Backup poll

[mbrubeck]

I have three quick questions about your backup strategy.

Results here in raw Google Spreadsheet form. I'll have to write some formulas to summarize them later, and I expect I'll regret setting up the form the way I did.

Comments

[iluvsheep]

I must profess myself more interested in how you got that webform to autopopulate a google doc than various backup methodologies.

I use a RAID array, which leaves me unable to answer questions like "How often do you back up?". That said, I've never had to recover data from a lost drive, so I can't whole-heartedly recommend my solution yet.

[mbrubeck]

Google Spreadsheet forms.

The first comment thread on jwz's famous post has some good comments about RAID and backups. If you're using RAID without backups, you will still lose data if a crazy RAID controller or crazy software or crazy user decides to scribble over your files.

[iluvsheep]

Those Google forms look sweet. I'll have to play around with them sometime. Thanks for pointing them out.

I hope jwz's post is more infamous than famous. He's light on explanation and heavy on critics. However, it is true that RAID duplicates deletions as well as additions and edits, so if someone/thing were to go in and delete my files, I would be screwed. A few points:

1. It's better than nothing, which is what I was using when I had my first (and thus far only) hard drive crash a while back.
   
2. Aside from the aforementioned hard drive crash, I've only ever once lost important data, and that was from a misuse of rm. Having shell scripted around that, I am at least prepared against repeating any previously experienced data loss.
   
3. I agree with youngvanwinkle. If I relied on myself to make backups, it would never happen.
   
4. Why not cron the backups? Good question. I actually tried for two full evenings to get cron running on my computer: one night for Cygwin, and one night for Windows proper. Long story short, I fought the cron, and the

[vrable]

I'm much more curious what tools people are using for their backups.

Myself, I used to use rdiff-backup and duplicity, but was never completely happy with duplicity for remote backups. Now, I'm using a duplicity-like backup tool that I'm in the process of writing myself. (No public release yet, but maybe sometime soon, especially if people are interested.)