5 ms·

> to have backups With the usual additional notes: unless you include an off-site, an off-line (or at least soft-offline) backup, and your backups get tested r

> to have backups With the usual additional notes: unless you include an off-site, an off-line (or at least soft-offline) backup, and your backups get tested regularly enough, you don't have a backup system, you have aspirations & hopes! ---- For your valuable information anyway. For most individuals the core “it would really inconvenience my life if I lost it” data is surprisingly small¹, and the next layer (“losing it would really annoy me”) is only a few tens of Gb². For personal use everything else in the grand scheme of things can be reacquired or won't be massively missed, things are a bit different for businesses of course. [1] password store, financial details & other officialdom, code & docs for personal projects that might come to something else [2] meaningful digital photos & such

jacquesm 5y ago
"With the usual additional notes: unless you include an off-site, an off-line (or at least soft-offline) backup, and your backups get tested regularly enough, you don't have a backup system, you have aspirations & hopes!" This should be posted in every place where people are involved with IT operations.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  It gets posted on HN EVERY SINGLE TIME. Usually the words "have backups" triggers multiple lectures on offsite backups and testing and multiple factors and ...
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    Don't forget to not roll your own crypto!!!
  - dspillett 5y ago
    I'll stop repeating myself when the world gets the damned hint! (or stops complaining when something is lost because they didn't)
    - elesiuta 5y ago
      Even if/when the world does get the hint, there will still be https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ (although most people probably won't find this as exciting)
Ygg2 5y ago
> your backups get tested regularly enough And you test the tests and so forth.
- dspillett 5y ago
  It is tests and verifications all the way down! No matter how careful you are adding automated tests and test to verify those tests have run OK, and making them fail safe (fail with a warning in this case) where possible, it will always soon get to a point that there needs to be a manual “have we seen the everything is OK message recently?” or similar is by far more efficient than adding another tests to send a warning when the last layer of tests has failed.

jacquesm 5y ago

"With the usual additional notes: unless you include an off-site, an off-line (or at least soft-offline) backup, and your backups get tested regularly enough, you don't have a backup system, you have aspirations & hopes!" This should be posted in every place where people are involved with IT operations.

Ensorceled 5y ago
It gets posted on HN EVERY SINGLE TIME. Usually the words "have backups" triggers multiple lectures on offsite backups and testing and multiple factors and ...
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  Don't forget to not roll your own crypto!!!
- dspillett 5y ago
  I'll stop repeating myself when the world gets the damned hint! (or stops complaining when something is lost because they didn't)
  - elesiuta 5y ago
    Even if/when the world does get the hint, there will still be https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ (although most people probably won't find this as exciting)

Ygg2 5y ago

> your backups get tested regularly enough And you test the tests and so forth.

dspillett 5y ago
It is tests and verifications all the way down! No matter how careful you are adding automated tests and test to verify those tests have run OK, and making them fail safe (fail with a warning in this case) where possible, it will always soon get to a point that there needs to be a manual “have we seen the everything is OK message recently?” or similar is by far more efficient than adding another tests to send a warning when the last layer of tests has failed.