so long as it is not your only choice.

 

That is exactly the reason why I recommended using a cloud backup service to supplement an offsite backup. If the worst were to happen and you lost the data on your computer and onsite backups, you could far more quickly recover most of your data from the offsite backup, then downloading the remaining data that hadn't made it to your offsite backup will take a far more reasonable amount of time since you will be downloading less. The only reason I no longer use a cloud backup anymore is there are no what I consider to be affordable and reliable cloud backup services for Linux.

 

I agree a cloud backup should not be your only choice. Data should exist in at least three separate places to be reasonably safe.