[Gloucs] Remote backups

[Nick]

Glyn Davies wrote:
> Nick wrote:
>>
>> So, does anybody have any experience / advice for me with doing remote 
>> backups? (Andrew I seem to remember you stating that you don't trust your 
>> data unless it's backed up on several different continents.)  I'd be very 
>> interested to hear your thoughts.
>
> I'm no expert especially given my backups consists of copying my home 
> directory to a USB hard drive which is then kept on, errr, the same 
> continent. That and I can't remember when I resynced it :)

Cron / plugging scripts are your friends :) I'll eventually get 
around to posting my setup online, so that others may marvel at my 
bash skillz (I love bash), but probably not for a little while yet.

> However, if you want offsite backup and don't trust some of the online 
> services, you could backup to someone you did trust over their broadband 
> connection. I'm thinking say of your parents or a friend you trust. Either 
> use their machine or a slug (NSLU2) and a USB hard drive and rsync over 
> SSH. You can encrypt the data on disk as well.

Aha! Now there's an idea. I had thought of this sometime in the 
past, but since then had forgotten it again. ssh+rsync should serve 
me well there. Of course I'll have to contend with a dynamic ip and 
laptop which spends a good deal of its time turned off, but my 
super-duper openwrt router will deal with the former, and cron the 
latter, so I forsee no great problems.

> Alternatively, you can get a 2GB pen drive from Aria for £2.95+vat
> http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/newsletter?productId=30818&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=2GB+Arianet+Silver+Shadow+Pen+Drive+&utm_campaign=newsletter020508

Wow. I had no idea usb drives were so cheap now... I'm still proud 
of my bargain 128MB pen for a mere £10. Ah, technology. 

> My only other tip is to regularly make sure you can restore from 
> your backups.

Good advice. As I keep plenty of differently dated backups around 
with rsnapshot I quite often find myself digging through my backup 
to find something I mislaid / changed, so that should be no problem 
;-)

> Best Regards
> Glyn Davies

Thanks alot Glyn.

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