3 ms·

holy shit do people with like a ton of music not realize backups are important? A backup doesn't help when a service is silently changing your files. Once you

holy shit do people with like a ton of music not realize backups are important? A backup doesn't help when a service is silently changing your files. Once you realize a file isn't right, you look into it and discover that it was automatically replaced by the service three or four years ago. It is not reasonable to expect anyone - even a tech-literate person - to keep 300 hard drives around for a decade or more, and audit every change made on them hour by hour.

endigma 4y ago
Deduplicating backup software has existed for ages, they would only have a backup of each distinct file, so when A.mp3 is "silently changed" the backup software now has "A.mp3 (before)" and "A.mp3 (after)" etc. Look into borg, restic etc if interested. If you saw in your backup software that a shitload of files changed you would both be alerted of the "silent change" as well as able to revert it.
- Steuard 4y ago
  Okay, but you're now moving away from "How could people not know to make backups???" to "This problem could in principle be avoided by people who use specific types of backup software and maintain complete snapshots going back at least five years". Still a good idea, certainly, but it feels like we've moved well out of "holy shit" territory. (Also, isn't Apple's own built-in Time Machine exactly the sort of backup that you're talking about here?) As for carefully monitoring your backup software to keep track of when files change, 1) I think we're getting even farther into the "not reasonable to expect of ordinary users" range here, and 2) if I did somehow happen to notice that a bunch of music files had changed, I'd be a lot more likely to assume that Apple Music had updated their ID3 tags than that it had completely rewritten the music!
  - endigma 4y ago
    I agree with you on the ease of use front. Someone should make a company to do all this shit in the background but not get rid of the "your computer" part. Offer a NAS or a Pi derivative and some companion software that wraps restic/Borg/whatever and handles all the hard parts for you.
FabHK 4y ago
> A backup doesn't help when a service is silently changing your files. Correct. Just to be clear, though: Apple Music does not do that.
- endigma 4y ago
  They do, and Apple Music isn't the only thing that can cause a loss incident with data you care about.

endigma 4y ago

Deduplicating backup software has existed for ages, they would only have a backup of each distinct file, so when A.mp3 is "silently changed" the backup software now has "A.mp3 (before)" and "A.mp3 (after)" etc. Look into borg, restic etc if interested. If you saw in your backup software that a shitload of files changed you would both be alerted of the "silent change" as well as able to revert it.

Steuard 4y ago
Okay, but you're now moving away from "How could people not know to make backups???" to "This problem could in principle be avoided by people who use specific types of backup software and maintain complete snapshots going back at least five years". Still a good idea, certainly, but it feels like we've moved well out of "holy shit" territory. (Also, isn't Apple's own built-in Time Machine exactly the sort of backup that you're talking about here?) As for carefully monitoring your backup software to keep track of when files change, 1) I think we're getting even farther into the "not reasonable to expect of ordinary users" range here, and 2) if I did somehow happen to notice that a bunch of music files had changed, I'd be a lot more likely to assume that Apple Music had updated their ID3 tags than that it had completely rewritten the music!
- endigma 4y ago
  I agree with you on the ease of use front. Someone should make a company to do all this shit in the background but not get rid of the "your computer" part. Offer a NAS or a Pi derivative and some companion software that wraps restic/Borg/whatever and handles all the hard parts for you.

FabHK 4y ago

> A backup doesn't help when a service is silently changing your files. Correct. Just to be clear, though: Apple Music does not do that.

endigma 4y ago
They do, and Apple Music isn't the only thing that can cause a loss incident with data you care about.