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On 14/03/15 22:16, Eion MacDonald wrote: > Dear folk, 20150314 2115 > Some answers: > > Back up of documents: say two machines documents about 120Gb each plus > one machine by 50Gb total, > with a small subset of documents that must be held long term**. > > Electronically all must be kept for 7 years and some for 15 years due > financial transactions (bank guarantees, contract documents, letters of > credit etc.) > .. I hold printed copies at firm I work at, and they hold electronic > backups in USA/UK/Cz, but these are only 'final copies'. > > ** The 40 year legal requirement documents I hold as hard copies, but > that is only a few documents, say a couple of dozen pages A4 or letter. > > Arbitration and legal shoots outs need logic and working copies stage > by stage, these are on my machines and on my external hard discs and > previously on the WD machine as working copy. > > My copies are in case of a legal shoot out with the company I contract > to. I do not want to lose a (say 5 million GBP) Professional Indemnity > suit. My insurance costs would go up! > Example: I refused to sanction or accept a contract wording. However by > underhand methods the sales guy [desperate for reward or?] engaged the > company to a Russian Client with real bad terms. My back ups showed I > had not sanctioned the wording or bank guarantee wordings, my work > machine showed same but a legal department had hard 'signed' copy > showing contract sanctioned and accepted. (Umm! don't ask!) Losses now > in multi millions to date. Russian work is not easy. > So I exercise a degree of caution. > > Of the work machines at home, all have both MS Windows 7 and 'MS > Outlook' and Linux installed one as dual boot and two as virtual > machines. > My client company is 'tied' to MS outlook as main communications tool > (upgrading slowly from XP to windows 7 over 4500 seats!) thus my use as > MS Outlook 'winmail.dat' forwarding does not render well in Thunderbird. > I can segregate out but easier to use MS Outlook to save the forwarded > attachments to my computer documents, while replying from Thunderbird. > > In reality, I have separate 'images' of machines monthly in case of hard > disc failure inside machines. > This also saves fixed date documents etc. > > However I found the WD type disc useful as a second line back up while > working on documents. > Remote access was available but never used. I would not set up remote > access over internet up again. > As my 'paid work' is inside MS OSs that is where for accessibility I > would want main document working back ups to link to. I connected the WD > to a spare ethernet connection on my BTHomeHub 3 and it was usable. > > Linux machines are on OpenSUSE 13.2 as OS. > Knoppix as live USB and DVD > PS my introduction to Linux was use of Knoppix from floppy discs on > Soviet computers to get a workable system I could use when in Soviet > establishments, so I have a 'soft spot' for Knoppix. > > WD state. > " Were you able to retrieve the info >> from the failed WD by the way, or is it totalled?" > No data recovered via Knoppix. No 'handshake' with GParted in or out of > case when stripped. Disc rotated. > I have other backups (and the source machines still) so can be reproduced. > > Sorry, long and rambling but gives you background. > Wow, your job sounds pretty interesting - sort of thing that would make a good conversation in the pub; "You do what?!" Long story short, Simon was pretty much right: set up a VM, install Linux and use backuppc or a bunch of homecooked rsync scripts and you'll have rotated automated backups of all your stuff. Test the restore functionality before settling on anything: all backup solutions are only as good as their ability to actually restore your files when needed. If you have the space, time and patience forget clonezilla and all that crap: boot your system(s) from a live USB/PXE environment and attach some storage. dd if=/dev/sda of=/my/storage/device/backup.dd bs=4096 I do this for the main boot drives of my most critical system every now and then when I get around to it. I have a fully automated incremental backup system running anyway, but nothing beats a full disk dump of an entirely functional OS. Except hypervisor based snapshots or ZFS send/receive. Or snapshotting LUN targets on the SAN. I'm going to guess that's probably a bit too heavy duty for most home usage though. Consider WORM storage for all your legally mandated storage retention obligations: I use a Plan9 box with Venti for exactly (and solely) the same purpose. http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/venti/venti.html Lastly, considering that your "paid work is inside MS OSs" move them to VMs on your main Linux instance, and then just make sure your entire physical host is backed up, VMs and all. Power it down once a week and do a manual dd copy of your hard drives if necessary: it's amateur, but it works. Just remember, test, test and test again. All backup systems suck, so just settle on the one that sucks least and works best for you. Did I mention that you should test it? Cheers Sat Mar 14 22:56:16 GMT 2015 -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq