Backup
My CrashPlan
Backup… backup… backup.
If you have data that is important to you (and we all do) you want to make sure it is backed up before you lose it and wish you had it backed up. Some people can take backing up to far and maybe I have but when it is all automated I don’t care. For a long time I did the single backup strategy to a external hard drive in my home. This is a great first step and shockingly more then most people still do today. But what about the commonly used backup rule of three?
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3 copies of the data you don’t want to lose
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2 different physical locations
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1 off-site backup
I wasn’t following this basic and very logical backup rule until last year when I added CrashPlan to my backup strategy. I have an ioSafe Solo at home so my backed up data would survive from a fire up to 1550*F for 1/2 hour and survive being submerged in water up to 10ft for 72 hours but there are some natural disasters that still could have ruined that ioSafe Solo and my important data long with it. I often talk to others that I help with technology issues or questions about having a backup solution in place. Doesn’t even need to be something complex just something to get you started and your data more secure then it is today. With the plan of moving to a full backup rule of three sooner then later.
This is my backup plan today. I have two 1TB hard drives internal to my computer case that are in a mirrored configuration to ensure that I get duplicate copies of my kids pictures once they are downloaded from the camera or duplicates of important files. That covers the immediate and gives me redundancy (remember that Raid is not a form of backup). Then I use Microsoft’s File History (you could use Time Machine if you are using a Mac) feature in Windows 8.1 to save the new files or updated versions to files to an external hard drive. This runs on a schedule every hour and keeps versions of files up to 6 months (these times can be configured to what you need). So, I have covered how I accomplish my local backups but next is the part that seems to confuse and worry people; off-site backups.
This is were CrashPlan comes into play for me. I have a single powerhouse computer at home that runs everything and I need a powerhouse off-site backup solution to go with it. Last year around this time (it was actually Black Friday morning) I was looking through my Twitter feed and came across a deal that @CrashPlan was featuring were I could get a full 1 year subscription to CrashPlan’s unlimited online backup for one computer. I rushed through the process on my smart phone (this was a Samsung Galaxy SII at the time) and that was it. I was now a technology fanatic that was doing what I knew I should be doing and telling everyone else to do. Backing up to an off-site location.
Remember at the beginning how I said that some people can take backing up to far. I do. Not only do I backup to an external hard drive in my home and to CrashPlan’s cloud solution but I also backup to my brothers spare hard drive in his house and he backs up to my other brother which in turn backs up to a spare hard drive in my house. Did that sound confusing? It doesn’t have to be and was very easy to setup. You see I send the data I care about to my brothers install of CrashPlan using a backup code and through a secured tunnel and encryption in transit as well as being encrypted at rest I am assured that my data is safe. Not only that but my brother can’t even see the data that I am saving to his hard drive. The data is all mine and I am simply borrowing storage space from him to keep my data safe and off-site.
Are you backing up using the rule of three?
Interested in setting something up like this for your self?
Go to: https://www.facebook.com/trustedtechforyou to discuss your needs more with me.
The ioSafe Solo and The Home Server Show Podcast 100th Episode Giveaway
My current set-up when I received the ioSafe was a portable Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus Mini 250GB hard drive. I used this drive to do all of my WHS (Windows Home Server) backups and then I would take the Maxtor hard drive with me to work as my off-site storage solution. I did not have a primary stay-at-home solution for WHS backups. The issue was that although I was fine with taking my backup drive offsite, it was not efficient and 250 GB’s was not enough space for the shared folder content and backup copies of my computers in the house. As I started to search for backup storage options for an external large capacity hard drive, the ioSafe was one that seemed to fit my needs.
In the mean time I was getting myself involved in the WHS community by participating in the Home Server Show forums and Podcast. The HSS podcasts was coming up on the 100th episode and celebrating by hosting a giveaway. I entered, like many others, and to my surprise I checked the giveaway results and had won the iosafe. I could not believe that I had won the product that I had been hoping to get! The ioSafe Solo (YouTube videos).
After the ioSafe Solo 1.5TB Edition had arrived I was eager to get this setup and plugged into my WHS to test it out. Setup was easy and didn’t take more than five minutes to plug in the power cord to my battery backup and the USB cable to my WHS. I went into my WHS console and added the drive as my ‘backup’ hard drive. The drive is much heavier than a Western Digital 1.5 TB external hard drive but the ioSafe Solo has features unparalleled by any other back-up hard drive. The ioSafe Solo is water proof, fire-proof and crush proof. The reason that I brought up my previous backup solution was the fact that I no longer depend on my portable hard drive to provide WHS backups. With the kind of security that the ioSafe provides I am comfortable not having a off-site backup copy of my WHS data. This is saying a lot from a family man who has precious family photos and videos that if lost can’t be recreated.
I have had no issues with the ioSafe and consider myself very lucky to have won the ioSafe Solo 1.5TB. I would like to thank Jim, Dave and John from The Home Server Show and ioSafe for providing the ioSafe Solo for the 100th show giveaway.
Knee Jerk Reaction 