BACK UP YOUR DATA NOW

[Punp]

Sorry for the all caps title. My friend just lost a terabyte of work to a drive failure. If you have anything important that needs saving, now is the time to make backups.

What are you using for your backup system?

 

[LostintheCycle]

I think about this every day now that my file collection encompasses three smaller drives of various ages. I swear to myself that someday I will buy a couple disk drives and build the RAID system I dream about, until then my files are beholden to fate.
Buying some cloud space online would be more economical, but I don't particularly want to put my pirated files onto someone elses server.

 

[Ross_Я]

What are you using for your backup system?

Many multiple HDDs. RAIDs are nice and all, but so far I only have money for HDDs.
System discs get an ocassional manual backup. I've decided it was worth doing it since I've lost my system in autumn.
Most HDDs are used as archives, to store movies, games and whatever else. Hopefully one day I will be able to hook it all up to something and open an online access to everything I have. Maybe via DC++. It sucks for big files, but I know some people managed to leech BD-quality movies off me there. And since I own a number of movies from premium trackers, I guess it is worth it.
Each archive disc is duplicated. I keep a copy home and a copy at my parents'. Hopefully this whole system is secure enough to last me a lifetime.

 

[Vitnira]

Every year I back up my media server by buying new hard drives and put the old ones in storage. Whenever I do that I transfer precious photos to the drives (they're normally not on there since it's internet-facing and I'm paranoid) so those are backed up too. I've thought about doing RAID or mirroring but with how much data I'm working with (~16TB) it'd be a PITA. Since I replace them every year now I consider it unlikely, the system is now split between two drives (divided on content type), and the cold storage method makes the backup more robust against a rogue hacker somehow getting in and deleting everything.

Since the photo collection is small enough I also keep it on a 1TB drive. For day-to-day phone photo backup I've set up Syncthing between my phone and computer.

Not an ad but I (US/Florida) buy certified refurbished drives through serverpartdeals. It's worked well for me. The shipping is obviously fast for me but it's a good deal for other Americans.

 

[handoferis]

I think about this every day now that my file collection encompasses three smaller drives of various ages. I swear to myself that someday I will buy a couple disk drives and build the RAID system I dream about, until then my files are beholden to fate.
Buying some cloud space online would be more economical, but I don't particularly want to put my pirated files onto someone elses server.

As far as my media server goes, I basically back up nothing apart from file listings for each drive, and multiple redundant copies of things that were hard to find. If it took more work than pressing button in sonarr or radarr, it gets backed up. Every time I have a drive failure I just pull everything back in from the "public cloud". It takes a few days to recover everything, but if it's well automated you barely need to pay attention.

 

[Punp]

As far as my media server goes, I basically back up nothing apart from file listings for each drive, and multiple redundant copies of things that were hard to find. If it took more work than pressing button in sonarr or radarr, it gets backed up. Every time I have a drive failure I just pull everything back in from the "public cloud". It takes a few days to recover everything, but if it's well automated you barely need to pay attention.

Is there an easy way to get a file listing? I have the same sort of setup with my media and a drive fault almost lost it all last week.

 

[garret 427738]

I backup the rare/unreplacable media i have to a friend's home server fairly regularly, usually at the same time i pull in more

It'll be an absolute pain to get back if my main copy does die, but it gives me some peace of mind at least
I've thought about other copies on my own drives or cloud etc, but that's expensive so it goes in the eternal Soon™ pile
Some of it I upload to the Internet Archive, but that requires some degree of curation/effort so I only do it for a few things.

but yes if there's something you've made or done or even just like, SAVE IT, you can't rely on the powers that be to keep it around for you

or even the non-powers that don't be (independent/smaller stuff)
i found an album I liked, but i couldn't buy it at that time, so I ripped it from the stream on the purchase page. later i come back with money, it is nowhere to be found. i email the band, and it turns out they broke up, so they're not selling it any more
so the copy I ripped is AFAIK the only way I can listen to it

save your shit

 

[Punp]

so the copy I ripped is AFAIK the only way I can listen to it

I'm constantly finding media which becomes part of my vernacular for describing things and then it's just gone. Either swallowed into a shit search algo or removed. My media folder grows more every day.

 

[№56]

I've always wanted to set up a home server but have no idea where to start, any tutorials/guides you guys know about would be appreciated.

 

[handoferis]

Is there an easy way to get a file listing? I have the same sort of setup with my media and a drive fault almost lost it all last week.

ls -lR > filelist.txt

 

[whiteVHS]

I update my system once every week, but before I do that I run a backupsync script I wrote that pulls all my important folders and makes two copies of them - one on my secondary internal drive and one on an external drive (which I usually keep unplugged otherwise). Of course it only writes new files or files that have been modified to reduce time/disk usage. I also have a couple encrypted USB flash drives with very important files on them. In the future I would like to get a better external drive, but for now the system I have works.

 

[Ross_Я]

i found an album I liked, but i couldn't buy it at that time, so I ripped it from the stream on the purchase page. later i come back with money, it is nowhere to be found. i email the band, and it turns out they broke up, so they're not selling it any more
so the copy I ripped is AFAIK the only way I can listen to it

Share?

I've always wanted to set up a home server but have no idea where to start, any tutorials/guides you guys know about would be appreciated.

A bit too vague. What kind of a server? What exactly are you having troubles with?

Is there an easy way to get a file listing? I have the same sort of setup with my media and a drive fault almost lost it all last week.

I think it's been answered, but in case you are on Windows...
dir /s > list.txt
You may want to throw in /b there as well.

 

[Punp]

You may want to throw in /b there as well.

Where does the /b go?

 

[ビンス]

I have a weekly Macrium Reflect image which is backed up to my TrueNAS server with a 2 drive mirror with daily SMART tests. It's probably not the worlds most flawproof system but I trust it. I also have an SMB share that I try to work out of and keep my important files on.

My mom chose "Catgirl" as our SSID a long time ago when I was little so I when I redid our network recently after buying new hardware I named everything after breeds of cats. The NAS server is Snowshoe, the router is Calico, the switch is Tabby, etc.

 

[Vitnira]

Is there an easy way to get a file listing? I have the same sort of setup with my media and a drive fault almost lost it all last week.

On linux I'd do "find . -type f > dir.txt"
That will list all files in a directory and subdirectory and writes it to a file. Breaking it down:
find . (finds everything in current directory and subdirectories)
-type f (finds only files)
> dir.txt (pipes the output of find to a file named dir.txt)

 

[Ross_Я]

Where does the /b go?

Either
dir /b /s > list.txt
or
dir /s /b > list.txt
Doesn't really matter, as far as I remember. There are also tons of other keys for dir command, if you are interested.

dir

Reference article for the dir command, which displays a list of a directory's files and subdirectories.

learn.microsoft.com

It's one of the commands I use somewhat routinely, it's a very nice and handy way to create lists of files on my archive drives.

 

[dargon]

usually I don't consider my data that relevant but if I do someday I def would want to have those 50 TB magnetic tapes/aka VHS 2.0

 

[garret 427738]

Share?

sure, why not

View: https://archive.org/details/nnmie-band-shiranai-parade

 

[CopiumDen]

Having been through 2 big data losses, I've made myself a backup solution of sorts throughout the years. RAID 1 setup for media center, archived/eternally pending stuff on a cold storage HDD.
Plus some external hdd's which I try to keep fairly parallel in contents. Some automation for making copies of new configurations. Could always use more capacity, especially chances to clone a few OS's, just can't afford more for now.

 

[Regal]

I keep my shit simple. OneDrive automatically backs up the files that are frequently being updated (mainly Obsidian). On top of that I plug in a USB drive every so often and copy files over. That drive goes into a closet where it is safe from ransomware, etc. Someday I'll care enough to get a firesafe so that it is safe from fires too. This onsite + offsite backup model covers me under all circumstances and requires no significant time/money investment.

This is just what makes sense for how I use computers though. If I was running a media server or something I would approach things differently.