Home users and off-site backups
September 12th, 2006
SANS has a good article on off-site backups for home users that anyone who has data that they don't want to lose should read.
Off-site backup hasn't been an issue for many home users. Perhaps this is because most people haven't assembled enough critical digital data to justify the effort of implementing off-site backup. They haven't even set up an on-site backup scheme. Many home users may never have to deal with off-site backup at all, considering the increasing popularity of free ASP services, such as Gmail, Bloglines, and Shutterfly, which manage data on the customer's behalf.
This is different for data power users, whose livelihood depends on the availability of their information. Freelance photographers, musicians, accountants, writers, programmers, and other professionals who maintain important files at home fall in this category. They have a vested interest in performing off-site backup in some manner, and they often do so.
A related article also worth reading is on NIST. Here they look at an off-site backup service called Carbonite.
The SANS article mentions off-site network-based backups. But the author states that the costs are too high. We thought so too until we came across Carbonite. Carbonite (affiliate link) offers unlimited data backup for only $5 per month (flat fee, no hidden charges). Even for a home user this should be quite reasonable. Backups can be configured to be completely automatic so once installed you don't have to worry about it again. Data is securely encrypted twice, once with your private key and again as it travels over the Internet.
The article also takes a look at the drawbacks of strong encryption such as that offered by TrueCrypt:
Being unbreakable also has its drawbacks. If you forget the password that protects the encryption key, or lose the key file if that is what you choose to use, your data is gone. No one is getting it back for you. You can try to brute force the password until you guess it but if you gave it a strong password and have no idea what it was then you are probably out of luck. If you lost the randomly generated key file there is no probably involved, you are out of luck.
I like proper off-site backup services because it's a simple, no-nonsense way to place your data in a safe location. The problem with off-site backup is that it's getting harder to sell the idea to home users because online services like Gmail of Flickr seem to offer a similar thing (that is, to store your data off-site, only for free) but actually offer nothing of the sort (it isn't a true backup service, they guarantee you nothing - lose your data and you're on your own).
In reality, it doesn't really matter how you backup your data. Tape. CD. DVD. USB flash drive. External hard drive. It's all good. Just remember to back up!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 11:41 and is filed under PC Doctor's Thoughts, PC Doctor's Useful Links. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
