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There are two kinds of users: those who back up their data, and those who haven't experienced a data loss yet. This is your daily reminder that anything that's

There are two kinds of users: those who back up their data, and those who haven't experienced a data loss yet. This is your daily reminder that anything that's connected is not a backup. Yes, that includes the hard drive in your machine. For that matter, RAID is not a backup solution. Yes, that includes cloud sync (Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically. That's not backup. And that includes WD My Book, as it (unsurprisingly) turns out. Take this as a PSA. If you want to be more enlightened: http://www.taobackup.com/ http://www.taobackup.com/

SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
A Copy-On-Write Append-Only system CAN be a backup, even if connected. But that takes a lot more storage space, so it's more expensive.
- romwell 5y ago
  I wouldn't call it a backup without further clarifications. Like, if it can be killed by the same power surge that takes your main server out, I wouldn't call it a backup. There are a lot of ways to introduce redundancy in the system that would make backups needed much less frequently (if ever). But what a backup does is it allows you to have your data in case your system and accounts are compromised, whether through a misuse, failure, or an attack vector.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
    ANY backup solution can go down with a big enough disaster. An on-site backup is A backup, but it shouldn't be the ONLY backup. Typically you want a hierarchy of backups, one of which is on-site and on-line but a different machine, another of which is off-site but on-line, and possibly one or more offline backups. But on-line backups are fine, IF (and only if) they're copy-on-write/append-only. Of course if the data can be deleted or overwritten too soon (even tape drive backup systems have some period over which they start re-using tapes) it's worthless. But that's an entirely separate concern from whether it's always-on or internet-connected or on the same national power grid segment as the original.
  - 3np 5y ago
    I was with you through the rest of the thread until here, but this is too extreme. By your definition there does not exist such a thing as an in-site backup, does there? Take it to the extreme and everything is connected somehow at some point, thereby making a True Backup by your definition physically impossible, even off-site. The point where the backup is made could have a zero-day propagate to the tape machine, killing it and the tape by spinning up the motors. A blueray drive could have the firmware pwned. If not even incremental snapshots synced to a remote count as backups, you are probably the only one to harbor this interpretation of the word and it arguably loses its usefulness as a word.
    - romwell 5y ago
      Well, as long as you can recover from an onsite backup after logging into your system and completely destroying everything you can, it counts. An incremental snapshot to a remote is as good as a backup as WD users just found out. >The point where the backup is made could have a zero-day propagate to the tape machine Again, the point here is the failure of the backup is decoupled from the failure of your system. Again, everything is on a spectrum, and we can argue about definitions, however, a copy on a hard drive that's sitting on your bookshelf is decoupled from whatever happens to your computer unless both get destroyed (or stolen) - and that's how good that backup solution is. The data on a RAID array will go poof if you accidentally rm -rf that partition, so the chances of it failing when the system fails are very high. Hence it's an awful backup solution. What you have to consider is not whether the chances of failure are high or low, but where the chances of failure of both the system and the backup at the same time are non-negligible.
    - romwell 5y ago
      Well, as long as you can recover from an onsite backup after logging into your system and completely destroying everything you can, it counts. An incremental snapshot to a remote is as good as a backup as WD users just found out. >The point where the backup is made could have a zero-day propagate to the tape machine Again, the point here is the failure of the backup is decoupled from the failure of your system. Again, everything is on a spectrum, and we can argue about definitions, however, a copy on a hard drive that's sitting on your bookshelf is decoupled from whatever happens to your computer unless both get destroyed (or stolen) - and that's how good that backup solution is. The data on a RAID array will go poof if you accidentally rm -rf that partition, so the chances of it failing when the system fails are very high. Hence it's an awful backup solution. What you have to consider is not whether the chances of failure are high or low, but where the chances of failure of both the system and the backup at the same time are non-negligible.p
acchow 5y ago
> Yes, that includes cloud sync (Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically Dropbox allows you to roll back changes and undelete files https://www.dropbox.com/features/cloud-storage/file-recovery-and-history https://www.dropbox.com/features/cloud-storage/file-recovery...
- romwell 5y ago
  ...if you pay for it, and if your account doesn't get hacked, and if nothing goes wrong on Dropbox's side, and... That's to say, Dropbox is not a backup.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I don't know if this has gone to court yet - but I'd assume that if Dropbox does a thing to delete a bunch of data that causes you a great loss of value when you're paying them specifically to store a bunch of data - then there would be enough of an implied contract in place that you could extract a bunch of pain from them regardless of what their TOS tries to say. The law is complicated and the details are extremely important - but intent is a pretty big factor. Also - I'd strongly advise someone who is deciding between buying an external hard drive or using a third party for backup to use the third party. There are definitely risks that remain, but their SLA is likely going to end up being a lot stronger than your hard drive's reliability.
    - cma 5y ago
      Then people irresponsibly storing single copies of critical data on Dropbox raise the cost for more responsible users, because upon loss Dropbox has to pay out the high value of the loss to the irresponsible user, but pay next to nothing to the reponsible users, who already have multiple backups or store less critical data. It should at least be a tiered offering with different liability caps.
    - rgbrenner 5y ago
      That has gone to court. They're using the same limitation of liability (including data loss), as-is clause, and waiver of warranties found in every software license. It's entirely enforceable. Read the TOS. You're not getting anything from them if they delete your data.
askvictor 5y ago
It's more nuanced than that. Many of those things you mention are backups, just not necessarily that reliable for certain threats. By your standards, you'd probably say tapes, removed from their drive, are a backup. Yet, buildings burn down, taking the tapes with them. If restoring backups from off-line, off-site storage is going to take days or weeks, then for some organisations, you may as well not have a backup. Cloud sync, duplication, connected devices are fine for a backup, but probably not as the only backup. But they still reduce the likelihood of total data loss compared to not having them. Diversity and risk analysis are what's important here.
- romwell 5y ago
  I agree with what you say, I'm just nitpicking on differentiating redundancy from backups. Yes, a building with tapes can burn down. But whether it does so or not is not correlated with the state of the system that the original data lives on. Redundancy is a great step to prevent data loss. But redundancy won't do what a backup would: keep your data safe even if your system is fucked. Cloud sync is a double-edged sword, because you make Dropbox a part of your system; their failures are not decoupled from yours anymore. Say, someone hacks into your Dropbox account, encrypts/deletes all data, and then downgrades/cancels your plan so that their backups go poof. Then you'll find yourself with no data - and no backup. Compare that to the tape burning down. You just make another tape. The chances of both your system going down, and the tape building having a fire at the same time are astronomically low, because these events are independent. TL;DR: backups are decoupled, which is why you need them.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
    I'd say there's an even better distinction: backups keep your data safe even if you manually delete it. With only redundancy if you delete a file it's gone. With a backup, it's still in the last backup. Of course there's usually some maximum retention period for backups, but that can get quite long. Everything else is secondary and can be covered by both. The chance of your redundant data center burning down at the same time as your primary is also low. If one burns down, you just bring up another. Likewise for smaller-scale users, where the chance of your cloud provider being down when your house burns down is also incredibly low. So it's really the versioning or snapshot nature that's the key aspect of backups as opposed to simple redundancy.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
The most reliable backup avaliable to a common man seems to be burning blueray disks and then posting to different friends/family
- SilverRed 5y ago
  And then because that is so cumbersome and expensive, it gets done only once and when you have a disaster, you can restore your backup from a few years ago.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    There just seems to be no way to square the curcle - if the backup is trully offline, it's clumbersome to make if thr backup is effortless, it's online and vulnerable.
pram 5y ago
I think this backup maximalism can be taken further. Say if it’s not one of many tapes stored offsite at an Iron Mountain repository, it’s not a backup. Or multiple locations at that, can’t discount redundancy (what if one location gets nuked)
- romwell 5y ago
  OK, looks like many responses have the same misunderstanding here. To find out if something is a backup or not, ask a simple question: does the availability of the data on it correlate with what's happening to the system it's backing up? If the answer is no, then it's not a backup. Whether your tape storage gets nuked or not does not, in any way, correlate with whether your system gets hacked into, or whether someone who has a grudge against you messes with your system. Then P(data loss) = P(system is fucked) x P(backup is fucked). If your backup is not decoupled from the system, then P(data loss) = P(system is fucked) -- which is a far larger. You don't need to take your tapes to Everest. You just need to decouple them from the source. TL;DR: if you can destroy a backup from the system it's backing up, it's not a backup :)
  - CJefferson 5y ago
    This sounds like "no true scotsman". I back up to Dropbox and an external hard drive next to my machine. I've used both to restore my data on hard drive death. I can't imagine the amount of time and/or money it would take to do what you want. It certainly doesn't seem like it is something most computer users would do. I can set anyone up with a (for example) iCloud + time machine backup with very little work, and it will keep ticking over, backing up. What's your suggestion exactly?
jiggawatts 5y ago
I used to do data protection for large enterprises. I had to explain, at length, to supposedly smart people that there are no time machines. I've had people state with a straight face that they'll deploy the backup system if they lose some data. As in: afterwards.
caconym_ 5y ago
> There are two kinds of users: those who back up their data, and those who haven't experienced a data loss yet. I have never had a significant data loss, and I back up my data. The weaknesses of cloud are obvious, and alone it's not enough, but leaving it on the table is dumb unless you have some other way of practically and reliably maintaining a far-offsite copy. Most people don't, and even fewer people have a good reason to bother when they're employing offsite backups as part of a broader strategy like 3-2-1.
Havoc 5y ago
>(Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically. That's not backup. Planning to go down this route except incremental instead of propagated

SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago

A Copy-On-Write Append-Only system CAN be a backup, even if connected. But that takes a lot more storage space, so it's more expensive.

romwell 5y ago
I wouldn't call it a backup without further clarifications. Like, if it can be killed by the same power surge that takes your main server out, I wouldn't call it a backup. There are a lot of ways to introduce redundancy in the system that would make backups needed much less frequently (if ever). But what a backup does is it allows you to have your data in case your system and accounts are compromised, whether through a misuse, failure, or an attack vector.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
  ANY backup solution can go down with a big enough disaster. An on-site backup is A backup, but it shouldn't be the ONLY backup. Typically you want a hierarchy of backups, one of which is on-site and on-line but a different machine, another of which is off-site but on-line, and possibly one or more offline backups. But on-line backups are fine, IF (and only if) they're copy-on-write/append-only. Of course if the data can be deleted or overwritten too soon (even tape drive backup systems have some period over which they start re-using tapes) it's worthless. But that's an entirely separate concern from whether it's always-on or internet-connected or on the same national power grid segment as the original.
- 3np 5y ago
  I was with you through the rest of the thread until here, but this is too extreme. By your definition there does not exist such a thing as an in-site backup, does there? Take it to the extreme and everything is connected somehow at some point, thereby making a True Backup by your definition physically impossible, even off-site. The point where the backup is made could have a zero-day propagate to the tape machine, killing it and the tape by spinning up the motors. A blueray drive could have the firmware pwned. If not even incremental snapshots synced to a remote count as backups, you are probably the only one to harbor this interpretation of the word and it arguably loses its usefulness as a word.
  - romwell 5y ago
    Well, as long as you can recover from an onsite backup after logging into your system and completely destroying everything you can, it counts. An incremental snapshot to a remote is as good as a backup as WD users just found out. >The point where the backup is made could have a zero-day propagate to the tape machine Again, the point here is the failure of the backup is decoupled from the failure of your system. Again, everything is on a spectrum, and we can argue about definitions, however, a copy on a hard drive that's sitting on your bookshelf is decoupled from whatever happens to your computer unless both get destroyed (or stolen) - and that's how good that backup solution is. The data on a RAID array will go poof if you accidentally rm -rf that partition, so the chances of it failing when the system fails are very high. Hence it's an awful backup solution. What you have to consider is not whether the chances of failure are high or low, but where the chances of failure of both the system and the backup at the same time are non-negligible.
  - romwell 5y ago
    Well, as long as you can recover from an onsite backup after logging into your system and completely destroying everything you can, it counts. An incremental snapshot to a remote is as good as a backup as WD users just found out. >The point where the backup is made could have a zero-day propagate to the tape machine Again, the point here is the failure of the backup is decoupled from the failure of your system. Again, everything is on a spectrum, and we can argue about definitions, however, a copy on a hard drive that's sitting on your bookshelf is decoupled from whatever happens to your computer unless both get destroyed (or stolen) - and that's how good that backup solution is. The data on a RAID array will go poof if you accidentally rm -rf that partition, so the chances of it failing when the system fails are very high. Hence it's an awful backup solution. What you have to consider is not whether the chances of failure are high or low, but where the chances of failure of both the system and the backup at the same time are non-negligible.p

acchow 5y ago

> Yes, that includes cloud sync (Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically Dropbox allows you to roll back changes and undelete files https://www.dropbox.com/features/cloud-storage/file-recovery-and-history https://www.dropbox.com/features/cloud-storage/file-recovery...

romwell 5y ago
...if you pay for it, and if your account doesn't get hacked, and if nothing goes wrong on Dropbox's side, and... That's to say, Dropbox is not a backup.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I don't know if this has gone to court yet - but I'd assume that if Dropbox does a thing to delete a bunch of data that causes you a great loss of value when you're paying them specifically to store a bunch of data - then there would be enough of an implied contract in place that you could extract a bunch of pain from them regardless of what their TOS tries to say. The law is complicated and the details are extremely important - but intent is a pretty big factor. Also - I'd strongly advise someone who is deciding between buying an external hard drive or using a third party for backup to use the third party. There are definitely risks that remain, but their SLA is likely going to end up being a lot stronger than your hard drive's reliability.
  - cma 5y ago
    Then people irresponsibly storing single copies of critical data on Dropbox raise the cost for more responsible users, because upon loss Dropbox has to pay out the high value of the loss to the irresponsible user, but pay next to nothing to the reponsible users, who already have multiple backups or store less critical data. It should at least be a tiered offering with different liability caps.
  - rgbrenner 5y ago
    That has gone to court. They're using the same limitation of liability (including data loss), as-is clause, and waiver of warranties found in every software license. It's entirely enforceable. Read the TOS. You're not getting anything from them if they delete your data.

askvictor 5y ago

It's more nuanced than that. Many of those things you mention are backups, just not necessarily that reliable for certain threats. By your standards, you'd probably say tapes, removed from their drive, are a backup. Yet, buildings burn down, taking the tapes with them. If restoring backups from off-line, off-site storage is going to take days or weeks, then for some organisations, you may as well not have a backup. Cloud sync, duplication, connected devices are fine for a backup, but probably not as the only backup. But they still reduce the likelihood of total data loss compared to not having them. Diversity and risk analysis are what's important here.

romwell 5y ago
I agree with what you say, I'm just nitpicking on differentiating redundancy from backups. Yes, a building with tapes can burn down. But whether it does so or not is not correlated with the state of the system that the original data lives on. Redundancy is a great step to prevent data loss. But redundancy won't do what a backup would: keep your data safe even if your system is fucked. Cloud sync is a double-edged sword, because you make Dropbox a part of your system; their failures are not decoupled from yours anymore. Say, someone hacks into your Dropbox account, encrypts/deletes all data, and then downgrades/cancels your plan so that their backups go poof. Then you'll find yourself with no data - and no backup. Compare that to the tape burning down. You just make another tape. The chances of both your system going down, and the tape building having a fire at the same time are astronomically low, because these events are independent. TL;DR: backups are decoupled, which is why you need them.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
  I'd say there's an even better distinction: backups keep your data safe even if you manually delete it. With only redundancy if you delete a file it's gone. With a backup, it's still in the last backup. Of course there's usually some maximum retention period for backups, but that can get quite long. Everything else is secondary and can be covered by both. The chance of your redundant data center burning down at the same time as your primary is also low. If one burns down, you just bring up another. Likewise for smaller-scale users, where the chance of your cloud provider being down when your house burns down is also incredibly low. So it's really the versioning or snapshot nature that's the key aspect of backups as opposed to simple redundancy.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

The most reliable backup avaliable to a common man seems to be burning blueray disks and then posting to different friends/family

SilverRed 5y ago
And then because that is so cumbersome and expensive, it gets done only once and when you have a disaster, you can restore your backup from a few years ago.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  There just seems to be no way to square the curcle - if the backup is trully offline, it's clumbersome to make if thr backup is effortless, it's online and vulnerable.

pram 5y ago

I think this backup maximalism can be taken further. Say if it’s not one of many tapes stored offsite at an Iron Mountain repository, it’s not a backup. Or multiple locations at that, can’t discount redundancy (what if one location gets nuked)

romwell 5y ago
OK, looks like many responses have the same misunderstanding here. To find out if something is a backup or not, ask a simple question: does the availability of the data on it correlate with what's happening to the system it's backing up? If the answer is no, then it's not a backup. Whether your tape storage gets nuked or not does not, in any way, correlate with whether your system gets hacked into, or whether someone who has a grudge against you messes with your system. Then P(data loss) = P(system is fucked) x P(backup is fucked). If your backup is not decoupled from the system, then P(data loss) = P(system is fucked) -- which is a far larger. You don't need to take your tapes to Everest. You just need to decouple them from the source. TL;DR: if you can destroy a backup from the system it's backing up, it's not a backup :)
- CJefferson 5y ago
  This sounds like "no true scotsman". I back up to Dropbox and an external hard drive next to my machine. I've used both to restore my data on hard drive death. I can't imagine the amount of time and/or money it would take to do what you want. It certainly doesn't seem like it is something most computer users would do. I can set anyone up with a (for example) iCloud + time machine backup with very little work, and it will keep ticking over, backing up. What's your suggestion exactly?

jiggawatts 5y ago

I used to do data protection for large enterprises. I had to explain, at length, to supposedly smart people that there are no time machines. I've had people state with a straight face that they'll deploy the backup system if they lose some data. As in: afterwards.

caconym_ 5y ago

> There are two kinds of users: those who back up their data, and those who haven't experienced a data loss yet. I have never had a significant data loss, and I back up my data. The weaknesses of cloud are obvious, and alone it's not enough, but leaving it on the table is dumb unless you have some other way of practically and reliably maintaining a far-offsite copy. Most people don't, and even fewer people have a good reason to bother when they're employing offsite backups as part of a broader strategy like 3-2-1.

Havoc 5y ago

>(Dropbox/OneDrive/GDrive/etc) that propagates changes automatically. That's not backup. Planning to go down this route except incremental instead of propagated