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How long has it been since you last tested your backups? Honestly?
| 2% | 4 votes |
| 5% | 8 votes |
| 22% | 36 votes |
| 7% | 12 votes |
| 11% | 18 votes |
| 11% | 18 votes |
| 35% | 57 votes |
| 4% | 7 votes |
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- Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
- Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
- This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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How long has it been since you last tested your backups? Honestly?
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
(1)
You will triumph over your enemy.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Monday May 12, @08:28AM (5 children)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 14, @08:43PM (4 children)
In the early 90s we used backup tapes to transfer huge (60MB!) datasets cross country.
We quickly realized that three copies were required to ensure safe transfer of the data (single faults were more than 1/25) and even then they got unlucky once and all three copies were bad.
This was an identical process run at five sites, they all had similar failure rates.
Meanwhile, many people made single backup copies with those kinds of tape drives and never realized how likely a restoration failure was.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Thursday May 15, @04:59AM (3 children)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 15, @11:18AM (1 child)
At the time we wrote off the data, recovery service was going to run thousands of dollars and our cost to collect replacement data was in the hundreds.
Maybe it was our particular tape system vendor, but I would say those tapes were easily 100x more subject to data loss than USB memory sticks.
Human mishandling of the data transfer process? Yeah, that's been pretty constant over the years. Without "you have to take this procedure seriously" training people in general do mess up data transfer pretty frequently.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 15, @09:24PM
Are you in a humid environment? Our tape has been pretty stable over the decades. The only exception is when we've exposed them to higher humidity than when they were written.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Thursday May 22, @04:11PM
We had tons of trouble with 4mm and 8mm tape. (or the drive alignment - and especially with tapes readable only with the drive that wrote them)
Switched to quarter inch and those were excellent while they were still made, then used SDLT until virtualizing everything. There the backup options didn't include tape so we switched to local storage replicated selectively to the cloud. Our core databases are backed up separately to many more places so we could recover from just that if we had to...
(Score: 4, Funny) by OrugTor on Monday May 12, @04:06PM
My company kept changing the repo acccess to make it more difficult to login. It finally got to the point I could not login so I keep everything on a shared drive. I don't test backups. If the laptop dies and i can't populate the replacement I'll retire.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Samantha Wright on Tuesday May 13, @02:07AM (25 children)
Here is the secret to a backup-free life. Divide all your data into three categories;
Everything else is your employer's problem.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday May 13, @02:50AM (18 children)
What do you do with data which cannot be printed, and which is not allowed to touch the cloud?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Touché) by Samantha Wright on Tuesday May 13, @05:13AM (9 children)
I covered that. It's your employer's problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mhajicek on Tuesday May 13, @07:13AM (8 children)
I am my employer.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 5, Funny) by Samantha Wright on Tuesday May 13, @05:14PM
Hmm... It sounds like it's definitely your problem, then. :)
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Wednesday May 14, @07:47PM (6 children)
Great, then you have the option to delegate it! Management is wonderful that way.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday May 15, @03:00AM (5 children)
Sure, I can delegate it to myself.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 17, @01:27AM (4 children)
Self-delegation is no longer permitted on SoylentNews. Please spam mod yourself.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 18, @11:10AM
SpAM modding those who attempt to enforce the Rules, as pathetic as they are, that is perfectly fucked up.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, @06:13AM (2 children)
I was pretty sure the reference to "self-delegation" was a dig at janrinok, our official self-delegated and resigned, Chairman of the Board.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday May 19, @08:24PM (1 child)
I have never held a position on the Board. I cannot resign from a post I have never held. I do not want such a position.
The Board do a very good job. Their names are public and have been recorded on all the appropriate documents that we are required to file with various Federal Departments. They do not need me.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 20, @04:11AM
And you do not need them, except to fill in the blanks on the appropriate forms, eh? We all know who the power behind the board is, who recruited them, vetted them, approved them, and controls them. Otherwise, they would have saved the site already by banning the janrinok. Failure to do so is tantamount to a confession of impotency.
Oh! Look!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13, @10:07AM (4 children)
I use a NAS instead of a USB drive (in other words I turn it off if I'm not actively reading/writing).
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday May 14, @02:37PM (3 children)
That's the strategy I wish to follow*. Haven't found a suitable low-electrical-power-draw NAS yet. The obvious candidates are difficult to obtain around where I am.
The key point is making the back-up off-line, so ransomware can't come in and encrypt your back-up. (I did write ransomeware - presumably Nancy Blackett will turn up flying the pirate flag and re-encrypt everything in a code that involves great-aunts and daisies.).
*Slightly modified: I want to leave the NAS permanently powered for 'other stuff', but dismount, power-down, and remove the media used for back-ups.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday May 15, @10:33AM (2 children)
For personal use just buy a hot swap external hard drive bay and a couple of disks of whatever size you need for backup. Copy everything you want to protect and seal the drives in those anti-static plastic bags.
200 million years is actually quite a long time.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday May 19, @08:49PM
This is more or less what I've done, except, I just store them on my desk in external enclosures. The quality/quantity/currency of my backups are rather lackluster, but at least I have something.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 22, @12:55PM
I do that same thing. I bought a "lot", (12), blank hard drives. Use CloneZilla to clone my current disk.
I buy another laptop, identical to mine ( sans HDD and usually drive caddy, power supply, and likely battery ), as well as the missing parts, off of eBay, reassemble, verify clone operates same as original, then store in the stack of laptops that I keep in plastic milk crates. Each crate holds six laptops.
This way, not only do I back up my disk, I also have replacement hardware. I find I pay as much for the entire used machine as I would pay for just a replacement part.
Oh yes, I occasionally get dud hardware...so I also collect milk crates full of parts donors. When I collected an entire set of duds, I reassembled a 100% dud ( a genuine hangar queen ) machine and gave it to the manager at the Starbucks I was frequenting. We were experiencing a rash of missing laptops. So we baited people to see who would take it if they got the chance. No disk or caddy in it, no network card or memory. Bad power supply with broken wire, CPU and fan missing, bad battery, bad keyboard, cracked LCD, bad inverter and CCFL. Cracked case. Broken hinges.
Missing screws. Missing all its internal cables. Yup, a real hangar queen. Just to let whoever took it know he sacrificed his identity to get it...it was a trap and he fell for it.
Just left it on the table, used the bathroom, and the manager caught the perp in the act, but didn't recover the laptop... thief ran with it, but the perp did not return after he unwittingly revealed himself to everyone else in the place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 14, @01:00AM (1 child)
How much data do you have, what is your current risk profile, if you are comfortable sharing it, and what are your recovery objectives?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday May 14, @06:58AM
I use a NAS; I was just poking holes in SW's list.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 15, @06:01PM
This is where we still need sneakernets.
(Score: 2) by Ingar on Tuesday May 13, @01:44PM (3 children)
Paper deteriorates faster than you can say "bitrot"
Love is a three-edged sword: heart, mind, and reality.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Samantha Wright on Tuesday May 13, @05:07PM (2 children)
Acid-free archival paper, properly stored, will outlive your grandchildren.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 15, @10:35AM
Yep. We used to run archival quality laser printers. Funny thing is the paper was guaranteed for 300 years, and the toner for 400.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 23, @11:59PM
True, unless you deposit your paper copies in the Classical Library of Alexandria, or the Imperial Library of HuangDi. Or Nalanda. Both Confucians and Ashoka proved that text engraved, deeply, in stone is the way to go.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 14, @08:38PM (1 child)
Whatever is on the cloud deserves local mirrors.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Samantha Wright on Wednesday May 14, @11:35PM
Any sufficiently advanced local mirror is indistinguishable from a cloud.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13, @04:58AM (9 children)
I voted for "what are backups?" But it is being made clear that backups are what you have when you allegedly resign from a post of control on a website, but still retain the power to sanction and spam mod, and censor everyone. Funny how these things work out. Hi, janrinok! You can block this IP now, I shan't use it again.
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Tuesday May 13, @05:51AM (7 children)
You do realise that ANY community member can moderate you, don't you? The spam moderation is permissible where its use is justified - as in your case.
No-one is being censored, your comments are still viewable by anyone who wants to see them. You are being sanctioned for your previous doxxing.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 13, @09:31PM (5 children)
IP bans are not based on moderation, in my case, It is "special" admin action, from the elite "janrinok aristarchus elimination squad". Irony is, I am not aristarchus, neither is my IP.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 16, @08:30PM (4 children)
I make backups by having janrinok ban me, he then preserves everything in anticipation of evidentary proceedings. These never come, since the entire kerfuffle was a ruse, but the data is preserved regardless! Genius! Reminds me of someone else's backup strategy. [wikiquote.org]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 17, @10:50PM (2 children)
92.989246699^2
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday May 18, @11:55AM
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=60784&page=1&cid=1355796#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, @11:12AM
Took me a while to figure this out.
SN probably gonna be raided now, along with Comey.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 23, @12:28PM
Part of what was backed up was this exchange from 2021:
This is probably the GOAT AC, pretending not to be himself. But then janrinok admits to the dirty deed. He used to have a sense of shame about such things.
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=44527&page=1&cid=1170745#commentwrap
This is why backups are important, Without these backups, and logs of IRC, janrinok would deny all malfeasance, which he does, anyway, but we have backups that show otherwise. Back up regularly!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 21, @08:40PM
Help! I'm being oppressed!
Fuck the Coward Jeff Bezos, and the fucking moron janrinok! Meta: janrinok has not resigned. Falseflag operation.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday May 13, @09:00PM
Why does everyone talk about backups (man this is old) [youtu.be] all the time? I think there might be some subtext that I'm missing. Nevertheless, I send this clip to people when they say they work on local files and don't bother to back stuff up.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Tuesday May 13, @01:48PM (1 child)
The one time preparation first. Organize things so that there are a minimal number (like two) top level folders to back up. (hard Lynx can be useful hear)
Write a script which copies those to an external drive -- over the top of an existing copy on that external drive.
Acquire two pocket drives of different colors. Alternate making backups to each drive weakly.
Now your backup procedure is:
1. Since you last backed up on "blue", plug in the "red" external drive
2. Run your script to back up while you do your ordinary work
3. When it is done, unmount, unplug the drive
Keep your drives in a fireproof box, inside a bigger fireproof box. The paranoid might use more drives and monthly rotate one to a bank safety deposit box.
In order to taste your backups, you simply plug in a drive and inspect its contents. Your most recently modified or created files should be there where you expect them to be.
I know this sounds so basic, obvious and elementary. But it makes the backup procedure so painless that you are highly likely to do it regularly.
The restore process is not painless, but easy. You will no doubt end up restoring some older files you had deleted. But that is better than having lost things.
This procedure isn't for everyone. But I actually do it regularly. It requires no special equipment.
If you have a disagreement with someone, don't resort to arson. That only inflames the situation.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 14, @08:52PM
Check out the unify utility.
With that, you can sync your folder across the network to keep a mirror up to date. It's a layer stop rsync making rsync a bit friendlier to use.
Flash memory does wear out, and it shows symptoms sooner when powered down for extended periods of time. I have 3 to 5 mirrors of my "important" couple of TB at any given time.
Instead of fireproof boxes, they are scattered around my local network, hopefully they won't all burn in one event.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 13, @03:27PM
I've been using Proxmox Backup Server. It integrates pretty well with Proxmox.
VMs that amount to "clone the template and run Ansible against it" don't get backed up, but I have some weird unmanaged OS VMs that I back up.
(Score: 2) by Kalas on Tuesday May 13, @06:17PM (1 child)
Lost data could also be thought of as nature's answer to my digital hoarding problem. I have who knows how many terabytes of stuff saved, mostly from youtube, not even 5% of which has even been enjoyed. Partly because I tend to grab entire channels if there's even a couple things that look like they'll interest me, but mostly because there are only so many waking hours I can spend watching stuff. Plus more often than I care to admit I end up rewatching the same old stuff like Trek or replaying the same old games like Fallout New Vegas.
Sure it annoys the hell out of me for a while when I lose something like a channel that has a lot of or only lost content. (Because YT has no problem perma-killing whole channels on a whim with absolutely no recourse or even an explanation of what super sekrit rule was broken.) But TBH if I had enough storage to backup everything I'd surely just fill it all with different crap. Basically the only things I backup across multiple drives are personal documents and notes and channels I've saved that no longer exist or where I have the most complete archive of them available. Things like ASMR channels I know I'll keep listening to again and again.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday May 19, @08:51PM
Essentially, the only data I would really miss are the personal photos/videos. That said, I've also got photo books, etc. So, even if the electronic data where to get hosed, I've probably got the best stuff printed already.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday May 13, @10:35PM (1 child)
I went with "1 month" but the reality is that I recently used my backups about 5-6 months ago when transferring to a new machine.
I'm on a Mac, so have been using Time Machine for ages. It's certainly easy to use and generally gets the job done, but it's got a few "features" that would give most readers here the willies. Most notably, it doesn't back up system files - just user data. It's assumed that the user will re-install the system and then use Time Machine to recover data. That probably fits 99% of use cases, but I suspect that the 1% is over-represented here at SN.
As it happens, I've been on support with Apple for the past few months about an issue with Time Machine (it's working when booting from the internal SSD, but failing at the end when run from an external SSD with OSX installed). Wow. If your issue is 'unusual', you really have to jump through weeks of hoops before anyone outside of the Support Desk even gets a chance to look at your problem. I've actually been shocked at just how hard it is to get to the specialist teams that look after a particular product.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday May 15, @05:23PM
I agree, there is a missing "6 month" option, so I put down "one year". I actually back up my NAS array to disk every 6 months, which involves a verification pass (basically a zfs restore to /dev/null) which verifies the backup was written correctly to the disk. Generally a drive does not just die, but slowly accumulates errors which start being noticeable after a few months, so 6 months seems to be the sweet spot, being early enough for a drive to report errors yet still recover the data (Which is a sign to order a replacement)
The act of writing the backup verifies that the disk is still writeable (no I/O errors) and the verification that it is readable and holds valid data. For the period in between backups I have regular daily zfs snapshots in case of accidental "rm -rf" type events. Ever since I set up this system (~2016) I have not lost a single byte of data in a SOHO environment.
I find that the chance of me losing 3 array drives (running raidz2, so can lose 2 drives before data loss) at the exact time the external backup drive dies is so minutely small as to be negligible. As such I've had backup drives fail (during the latest backup or during verification) in which case I replace it with a new one and re-do the backup. Or I have the array die, in which case I restore from backup (which has happened).
Some of my most important data however I keep in a git repository, synched across the NAS, two other machines and a second backup external USB drive, just in case.
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday May 14, @12:19PM (1 child)
Pedantry piqued...
Most people wear two shoes simultaneously: if not, then that warning would probably be better written: Beware of a tall blond one-footed man with one black shoe.
Given people tend to wear shoes of the same colour, someone wearing two black shoes will have at least one black shoe. So the population of tall blond men to beware of could be quite large, making the warning meaningless, as it doesn't identify a sufficiently specific man.
Perhaps it should read: Beware of a tall blond man with differently coloured shoes, one of which is black.
Of course, he could be wearing blue suede shoes and carrying a black one.
Ah, pedantry. A mine of petty distraction. I am distracted. Let me put some straws in my hair [wordhistories.net].
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday May 14, @07:51PM
Now change that blond man to a black swan. Then you can warp that metaphor into something difficult enough to understand that you can stall for time until you can make a getaway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Wednesday May 14, @02:41PM
If I lie to myself about how often I've tested my backups, what makes you think I wouldn't lie to you?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 16, @02:24PM
Back in the day. A secretary prints out a list of files on the backup, and then dutifully staples that list to the floppy disk.
If you have a disagreement with someone, don't resort to arson. That only inflames the situation.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 18, @11:04AM (7 children)
Back up, com'on, com'on, "CRASH" That's good!
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, @06:15AM (6 children)
Backing up aristarchus, as we speak. Repopulation to take place soon.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday May 19, @08:30AM (5 children)
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=60784&page=1&cid=1355796#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, @11:14AM (4 children)
SPAM!
Why does janrinok persist in posting the same things over and over again. It is tiresome, and against site policy. He needs to be punished.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Monday May 19, @03:24PM (2 children)
I was asked specifically to make sure you saw it. Now that I know that you have, I can stop.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 20, @12:30AM
aristarchus as a basement-dwelling incel fanboi? Otaku? Just so juvenile. Teen spirit. Sounds like projection, to me.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 25, @12:04PM
I, for one, am happy that aristarchus is still here! He gives us a whiff of what the original BuckFeta movement was like, before it was coopted by such loosers as NCommander and The Misty Bonnard. janrinok is a fossil in regard to all this. His resignation means nothing, as time has told. Mayhaps the toll will bell, again?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 22, @08:35PM
aristarchus, aristarchus! That's why. He has no choice, really, no restraint, no self-control. The troll barks, and janrinok goes off like a purse pooch. Yapper. At least he has resigned, and will no longer be posting as admin, or editor, or Brit. Long live janrinok!
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday May 19, @08:37PM
I've needed and used my backups upon rare occasion. I've also realized that my backups are extremely horrible and stupid. There are some things that are useful and/or good to backup. Personally created data, such as digital images, art, text, etc. Then there are the Stupid Backups. All of the free to download apps and even most of the paid for apps that I've saved over the years. I will likely never use a copy of Firefox 10 for example. I will essentially always want a new and up-to-date version of "insert browser name/image editing software name"/etc. In the event that I'm not an IT admin, I don't need extensive backups. I just need backups of the critical data. I can put together a functional system, complete with needed software in less time than it would take for me to painstakingly go through my trove of backups. I really should go back and create a reasonable system for backing up my data. Here's to hoping and kicking the can down the road for later me to worry about.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"