Chucking the home desktop

[David Harrington]

Hi everyone,

I'm considering moving away from a home desktop system - a first for me since the days of i386 processors. I have a nice laptop that I will continue to use but I've noticed that over the last year I simply don't bother to sit at my desktop and its array of screens. I might be nice gaining that extra space in my place...

But I need to decide what to do with my 1.5tb of data. I don't want to "lose" it obviously, even though 99% could probably go away and I wouldn't notice. But my laptop doesn't have the disk space to house it.

Now I do have Crashplan for data backup. Inasmuch that service might act as an archive, it really isn't for that.

My first instinct is to buy a 2tb NAS drive and move all my data to it. If I can then mount it as a drive letter on my laptop, Crashplan will back it up providing the redundancy I want.

My concern is I have had a NAS fail me before and the "out of sight, out of mind" nature with devices such as this means when it dies I probably won't notice either. My previous NAS predates my online Crashplan cloud so I probably would be safe anyway.

So the point of this email is to inquire about a true online cloud archive for home use. Anyone have any particular service to recommend? An archive (to me) means I don't have the data at all locally with me. It is only in the cloud and that service provides the redundancy in their system.

[cadtag]

Cloud services are practically by definition not 'archival'. Archival media has to be rated for decades or centuries. Cloud providers have extremely short track records, no guarantee of reliability, and are subject at any moment to being shutdown by forces out of your control. (See MegaUpLoad - one of the original providers of online storage and backup). I find it illogical to expect reliability or redundancy in providers who disclaim all responsibility.

That said, cloud is nice for anything you're willing to lose, but want to be able to access easily from anywhere (until you can't that is).

For a couple of terabytes of data, I'd get an eSata/USB3 hard drive dock, and just drop some bare drives into it to copy off the old machine. if the information really matters, get two bare drives, and copy onto them both, then put one in a drawer. The metal around the magnetic media should protect it from anything except a really strong magnet, and keep it readable for at least a decade.

For long term archiving, at the millennium mark, look at MDisc Blu-ray. 25Gb rated for over one thousand year life.

[David Harrington]

Thanks for the reply.

After writing that post I did some more reading and somewhat see you point now.

My thing is I want to be protected against theft, damage, and/or fire.

So the only sure fire way is to have a wireless NAS that I mount as a drive and let crashplan back it up. Then I have the local data and the cloud back up of it. If either goes bye-bye, I have the other.

For the NAS I think I would do a mirror pair of HD rather than a high raid level with hot swappable drives. I just don't need the speed or the 100% up time.

[rkmcswain]

if the information really matters, get two bare drives, and copy onto them both, then put one in a drawer.

Or take the second drive to your office, or a relatives house, etc.
This greatly reduces the chances of both disks being destroyed by the same theft/fire.

[cadtag]

what's the monthly/annual cost with that provider for a terabyte and a half? How long would it take to pay for a portable drive or docking station/naked drive at their cost?

RK's got a good suggestion for off-site,

[David Harrington]

I think my crashplan subscription is $60/year.

The thing with portables is that I have had my share of them fail me. I am hoping with a better drive I get longer life.

I also want something I put somewhere in the house that will be hidden.

I also have need for the data to be available and updatable as I add data. Putting in a drawer wouldn't work for me in this case.