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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday April 01 2020, @02:55AM
from the Backup?-Like-put-it-in-reverse?-That's-when-you-verse-and-verse-again,-right?-Oh. dept.
from the Backup?-Like-put-it-in-reverse?-That's-when-you-verse-and-verse-again,-right?-Oh. dept.
Coronavirus bound? A perfect at-home project: Backup your data
Tuesday is World Backup Day, a made-up holiday that encourages the the sale of more products like hard drives and USB thumb drives.
That said, when's the last time you actually backed up your phone? Or computer? All of those precious photos sitting on the phone and not backed up could end up as distant memories if you lost the device or had it stolen.
And having your pictures posted on Facebook doesn't count as a backup. The social network greatly lowers the resolution after you've uploaded it, making it unsuitable as a second copy.
We're all at home now. Why not take a few minutes this weekend to back up our media.
I'd rather have a backup than wish I did.
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The Official Colorado State Vegetable is now the "state legislator".
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday April 01 2020, @08:29AM (1 child)
During the time a copy is plugged in and available, it is only a copy and not a backup. The copy must be offline and preferably offsite to be a backup.
Additionally, until the time an offline copy has been fully tested through full a restoration somewhere, it is still only a copy.
As a case in point, rather recently, Maastricht University made two mistakes [nltimes.nl], one of which was a lack of backups. They had no back up for any of their data, instead they relied on online copies kept on another server hoping that backups would never be needed. That was a big mistake. Then another larger mistake was that they were trying to use M$ Windows in place of critical infrastructure. That not only cost them daily productivity but lined them up for getting hit by the ransomware. When that was combined with the lack of backups, then, well, that was all she wrote.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday April 01 2020, @10:39AM
And the restoration has to happen on a continuous basis. Otherwise your offline "backup" is rotting and might not restore when in need (see the RAID5 stories). This implies that there has to be at least a second backup to replace the failing version. In this sense, "offline" should never mean offline in the sense that manual intervention is necessary. I personally think the offline part is overrated and I keep everything online for the purpose of checking. Of course at least one backup needs to be properly protected (pull, not push, login disabled from backupped systems, otherwise hardened, off-site). Also spinning media are required (tape/HD).