[How to] Backup policy (Peter Krogh tribute ! ;) )

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There are two kinds of people in the world - those who have had a data storage failure, and those who will.

Peter Krogh (an American photographer) designed the 3-2-1 principle :

  • We recommend keeping 3 copies of any important file (a primary and two backups)
  • We recommend having the files on 2 different media types (…), to protect against different types of hazards.
  • 1 copy should be stored offsite (or at least offline).

I may add :
A. keep as many archive versions as you can (if a data corruption is discovered, one never know when it actually started to corrupt…)
B. if you’re an organization (several people managing the data), ensure that the owner of the offsite backup is different from the backup manager. (usually take the CEO, even if non tech)
Thus, any villain attitude (stopping backups or trying to corrupt everything) becomes complicated.

It’s always very arduous to help one who didn’t backup… And, dunno why, but without backups, I find it highly difficult to commiserate :stuck_out_tongue:

( source in french )

BTW, to backup my OS, I usually use Back In Time (thus rsync) and not deja dup (duplicity).

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Why not Timeshift? I find it much more convenient when it comes to restoring system backups.
For personal data (=your home dir), Back in Time is a very good solution.

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If you’re using one of the Arch family, take a look at “pacback” for the system part. In the (rare) event an update goes bad, or even rarer stupid user trick, you can “snapback” with one command.

I’ve never found Timeshift to be all that reliable anyway, and recovering from an event that kills the system is a colossal pain.

for the /home and personal data backup, command line junkies should try rdiff-backup. Amazing what a little script fu and some intelligently crafted improvements to rsync can accomplish.

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My personal PC use case makes me just want to backup personal data (I found out that if for some reason my install got corrupted, I was better of with a clean install, thus I don’t backup / :wink:

For my sites, apart from my hoster’s tool (R1Soft), I use ftp or the import function of WordPress (I’m not in an “industrial” setup. )

If I’m not alone on the specific site, I send the external copy to whom I work with.

I’m also checking Vorta (Borg)

I’ll check that :wink:

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I use timeshift to backup daily to my second hdd and then deja vous to do a weekly backup to Google drive. Just leave them to do their business and install updates without any real worries

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