Don't Lose Your Data Like a Dummy

In this episode, we discuss the 3-2-1 backup method and why your data is probably at risk.

Let's face it: backing up data is boring. But nothing is more devastating than losing family photos, important work reports, school essays, and more. The good thing is that data loss is 100% avoidable and it's always human error. While computers can fail, drives can be corrupted, homes can burn down, and more, properly backing up using the 3-2-1 method ensures your data will live far longer than you. From Blu-ray, to LTO, to cloud storage, and more... there are a lot of very affordable (and very expensive) ways to backup and archive your data shown in this episode and by the end of it, you'll have a good idea of what you need to do to save your own stuff!

[linuxgeex]

If you care about your data, don't burn at maximum speed. Drives lean into the error-correcting codes to offset the lower recording accuracy at higher speeds. If you want to still have your data in 20 years, write at 2x. Also, store them in a cool, dry, dark place. Sunlight is really bad for optical media. Constant temperature changes can also cause de-lamination, so you really don't want to leave your stack of backups near a heat source. Computer tower, heater, black storage case that may get left by a window...

[HoldandModify]

Back in 1999. My apt got broken in to. They grabbed my brand new 21” CRT, my gaming rig, my secondary gaming rig, my DVD player, my 32” TV. But here’s the thing. They took the time to EJECT my JAZ cartridge in my second PC and leave it on the table. The JAZ cartridge was labeled “My Files”

Because of that, I still have some of my oldest most cherished data to this day.

[mitchellsmith]

At 12:25, it appears that Acronis gave Quinn 5 TB of included storage for his backups…but the $50 a year version includes no online storage. It also only backs up one computer. If you want 5 TB, Acronis is $285 a year. So…WTH?

[Niei]

Colleague: hey I have this HDD with my whole life's digital pictures on it. It's my backup but it broke down. Can you repair it?
Me: sure man! Glad you have a backup so you haven't lost anything if this doesn't work.
Colleague: But this is all I have!....
Me: but you said it was a backup!
Colleague: Yeah I put all on that drive and stored it in a safe place! My backup!
Me: Oh dear...

[Crusader]

It's always difficult to give a broad information video when you've got a sponsor urging you to hit their talking points and make their product seem good but I feel you threaded the needle well. Didn't feel any different than any other snazzy labs video. Much better than that gimbal webcam video from last year.

[vmatt]

Oh man, I love your videos but having a video with the subject being directly related to the sponsor is.... eh.

[BCProgramming]

Another thing is that if you lose a primary copy you want to create extra backups, not just switch to the backup as your primary. I lost 3-4 years of my personal programming projects waaay back in around 2007 or so. There were backups but they managed to all get destroyed due to a comedy of errors. Primary copy on the flash drive was lost when the drive got corrupted and truncated every file to 4K. I was able to get all the other parts via chkdsk files but realistically I wasn't going to be reassembling those files. Second copy of the data was lost while trying to fix the Flash Drive because I somehow managed to delete the wrong partition. And the final copy on another hard drive got lost when I accidentally injected CD Burner firmware into it instead of the CD Burner.

[Niei]

BD-R is NOT a format you want to use for archiving
I've learned this when working at an advertising agency where I was doing daily backups which I stored in a huge heavy fireproof safe.
Guess what?
3 years later: read errors all over the place.

[synthoelectro]

learned my lesson in 2001 to back up everything to disc, CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and ext USB drives. Not the cloud.

[joshpayne]

I use only MDISC media because (allegedly) its longevity far exceeds media that uses either organic or inorganic dye. If you don't use MDISC discs, you should check out whether the media you are using has organic or inorganic dye and choose the one that won't fade in just a couple of years, making your backups useless and unreadable.... I use a simple USB 3.0 portable BluRay writer just like the one Quinn shows in the video, it's pretty quick and I keep the burned discs in one of those CD binders like you would have used with your home theatre DVD movies.

[PlanetLinuxChannel]

If you think a NAS could be useful for you, it can actually handle a couple of those points. I use a Synology NAS (The 4-bay version of what you showed) both to story my files in a sort of personal cloud that I can access anywhere as well as to backup my entire computers to (Time Machine Mac backup and the Synology Active Backup app on Windows PC). Backup number 1 done! And being a NAS with multiple drives, it also has that disk redundancy.

I then have the NAS configured so that whenever I plug a specific USB hard drive into it, it automatically copies my most important data to it as a differential backup, so I always have another copy of the most vital data that I can share in a lock box until it’s needed.

[crafters]

One big Problem with LTO Tapes is that the read/write heads can become dislodged meaning only the device that wrote the tape can read it and only if it is already dislodged too. Getting a second tape drove for checking is prohibitively expensive and just makes it even more unpractical for home use that it already is

[ginobonetti]

LTO Tape is really cheap for what you get in terms of capacity. But, wow, those tape drives are expensive…😱

[SaraBearRawr]

One addendum to using SSDs, especially if the use-case is for archival storage: because flash memory is dependent on a stored electrical charge to retain information, they do need to be periodically powered on to retain data. This isn't as common an issue now as it was on earlier lower quality flash memory, but It's still enough of a concern that I would recommend anyone using an SSD as an archive drive to access the drive annually as a precaution.

According to testing performed by IBM, Samsung, Micron, etc, most higher end MLC drives theoretically may be able to hold their charge for around 10 years but TLC and QLC drives cut that theoretical time drastically. This in no way means that flash is too unstable, there are many times that I've found an old flash drive that I've not touched in years only to find the files still perfectly intact, but the chance is still there and should be considered if long-term archival use with flash media is being considered.

Mechanical HDD also run the risk of losing some of their magnetism over time which can lead to data corruption or loss but this may be upwards of 20 years for modern drives manufactured by reputable brands, especially if those drives are designed with archival in mind and designed for long term archival storage. Also, unlike flash where once the charge on a flash cell degrades that bit is gone forever, for HDDs its generally a gradual weakening of the magnetic field which means if the data is really crucial following magnetic degradation, it may be possible for some data recovery firms to recover that data by transplanting the platter to a machine that can read weaker magnetic fields.

[davidg]

7:59 Those brilliant engineers at LG figured out how to make the cupholder useful for backing up data!
Seriously, though, "Ain't nobody want your blu-ray" is why I don't like the single-write optical backup idea. Even the recycling centers don't want them because they don't have a plastic resin ID code. They're just plastic waste. It would be nice if you could simply drop them into a blue bin after scraping away some substrate and breaking the disc in half (a secure enough destruction for the average person, since it makes the disc unreadable to anyone without access to forensic level data recovery hardware).

[jakobfindlay]

You make a very fair point about no one wants to steal your stack of disks but basically anything else would be stolen

[hikkamorii]

One thing I really like about backing up to a BD-REs is the fact that you don't need to spend lots of money upfront, or lots of money if you run out of space. That's why I used to back up my data to DVDs back when I was a broke teenager.

[liameneuk]

For Acronis, if you encrypt your backup to be stored on an external media, are you required to be in a valid subscription when you need to decrypt the backup files after, say, 10 years?

[teohyc]

Is Bluray really dependable? I'm asking because I used to backup to CDs and over years have read error for several disks. Not sure how much more reliable Bluray is compared to CDs

[miklanglo]

Now this is what I call a 20 minute ad

I mean, the guy even brings up backup in cd disk like if it’s nothing xD