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Any alternative suggestions for air-gapped home PC backup?

pkaye 7y ago
My primary concern is that those small form factor storage media might not be so reliable for backup. I'd be okay with mSATA , SATA or NVMe form factor from a reputable manufacturer. I always use something one generation behind or been out for atleast an year. Let others test the new NAND and firmware.
pjc50 7y ago
How do you airgap a backup?
- everybodyknows 7y ago
  One way is to have a pool of two or three removable flash devices, with only one plugged in at a time, the others in safe places elsewhere. Automate nightly date-stamped copy to the card of just your essential data. At some interval that strikes a balance between convenience and safety, cycle the cards. You'll also need a scheme for pruning older backups to recover storage.
  - pkaye 7y ago
    In that case, understand the SSDs these days don't have great retention specs when not powered. Its one of the drawbacks of using smaller transistors and multi-level cell technology to increase capacity. When powered up they can do a background scan to scrub the data though.
    - wtallis 7y ago
      > understand the SSDs these days don't have great retention specs when not powered. The standard for consumer-grade SSDs is retention of at least a year after the drive is worn out. When the drive has been used only lightly (which is likely to be the case for a backup drive), retention will generally be several times longer. Flash memory is still not a good choice as an archival medium, but it's not like your bits are going to fade away as quickly as a rechargeable battery.
ryacko 7y ago
Boot from a read only device, either DVD-ROM. Copy data through a USB data diode. That is airgapped, but really expensive.
- pnutjam 7y ago
  Get a USB sata drive caddy and mount before backing up, unmount afterwards. Swap the drive.
- anticensor 7y ago
  Is it possible to have a unidirectional USB connection? USB is strictly master-slave.
  - ryacko 7y ago
    Yes, just like how it is possible to firewall a TCP connection. https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/usb-datadiode/ https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/usb-datadiode/
  - rasz 7y ago
    no, OP meant filtering write commands
- rasz 7y ago
  "USB DataDiode" is a brand name of write blocker, all it does is block write(6,10,12) SCSI-commands https://www.os3.nl/_media/2015-2016/courses/ccf/ccf_tom_frank.pdf https://www.os3.nl/_media/2015-2016/courses/ccf/ccf_tom_fran...

My primary concern is that those small form factor storage media might not be so reliable for backup. I'd be okay with mSATA , SATA or NVMe form factor from a reputable manufacturer. I always use something one generation behind or been out for atleast an year. Let others test the new NAND and firmware.

pjc50 7y ago

How do you airgap a backup?

everybodyknows 7y ago
One way is to have a pool of two or three removable flash devices, with only one plugged in at a time, the others in safe places elsewhere. Automate nightly date-stamped copy to the card of just your essential data. At some interval that strikes a balance between convenience and safety, cycle the cards. You'll also need a scheme for pruning older backups to recover storage.
- pkaye 7y ago
  In that case, understand the SSDs these days don't have great retention specs when not powered. Its one of the drawbacks of using smaller transistors and multi-level cell technology to increase capacity. When powered up they can do a background scan to scrub the data though.
  - wtallis 7y ago
    > understand the SSDs these days don't have great retention specs when not powered. The standard for consumer-grade SSDs is retention of at least a year after the drive is worn out. When the drive has been used only lightly (which is likely to be the case for a backup drive), retention will generally be several times longer. Flash memory is still not a good choice as an archival medium, but it's not like your bits are going to fade away as quickly as a rechargeable battery.

ryacko 7y ago

Boot from a read only device, either DVD-ROM. Copy data through a USB data diode. That is airgapped, but really expensive.

pnutjam 7y ago
Get a USB sata drive caddy and mount before backing up, unmount afterwards. Swap the drive.
anticensor 7y ago
Is it possible to have a unidirectional USB connection? USB is strictly master-slave.
- ryacko 7y ago
  Yes, just like how it is possible to firewall a TCP connection. https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/usb-datadiode/ https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/usb-datadiode/
- rasz 7y ago
  no, OP meant filtering write commands
rasz 7y ago
"USB DataDiode" is a brand name of write blocker, all it does is block write(6,10,12) SCSI-commands https://www.os3.nl/_media/2015-2016/courses/ccf/ccf_tom_frank.pdf https://www.os3.nl/_media/2015-2016/courses/ccf/ccf_tom_fran...