How is your data backed up?
...
[X] I use Tarsnap
...
Where's the "I am Tarsnap" option?
Somewhat related: Are the responses to this going to be made public somewhere? I'd love to see what they look like (for obvious reasons) and was thinking just last week that maybe I should post a survey to HN and Reddit.
Lol. I knew it was you as soon as I saw "I use tarsnap" as the only one checked.
I love Tarsnap. I use you for a lot of very-critical-yet-small files.
My personal pain point is that I'd like to back up a few TB of data but can't afford to--it would be nice to back up an entire workstation. I'm interested in seeing if that's a sentiment that others share, or if it's just me.
Thanks for the recc. Just spent some time reading the Tarsnap website. It sounds to be a very competitive solution, both in terms of operational transparency (detailed, no-gimmick website) and the layer of security.
Hope it's not a stupid question, but how do you deal with the "bus factor" (a.k.a. "truck factor")? In other words, if the service relies on encrypted S3 backups and the founder exits for whatever reason, is there a contingency plan?
As a software development company, all of our code is in a git repository that has a remote on a VPS. Our documents are primarily Google docs. Important docs are checked into git.
Nothing we have locally that is important is not also at some remote location.
Thanks, that is great feedback. Maybe so much is web-based now that backups aren't really relevant.
Is there any pain associated with restoring your dev environment? How long would it take you to get your text editor reinstalled, color scheme set back up, system preferences back, etc.?
Missing option is impact on the computer while I'm using it. All of the transparent services (especially Time Machine) that I have experience with are abysmally bad at turning themselves off when the machine is being actively used.
That's my favorite aspect of Windows Home Server's backup. It does it once a day whenever you're asleep. It'll even wake up your machine, back it up, and them put it back to sleep. And it's smart enough to only do this if you're laptop is plugged into AC and not running on battery. And if any machine isn't backed up in a while, you get a Health warning in your system tray. And this is all pretty configurable.
I got about halfway through the survey before realizing it was about workstation backup, not server backup.
Time Machine + Dropbox makes workstation backup a solved problem.
Slicehost Backup + Tarsnap makes server backup almost a solved problem. And I say almost because I don't like having no choice but to store my full bootable backups with the same provider that hosts my primary server. If I could store bootable weekly images off-site, I'd be golden.
Agreed. If you give me a survey and mark all the questions "required", if I find anything I don't want to answer, you're out of luck on the whole survey because I will just click back.
One thing to point out: backups in the cloud are useless if you don't have internet access when you want access or to restore data.
If you want to fix my backups, make the data readily accessible when there isn't a net connection between me and the service.
One time this usually bites is if you just (re-)installed a new OS and you need the network driver, which is only available online. I always keep a backup of the drivers on my external hard disk for this situation.
Another service I worry about is Gmail and other Google apps. With email you can easily download the several GB of email onto your hard disk, thus keeping a backup for when you or the service are offline.
Dropbox solves this nicely: it's a local folder that's synched to the cloud. If Dropbox is down or I'm offline, I still have access to my data.
Only problem: getting the 100gb option is too expensive for me (for now), which is a shame. Also, I'd love it if they had a much larger size as well, so I can quietly back up everything without worrying about space.
Since I've not seen it mentioned yet: I use CrashPlan to back up all of my personal systems, both to a home server and to an remote peer. It's a bit RAM heavy, but other than that nicely stays out of the way & does it's job. The killer feature is trivial peer-to-peer connectivity, making off site backups easy. I'm not affiliated with the company -- just a happy customer.
[+] [-] cperciva|15 years ago|reply
Somewhat related: Are the responses to this going to be made public somewhere? I'd love to see what they look like (for obvious reasons) and was thinking just last week that maybe I should post a survey to HN and Reddit.
[+] [-] drewcrawford|15 years ago|reply
I love Tarsnap. I use you for a lot of very-critical-yet-small files.
My personal pain point is that I'd like to back up a few TB of data but can't afford to--it would be nice to back up an entire workstation. I'm interested in seeing if that's a sentiment that others share, or if it's just me.
[+] [-] d_r|15 years ago|reply
Hope it's not a stupid question, but how do you deal with the "bus factor" (a.k.a. "truck factor")? In other words, if the service relies on encrypted S3 backups and the founder exits for whatever reason, is there a contingency plan?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor)
[+] [-] mstevens|15 years ago|reply
I'm hoping that the results are made public they'll be anonymised at least somewhat.
[+] [-] pwim|15 years ago|reply
Nothing we have locally that is important is not also at some remote location.
[+] [-] surki|15 years ago|reply
[1] http://eigenclass.org/hiki/gibak-backup-system-introduction
[+] [-] drewcrawford|15 years ago|reply
Is there any pain associated with restoring your dev environment? How long would it take you to get your text editor reinstalled, color scheme set back up, system preferences back, etc.?
[+] [-] larsberg|15 years ago|reply
Missing option is impact on the computer while I'm using it. All of the transparent services (especially Time Machine) that I have experience with are abysmally bad at turning themselves off when the machine is being actively used.
[+] [-] altano|15 years ago|reply
How's that for low impact.
[+] [-] Skyline|15 years ago|reply
I bet a lot of people would find them interesting.
[+] [-] apowell|15 years ago|reply
Time Machine + Dropbox makes workstation backup a solved problem.
Slicehost Backup + Tarsnap makes server backup almost a solved problem. And I say almost because I don't like having no choice but to store my full bootable backups with the same provider that hosts my primary server. If I could store bootable weekly images off-site, I'd be golden.
[+] [-] jhg|15 years ago|reply
> Looks like you have a question or two that still needs to be filled out.
If I want to skip a question, I should be able to do so.
[+] [-] lincolnq|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pierrefar|15 years ago|reply
If you want to fix my backups, make the data readily accessible when there isn't a net connection between me and the service.
One time this usually bites is if you just (re-)installed a new OS and you need the network driver, which is only available online. I always keep a backup of the drivers on my external hard disk for this situation.
Another service I worry about is Gmail and other Google apps. With email you can easily download the several GB of email onto your hard disk, thus keeping a backup for when you or the service are offline.
Dropbox solves this nicely: it's a local folder that's synched to the cloud. If Dropbox is down or I'm offline, I still have access to my data.
[+] [-] lovskogen|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sreitshamer|15 years ago|reply
(Disclaimer -- I write backup software: http://haystacksoftware.com/arq/)
[+] [-] edanm|15 years ago|reply
Only problem: getting the 100gb option is too expensive for me (for now), which is a shame. Also, I'd love it if they had a much larger size as well, so I can quietly back up everything without worrying about space.
[+] [-] jhg|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dcreemer|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huhtenberg|15 years ago|reply