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An Ounce of Prevention
Posted by RADAR on January 8, 2013 at 1:10 amMy buddy is a general contractor and his office was broke into over the weekend. They cut the screen, broke the glass and unlocked the door.
They took his computers, monitors, printers and back up drives; his company bank book, checks and some tools he had there. They dumped his full garbage can out on his stoop andfilled it withhis stuff.
He was going to take the accounting information off of his computer and give it to his book keeper today, now it’s gone.
If somebody stole all of the computer gear from my office, I’d be screwed too. I’d also lose all of my drawings and stuff.
Do you have off-site electronic storage? Do you have any advice, for someone that doesn’t?
TIA
Radar
Wendell replied 11 years, 4 months ago 12 Members · 14 Replies- 14 Replies
Damn, that is bad!
My backup hard drive is mounted with steel strapping to the underside of my desk. They could get it if they brought a torx screwdriver without too much trouble. But in a smash and grab, I doubt they would even realize it was there. I am synching cad work on dropbox, it’s good but not automatic. You just drag your cad folder onto the dropbox icon and it syncs it up.
How about a dash of electric shock from a fencer from an electric fence system ?
Strategically placed of course so as to not erase any data.
YOS
DGG
Yes.
Backups.
For me I have three types of data that needs to be backed up from a variety of different machines.“Normal” hard drive data (System, docs, users, etc)
“Dropbox” data – work related generally
“Heavy” data – work related, but huge datasets. Typically several TB.Normal -> All machines backup via time machine to NAS. No critical data here so generally not backed up off site. (Approx 2-3 copies)
Dropbox -> This is critical data. Synced to dropbox and about half a dozen computers, including some offsite. All machines backed up via Time Machine both on and off site. Dropbox folder on the server is also backed up via a different method (Chronosync) to the NAS and to the server’s second drive. (Approx 12 copies)
Heavy data -> Regular backups (Chronosync) to archive drive and to the NAS, and offsite via 2TB drives in rotation. When they get full we’ll switch to 4TB drives. (4 – 5 copies floating around).
Preferred recovery method.
If the hard drive has died, then generally I’d just pull the drive and restore from Time Machine. Drive failures are usually obvious IMO.
If it’s just a machine acting sick then.
First option – use recovery partition.
Second option – I’d use would be to boot the machine from a different machine using target disk mode.
If that’s not an option, then I’d go for an external 2.5″ drive as I have a few of them and they can just be plugged straight into a Seagate Goflex Adaptor.
Finally I’d go for the USB boot.That should do it.
Feel free to post thoughts, or as suggested, your own preferred solutions.
Updated: Forgot to mention – The Server is also backed up to Carbonite in the cloud.
What about in case of a fire?
Offsite is a must, in my opinion. Dropbox, Carbonite, Jungle Disk, et al — some are more robust than others (I favor Jungle Disk), but the important thing is getting your data offsite. That way you’re covered for fire and theft as well as drive crash.
Photographs too
By coincidence, today is the day I’m going to photograph everything inside and outside the house, in detail. Drawers open, drawers closed, every closet, every surface, every room, multiple photographs. Then I’m going to burn the photos to archival CDs and send them to my daughters for storage. Anything happens, I can prove what we had and need to replace.
We back all our data up nightly to a secure offsite server. I couldn’t imagine losing all of our data. The hardware is easy to replace….data…not so much.
I have one of those automatic drives hooked to my computer, and an identical one that I keep at my father in laws house who lives nearby, and I try to remember to switch them out every few weeks.
Radar – I have a neice in Puyallup that is a CPA. She and her partner work with businesses. She might be able to give you some good advice. Her name is Evelyn Dufford and her phone is 253 770-4112. Seems you never think about these things until it happens to someone you know.
I use a local computer shop that has an offsite backup service that costs a few hundred bucks a year. Had Carbonite but was never thrilled with not knowing where my data was getting backed up to. Now if I have an issue with my backup or files, I call the owner on his cell and get a quick solution. The idea of taking photos of all your hardware is a great idea, one I’d never thought of.
Wes
The photo project
I documented every detail today with 376 photos, inside, outside, on the roof, every room, every drawer, every closet. I’ve burned three archival quality DVDs which I will distribute to family members across the country, just in case of a catastrophe, so we can prove what we did own.
We are not big on accumulating stuff, but for two people who aren’t big on accumulating stuff we sure have a lot of stuff. And we desperately need to throw out some of that stuff we will never use or look at again, and nobody could possibly ever want. The photos also show the electronic equipment under my desk could use a dusting…
Tomorrow I will bite the bullet and drag one trash barrel and one recycle barrel into the house and start. The two north “storage rooms” are a fire trap, not to mention a disgrace. Sigh.
The photo project
> a fire trap, not to mention a disgrace.
Not sure if that better describes my office, or my garage. Probably both.
Actually, it would be automatic if you managed all of your projects within the Dropbox folder. Every time you saved the file, it would synchronize. 🙂
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