I'm trying to find out a good method to backup, protect, and archive some data that has been sitting on my computer for a while, not being used and taking up space.

I've got a "my documents" folder that has every assignment, homework, project, email, and financial statement that I've saved since I was in the 8th grade all the way through graduating at NCSU. Now that I've completed my undergraduate studies, I think it's time that I backup this data for the long-term, so I can start deleting some of the stuff I haven't touched in 5 or 6 years (I'll probably still keep some NCSU stuff on my computer for reference).

One of my biggest fears is losing the data, which is why I always keep a copy on my computer, and routinely make backups to a computer I have setup as a fileserver. I also would like for this data to be encrypted to some extent, because I have a lot of personal information that I wouldn't want some average Joe to look at if anyone were to somehow get access to it.

I know that DVDs are usually frowned upon by a lot of people for long-term storage because the dye in them can degrade over time, and that most will recommend tape backup. I don't have one of those, but would consider getting one sometime.

For the time being, here's what I was thinking about doing. I have been using a program called TrueCrypt for a while to create an encrypted file container on my computer to keep a lot of my "personal" stuff in. I was thinking about creating another container to copy my files into, and burn that onto a disc. Another advantage I see of doing this would be that all of my data would be in one giant file, making it easy for me to restore the entire archive (now at 2.1GB in size) if I ever needed to, provided that I don't ever forget the encryption key

That would solve the problem of snooping eyes. Now, for the problem of DVD degradation over time, I did some research on data recovery, and stumbled on a program called QuickPar which uses error-correcting code to help you reconstruct your data if any sectors go bad. It generates a whole bunch of .PAR2 files, that I would throw on the DVD as well to help recover data if it ever goes bad.

That's the method that I came up with, and when I step back and look at it, it looks like complete overkill and that I'm a paranoid sonofabitch. So that's why I'm asking here to see what you guys do to backup, archive, and protect your data.

Thanks

- Joe

10/30/2006 10:31:30 AM

Do you have a thinkpad? The backup software on those are pretty helpful.

In terms of media, you can purchase "Archival grade" optical media and those should last longer than you.

http://memorex.com/html/products_detail.php?section=1&SID=6&PID=1053&FID=166&opento=3

Up to 100 years enough for you? Assuming that's optimistic, how's 20 or 30 years?

I would not reccomend compressing or encrypting your data if it's not that sensitive for a couple reasons. First, making it one big file increases the chances of not being able to recover it if whatever you store it on degrades. If part (or enough) of the file is on a degraded section of the media, the whole archive is likely to be lost. If you store individual files you're much more likely to be able to restore some of them at least. Putting it in one folder for ease of management however is not a bad idea, as long as it does not constitute a single compressed/ecnrypted archive. Second, if you lose the encryption key you'll have a harder time recovering your information.

If you want a backup to last a long time, I recomend the archival grade media and uncompressed non-ecnrypted files.

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 10:56 AM. Reason : ]

10/30/2006 10:53:05 AM

Quote :

"First, making it one big file increases the chances of not being able to recover it if whatever you store it on degrades. If part (or enough) of the file is on a degraded section of the media, the whole archive is likely to be lost. "

Not true, it all depends on what kind of compression you use. Multi-volume rar with parity files is a good example of this.

10/30/2006 11:13:55 AM

woah, that's awesome. I've never heard of archive grade media, and it isn't too expensive either ($4/disc)

100 years is cool, but like you said, it's probably 20-30, which is more than enough... More than likely, if I care about keeping the data, I'll have to make sure that I can pull it off the disc and then transfer it to whatever newer storage technologies come out in the future

^ I didn't think of breaking it up the huge encrypted volume into RAR files, and then using parity files for that...

10/30/2006 11:14:31 AM

you can implement a couple different methods, one is to image your drive, then backup that image on backup media (external drive / dvd)... another is to backup just what you need, for that you can use something like WinBackup ( http://www.backupanswers.com/freewinbackup/ ) which is free, does incremental backups, encryption, etc...

also if you burn dvd's burn them at 1x speed for maximum longevity.

10/30/2006 11:14:31 AM

i simply use winrar and create (as Noen suggested) a multi-volume backup...backing up ~400GB, using high compression with encryption, and breaking the files into 635mb parts (so that 7 will fit on a standard dvd in a pinch), it takes about 15 hours when writing to an external USB hd...i've never played with the settings, but IIRC, winrar has an option that allows you to essentially do an incremental backup

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 11:38 AM. Reason : usb]

10/30/2006 11:36:25 AM

how do you schedule winrar to backup?

10/30/2006 11:43:44 AM

to my knowledge, you don't

but as i'm gone for a full weekend each month, that's when i do the backup...i suppose if my HDs died in between backups, i'd be in trouble, but i'm not that worried about it

though, if i could find backup software that would essentially do the same thing (i could do without the compression, but i like the encryption and multi-volume options) and let me schedule backups, i'd probably purchase it

i hate norton ghost, btw

10/30/2006 11:47:35 AM

acronis trueimage

10/30/2006 12:56:39 PM

^look at winbackup, it does spanning+encryption+scheduling, etc... and it's free

10/30/2006 1:25:59 PM

acronis trueimage is by far my favorite backup software. you can image a 25gb of data in under 8 minutes (in my experience) anytime i've retored a drive image its always worked beautifully.

an older copy of ghost (8.0 and before) will work well too. just boot to the ghost floppy and image your drive. if you can't find a copy ask around, most people have it laying around.



and i wouldn't want to depend on optical media for my archived data...no matter how the media is advertised. just get a hard drive for cheap and put everything on there (at the min: all your files, the max all your files + an trueimage/ghost image)

Quote :

"I would not reccomend compressing or encrypting your data if it's not that sensitive for a couple reasons...."

i agree, i like to keep things simple whenever possible.

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 2:14 PM. Reason : ]

10/30/2006 2:09:18 PM

That PAR2 Parity file stuff is pretty amazing. I've been playing around with it a bit, and have intentionally been corrupting and deleted some of the RAR files and even some of the .par2 files. Every time, it recovers 100% of the corrupted data.

Pretty cool stuff

10/31/2006 1:56:50 PM