Ghetto > Redundant Hard Drives [Archive]

crackerjax

Jul 5, 2009, 10:32 AM

Just a word of advice to anyone that thinks their data is safe because they back things up to multiple hard drives across multiple rooms. When someone breaks into your house and steals all those hard drives, it doesn't matter how many copies of the data you had.

Good thing is I had some of it back up online, but I lost the last 3 1/2 years of photos. Apparently my youngest son doesn't exist.

Sad thing is they took the digital picutre frames too that had all my home movies (low quality, but better than nothing) in them too.

So anyway, word to the wise, backup hard drives are nothing, optical discs are nothing. Back it up online because you can't stop everything that's attacking your house. Excuse me while I put my house up for sale, I mean foreclose.

-Nick

flopticalcube

Jul 5, 2009, 10:39 AM

That sucks. I had a break-in 3 years ago and they took all our DVDs, including the home-made ones from our camera. Luckily I still had the tapes.

Hellhammer

Jul 5, 2009, 10:41 AM

I'm sorry :( All criminals should get a death penalty or something more cruel than 1 year in prison, something like they do in middle-East, cut thieves hand in public.

robbieduncan

Jul 5, 2009, 10:42 AM

My backups are locked in a safe that is bolted to the floor.

rdowns

Jul 5, 2009, 11:11 AM

My backups are locked in a safe that is bolted to the floor.

What if they steal the safe? or the floor? :confused:

robbieduncan

Jul 5, 2009, 11:16 AM

What if they steal the safe? or the floor? :confused:

It's questions like that that keep me up at night. Which, of course, is good as it helps prevent burglaries.

crackerjax

Jul 5, 2009, 11:17 AM

robbieduncan

Jul 5, 2009, 11:22 AM

No, the safe thing is a very good idea. Are they connected inside the safe, as in plugged in and constantly updated? I was looking for a hard drive safe last time I was broken into but didn't find anything that would work. Buy a normal one and drill into it?

No, I take it out every two weeks, clone to it and then lock it back in the safe. I have a Time Capsule as well for accidental deletes etc. I figure that every couple of weeks is OK: I can live with the small data loss that might happen between backups. The Time Capsule is out of the way so less likely to be stolen, but you never know. I am considering a Kensington lock for it to make it a little more secure...

flopticalcube

Jul 5, 2009, 11:25 AM

Most hard disks have lock slots as well. Not too sure how effective it is if the thief is determined and has sufficient time. It will certainly deter the grab and go type thief, however.

LizKat

Jul 5, 2009, 11:27 AM

What if they steal the safe? or the floor? :confused:

Iron Mountain... if it is worth it.

crackerjax

Jul 5, 2009, 11:44 AM

I have my internal HD mirrored onto an external a few times a week (used to have time machine but it kept failing) and a media drive with a duplicate right next to it, plus a scratch disc for my avchd video. Well, last time I had my backup drive in the closet connected to an old laptop that was rsyncing between the media drive on the mac and the backup drive. They stole the backup drive, left the main alone. Now, I had both backup drives next to eachother since I don't have any more laptops to put in the closet, and they're both gone.

I put up flyers all around the townhouse complex with a $1000 reward but I doubt that will get me anywhere. Hopefully one of the criminals or their friends wants cash more than strangely formatted hard drives without cables.

This looks nice, but uh, outside my budget. I'd have to weld a safe around it though.
https://iosafe.com/4x1TB-NAS-storage-appliance

I'd be happy if I could find a firewire drive but every "safe" drive appears to be USB. How am I going to edit HD video (they left the camera but took all the video) on a USB drive?

TJRiver

Jul 5, 2009, 11:46 AM

dukebound85

Jul 5, 2009, 11:48 AM

i backup for hdd failures, not thievery

robbieduncan

Jul 5, 2009, 11:49 AM

Good ideas in this thread, but does anyone find " Ghetto > Redundant Hard Drives" a touch offensive. Thieves are thieves. The word "Ghetto" has nothing to do with it, and carries an offensive stereotype. Why not "Barrio"? How about "White Trash Trailer Parks"?

It is pretty easy to avoid, simply title the thread accurately, e.g. "Multiple drive backups can't protect against theft".

I'm just saying....................:D

On the otherhand I only clicked on this due to the unusual/almost amusing thread title. I was expecting a picture of a stack of ancient low capacity drives being used for interesting purposes but got this instead :)

bartelby

Jul 5, 2009, 11:50 AM

On the otherhand I only clicked on this due to the unusual/almost amusing thread title. I was expecting a picture of a stack of ancient low capacity drives being used for interesting purposes but got this instead :)

Same here...

I was most disappointed...:(

crackerjax

Jul 5, 2009, 11:54 AM

I don't mean to be offensive with the "ghetto" title, but I really do live in a ghetto. A large majority of the people that live here are black, on welfare, and many are prostitutes and drug dealers. When I asked the homeowner's association why the security gates were left open the said the drug dealers break the gates so their clients can get in more easily.

Besides, ghetto can be white trash as well, or jewish i.e. WWII, but the point is there are people here that society doesn't want to acknowledge, and I am a simple civil servant on one income trying to take care of my family of four and live within my means. So this is what I can afford to live in. Sadly, not buying $1000 of hard drives from the insurance claim isn't going to allow me to double my mortgage and move out of this mess. As my wife and I predicted when we got married, we'd be living in a two room shack in the ghetto, filled with nice toys and shiny gadgets.

dukebound85

Jul 5, 2009, 11:56 AM

why do you choose to live in the ghetto by choice with a family. seems like you could live elsewhere from what you say

i would compromise on the shiny gadgets and move

bartelby

Jul 5, 2009, 12:00 PM

i would compromise on the shiny gadgets and move

I'd have compromised before hand and not moved there in the first place...

crackerjax

Jul 5, 2009, 12:10 PM

At this point we've tried 4 houses in another area but the banks have always had problems selling them, or with the inspections they had broken roofs or broken plumbing. We got an acceptance on the same house 3 times in a year, but banks can't get it done. The real downer is I've lost 75% of the sale price of my house since I bought it 3 years ago. So I'm way upside down, no chance to sell, can only rent at a substantial loss, neighborhood is going to crap, and houses in the price range I can now afford are just as bad an area.
With the wife out of work and at school (epic fail, 1 yr of prerequisites, out of work, and can't get into a nursing program with her 4.0 gpa and double business major because of a community college class she took when she was 16) we've been able to get by. I'm sure its time for her get a job and put the infant in daycare.

Side note, can I foreclose on my current property and not have to go into bankruptcy?

Shuttleworth

Jul 5, 2009, 12:11 PM

The other thing to consider is the possibility of a house fire, most people say the first thing they'd save after the family are the photo's. Photo's on an old HD at a friends house or your workplace is a good idea.

crackpip

Jul 5, 2009, 12:12 PM

crackerjax,

Some advice as you rebuild, you don't have to spend a ton of money to keep your data safe. Just buy a couple of external HD's and get a safe deposit box at a bank. Safe deposit boxes are not that expensive (mine is like $30 per year). You can rotate the drives so that at no time is there a HD that is not in the safe deposit box. The bottom line is that if you want your data to be safe you need a copy that is both offline and stored at a different physical location.

crackpip

Shuttleworth

Jul 5, 2009, 12:14 PM

Side note, can I foreclose on my current property and not have to go into bankruptcy?

Sounds like a housefire might be a good idea in your case:(

crackerjax

Jul 5, 2009, 12:16 PM

Being a firefighter, I think that would be unethical. Considered it though.

ian.maffett

Jul 5, 2009, 12:16 PM

I keep a backup drive in my safety deposit box at the bank. They're ridiculously inexpensive and we all go to the bank often. Drives are so cheap today (compared to the value of our content) that keeping 2 spares with pertinent info on them is easy.

dukebound85

Jul 5, 2009, 12:19 PM

Sounds like a housefire might be a good idea in your case:(

um thats a crime

Cave Man

Jul 5, 2009, 12:37 PM

We have a 500gb hard drive in our safe deposit box at our bank. Pictures, legal & tax documents, etc. I update it once a year.

striatedglutes

Jul 5, 2009, 01:27 PM

(epic fail, 1 yr of prerequisites, out of work, and can't get into a nursing program with her 4.0 gpa and double business major because of a community college class she took when she was 16)

What's that all about?

Also, good tip about the safe deposit boxes, guys.

Shuttleworth

Jul 5, 2009, 02:02 PM

um thats a crime

Where did I say that he should do it deliberately? Why do you immediately see the worst in people? The sad face after the comment made it quite clear I was sorry for him, and that in his current situation, what most would see as misfortune would 'perhaps' be a blessing for him, sounds like he has very few opportunities to escape at the moment.

dukebound85

Jul 5, 2009, 02:59 PM

Sounds like a housefire might be a good idea in your case:(

Where did I say that he should do it deliberately? Why do you immediately see the worst in people? The sad face after the comment made it quite clear I was sorry for him, and that in his current situation, what most would see as misfortune would 'perhaps' be a blessing for him, sounds like he has very few opportunities to escape at the moment.

no one ever plans for a housefire so to even suggest it strongly hints at the deliberation of the act.

my question to you is why would you even suggest that a housefire would be a good idea as opposed to other ideas that dont involve an "accident" to get out of a bad situation...

Shuttleworth

Jul 5, 2009, 03:04 PM

no one ever plans for a housefire so to even suggest it hints at the deliberation of the act
It's really hard to get across in writing, but it was not what I was getting at at all.

dukebound85

Jul 5, 2009, 03:06 PM

It's really hard to get across in writing, but it was not what I was getting at at all.

its ok i know what you mean now that you explained it, just at first it didnt come across that way. damn words

Shuttleworth

Jul 5, 2009, 03:10 PM

my question to you is why would you even suggest that a housefire would be a good idea as opposed to other ideas that dont involve an "accident" to get out of a bad situation...

I had just mentioned housefires in a different context crossing the post with the OP describing how dire his situation is, which is why I mentioned it again. It seemed ironic to me that the thing that I had just mentioned, that nearly everyone would think of as the worst thing in the world, would end up as a means of escape for him.

Shuttleworth

Jul 5, 2009, 03:11 PM

its ok i know what you mean now that you explained it, just at first it didnt come across that way. damn words

:cool:

mark2288

Jul 5, 2009, 03:23 PM

I use Mozy to do remote backups. It's about $4.50 a month and if anything ever happens to my hard drives at home I know my data can be recovered.

dukebound85

Jul 5, 2009, 03:28 PM

I use Mozy to do remote backups. It's about $4.50 a month and if anything ever happens to my hard drives at home I know my data can be recovered.

i have issues with storing personal info on a remote server

an unwanted risk imo

Shuttleworth

Jul 5, 2009, 03:35 PM

Is it possible to set up a NAS drive at a friend/relatives house so you can access it from your computer? If you have to buy a backup drive anyway, this may kill two birds with one stone.

crackerjax

Jul 5, 2009, 05:43 PM

mark228:
I tried mozy but I have like 800gb to backup and it went at like 20kbs. I started backing up to my webserver (unlimited space!) at 50kbs but it didn't finish in time obviously.

Also, at the time I tried before, mozy didn't support external drives and with an iMac and lots of photos/video, external drives are a must. Now, it does support it I read.

dukebound:
photos and video, being my largest data is not so sensitive. My personal files weigh less than 1 gb and I move that between my desktop and laptop, so it was all on the laptop today. No loss, but if they decide to look in RecieptWallet there will be some very critical financial information in there. The user that accesses that has a 16 character password though.

Shuttleworth:
I did that initially with an rsync directly to their IP (my parent's house) but that idea fell apart when I hid the laptop and drive in my linen closet. On the underside of a shelf. Then they stole that. -dammit-

striatedglutes:
RE school issues, she couldn't make more than $10/yr after two business degrees so we decided to put her though nursing, which is so selective that her gpa from going to community college at 16 knocked her out, while they ignored her great 4-year GPA and that shes been getting straight A's in all the med classes. Lost wages, lost time, lost tuition.

tempusfugit

Jul 5, 2009, 05:48 PM

I'm sorry :( All criminals should get a death penalty or something more cruel than 1 year in prison, something like they do in middle-East, cut thieves hand in public.

this from someone from finland? I thought you guys didn't like the death penalty!

Everyone hates crime, and I've been victimized by stealing before and its not fun, but in my case I feel bad for people who have to resort to that B.S.

ADent

Jul 6, 2009, 01:55 AM

We have had two homes completely destroyed due to fire in our neighborhood (one a suicide natural gas explosion (big fireball) and another home improvement project gone bad).

I have thought about running a laptop based USB HD in my safe and running the USB cable out the bottom thru one of the bold holes. Figured it wouldn't get too hot, but I don't have a computer right next to the safe for the USB.

I do have a NAS in the basement. Figure most thieves won't waste time on the crap down there, but it is not hidden or anything.

One day I plan on using Jungle Disk. It is well encrypted, so I feel relatively safe. You pay Amazon for the storage.

A NAS at a relatives home is a pretty good substitute. Need good encryption though.

Michaelgtrusa

Jul 6, 2009, 06:53 AM

Good ideas in this thread, but does anyone find " Ghetto > Redundant Hard Drives" a touch offensive. Thieves are thieves. The word "Ghetto" has nothing to do with it, and carries an offensive stereotype. Why not "Barrio"? How about "White Trash Trailer Parks"?

It is pretty easy to avoid, simply title the thread accurately, e.g. "Multiple drive backups can't protect against theft".

I'm just saying....................:D

Agreed! And the **** with the store shooting has getting out of hand here.