[kwlug-disc] Offline/offsite archival data storage

[Paul Nijjar]

I think git-annex could be part of the solution for doing offline
backups without "The Cloud" and without physically rotating drives
(which is problematic for lazy people like me). It does, however,
depend on having a remote place which will give you some internet
access (potentially a friend, if you are lucky enough to have
friends). This remote place does not need to be completely trustable. 

Here's the idea: 

- Store your stuff and register it with git-annex or the
  git-annex-assistant
- Make a small box with some attached hard drives (a raspberry pi
  might do). On your local network, use git-annex to make a copy of
  the data you care about. 
- Make sure that the remote copy is encrypted, and make sure you have
  SSH access to the box (or whatever access git-annex supports)
- Ship the small computer + the drives to your friend
- Now when you check in new items they should be synced to the hard
  drive at your friend's house. 

If your friend also wants offsite backups they could give you a
similar box for your house. 

git-annex-assistant is supposed to make these kinds of backups easy. 

(I should probably give credit for this idea: at the last WWITPro
meeting I learned that this is possible using Windows Storage Spaces
or something, and that the presenters do their offsite backups that
way. So if you want to be a traitor then you may be able to use
Windows as well.) 

- Paul


On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 01:17:38PM -0400, Chris Irwin wrote:
> Myself, I bought two 3TB USB3 drives for $99 each. 3TB of cloud storage
> would cost... more.
> 
> All my data rsync's to it automatically on Sunday. Monday morning I take it
> with me to work, and bring the other drive home, and plug it in. Repeat
> next week. I've always got my most recent backup stored offsite.
> 
> Once you get that working, you can add on other options, like encrypting
> the drive, etc.
> 
> Only problem I've got to worry about is bit-rot on long-storage items (I'm
> not using btrfs yet). Most of that data has been migrated to git-annex now,
> which takes care of detecting and repairing that itself.
> 
> 
> 


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