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"Offline storage is important if you care about things like ransomware." There are other solutions to this problem. Specifically, if your cloud storage provid

by rsync 6y ago

"Offline storage is important if you care about things like ransomware." There are other solutions to this problem. Specifically, if your cloud storage provider performs zfs snapshots for you, those snapshots are immutable and cannot be altered, or destroyed, by the user login: https://www.rsync.net/products/ransomware.html https://www.rsync.net/products/ransomware.html I'm sure there are similar mechanisms available in S3 and other cloud storage implementations (albeit, perhaps not using ZFS).

greedo 6y ago
Both AWS Glacier and S3 Object Lock are immutable.
sukilot 6y ago
What happens if a customer wants to delete their backup? Do you require a phone call or something? 30day grace period?
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  If you need to reliably delete any data, encrypt it before uploading and wipe key.
  - LadyCailin 6y ago
    That doesn’t delete the data, just makes it unusable until the encryption algorithm is broken. Which will certainly be a while, but not forever.
    - userbinator 6y ago
      But [1] will the data be worth anything and [2] will you still exist when/if it is broken? I suspect there's a not-insignificant number of people out there who are glad they didn't make the encryption on their old data very strong (and likewise, those who regret having used very strong encryption and lost the key.)
    - AnonC 6y ago
      TL;DR Encrypting is still better than not encrypting Normal delete operations on common file systems don't wipe the stored data with zeros or random data either. They just mark the space as unused and make the directory entries invisible. Any tool that can read the disks directly can see the data even after it's deleted (though it may have trouble constructing it back depending on fragmentation of the data before deletion and the reuse of the freed up space). There are "undelete" tools available for different file systems that can try to recover your data after deletion (some additional conditions apply). For cloud based backup providers, I doubt if any of those would spend time and energy wiping your data areas clean just because you deleted the data or asked for it to be deleted (since storage is also shared across customers, wiping clean your data would have a negative impact on other customers' data access speed too). They would just let the OS do its job, which would be what's described above. You can run free tools to wipe a magnetic hard drive with zeros, run multiple passes, etc. With SSDs, that's not reliable because of the additional abstractions used and presented by the controller to the OS.
    - vbezhenar 6y ago
      > Which will certainly be a while, but not forever. You can't really prove that. There are physical limits of computation improvements.
      - gpm 6y ago
        He can't, but we also lack a proof that any of encryption is at all computationally hard to decrypt, so to err on the side of caution you should assume it.
        rsync 6y ago
        We know, provably, that (properly implemented) one time pads are perfectly secure and will remain so forever.
- rsync 6y ago
  You can always delete the data in the root of your account - the base of the rsync.net filesystem that you interact with. You don't need us for that. But yes, if you wanted to also delete snapshots within your .zfs/snapshot then you would need to call or email us. Our support folks would be happy to help with that.
aloknnikhil 6y ago
If you use a Mac, you can create an encrypted HFS disk overlaid on top of another filesystem that TimeMachine can then back up to. Depending on the size of the disk and frequency of the backup, you can keep snapshots that are as long as a year old. You can then take nightly backups of the disk (which is literally just a folder) and store it on a cloud provider or any remote storage. I've been doing this for the past year or so and it's been flawless.
throwaway9d0291 6y ago
That solution is an order of magnitude more expensive, so isn't really a viable alternative. For say 200TB of backup over 5 years: Rsync.net: $0.015/GB/month [0] * 200000GB * 60 months = $180000 LTO-8: $3600 for a drive [1], $5000 for 20x12TB tapes [2] = $8600. Rsync.net is 21x the price of tape. The breakeven point is surprisingly low as well. A single tape costs $140 [3], so the minimal entry cost for tape is $3740 for 12TB. For $3740 you only get 249TBmonths at Rsync.net, which is equivalent to 4.2TB for 5 years. So if you're storing more than 4.2TB of data, it's cheaper to buy an entire tape drive than to use Rsync.net. Rsync.net seems like a great service but that pricing is really crippling. Even the "discounted" Attic pricing just barely beats a single tape, at 12.5TB for $3740. And before the "but this is an online service" argument comes up, Hetzner offers a 40TB dedcicated server for 64€/month, or 0.0016€/GBmonth. That's cheaper and comes with an entire dedicated server thrown in. [0]: https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html [1]: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1454545-REG/mlogic_mlsas_d8_desktop_sas_lto_8.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1454545-REG/mlogic_ml... [2]: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1482276-REG/hp_q2078an_lto_8_30tb_ultrium_non_custom.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1482276-REG/hp_q2078a... [3]: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1389774-REG/hp_q2078a_hpe_lto_8_ultrium_30.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1389774-REG/hp_q2078a... [4]: https://www.rsync.net/products/borg.html https://www.rsync.net/products/borg.html [5]: https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-sx?country=us https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-sx?count...
6c696e7578 6y ago
Indeed, and if someone has root at rsync.net, then it is game over. However, if they were shipping to tape and used an offsite tape storage facility, then it is just a matter of time to get the tapes loaded. I'll settle for that. ZFS is a really good FS. Really, really good. Archives should be offsite and disconnected, though.

by rsync 6y ago

greedo 6y ago

Both AWS Glacier and S3 Object Lock are immutable.

sukilot 6y ago

What happens if a customer wants to delete their backup? Do you require a phone call or something? 30day grace period?

vbezhenar 6y ago
If you need to reliably delete any data, encrypt it before uploading and wipe key.
- LadyCailin 6y ago
  That doesn’t delete the data, just makes it unusable until the encryption algorithm is broken. Which will certainly be a while, but not forever.
  - userbinator 6y ago
    But [1] will the data be worth anything and [2] will you still exist when/if it is broken? I suspect there's a not-insignificant number of people out there who are glad they didn't make the encryption on their old data very strong (and likewise, those who regret having used very strong encryption and lost the key.)
  - AnonC 6y ago
    TL;DR Encrypting is still better than not encrypting Normal delete operations on common file systems don't wipe the stored data with zeros or random data either. They just mark the space as unused and make the directory entries invisible. Any tool that can read the disks directly can see the data even after it's deleted (though it may have trouble constructing it back depending on fragmentation of the data before deletion and the reuse of the freed up space). There are "undelete" tools available for different file systems that can try to recover your data after deletion (some additional conditions apply). For cloud based backup providers, I doubt if any of those would spend time and energy wiping your data areas clean just because you deleted the data or asked for it to be deleted (since storage is also shared across customers, wiping clean your data would have a negative impact on other customers' data access speed too). They would just let the OS do its job, which would be what's described above. You can run free tools to wipe a magnetic hard drive with zeros, run multiple passes, etc. With SSDs, that's not reliable because of the additional abstractions used and presented by the controller to the OS.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    > Which will certainly be a while, but not forever. You can't really prove that. There are physical limits of computation improvements.
    - gpm 6y ago
      He can't, but we also lack a proof that any of encryption is at all computationally hard to decrypt, so to err on the side of caution you should assume it.
      - rsync 6y ago
        We know, provably, that (properly implemented) one time pads are perfectly secure and will remain so forever.
rsync 6y ago
You can always delete the data in the root of your account - the base of the rsync.net filesystem that you interact with. You don't need us for that. But yes, if you wanted to also delete snapshots within your .zfs/snapshot then you would need to call or email us. Our support folks would be happy to help with that.

aloknnikhil 6y ago

If you use a Mac, you can create an encrypted HFS disk overlaid on top of another filesystem that TimeMachine can then back up to. Depending on the size of the disk and frequency of the backup, you can keep snapshots that are as long as a year old. You can then take nightly backups of the disk (which is literally just a folder) and store it on a cloud provider or any remote storage. I've been doing this for the past year or so and it's been flawless.

throwaway9d0291 6y ago

That solution is an order of magnitude more expensive, so isn't really a viable alternative. For say 200TB of backup over 5 years: Rsync.net: $0.015/GB/month [0] * 200000GB * 60 months = $180000 LTO-8: $3600 for a drive [1], $5000 for 20x12TB tapes [2] = $8600. Rsync.net is 21x the price of tape. The breakeven point is surprisingly low as well. A single tape costs $140 [3], so the minimal entry cost for tape is $3740 for 12TB. For $3740 you only get 249TBmonths at Rsync.net, which is equivalent to 4.2TB for 5 years. So if you're storing more than 4.2TB of data, it's cheaper to buy an entire tape drive than to use Rsync.net. Rsync.net seems like a great service but that pricing is really crippling. Even the "discounted" Attic pricing just barely beats a single tape, at 12.5TB for $3740. And before the "but this is an online service" argument comes up, Hetzner offers a 40TB dedcicated server for 64€/month, or 0.0016€/GBmonth. That's cheaper and comes with an entire dedicated server thrown in. [0]: https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html https://www.rsync.net/pricing.html [1]: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1454545-REG/mlogic_mlsas_d8_desktop_sas_lto_8.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1454545-REG/mlogic_ml... [2]: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1482276-REG/hp_q2078an_lto_8_30tb_ultrium_non_custom.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1482276-REG/hp_q2078a... [3]: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1389774-REG/hp_q2078a_hpe_lto_8_ultrium_30.html https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1389774-REG/hp_q2078a... [4]: https://www.rsync.net/products/borg.html https://www.rsync.net/products/borg.html [5]: https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-sx?country=us https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/matrix-sx?count...

6c696e7578 6y ago

Indeed, and if someone has root at rsync.net, then it is game over. However, if they were shipping to tape and used an offsite tape storage facility, then it is just a matter of time to get the tapes loaded. I'll settle for that. ZFS is a really good FS. Really, really good. Archives should be offsite and disconnected, though.