How Much Should You Back Up Your Data and What is the Likelihood of Drive Failure?

[moproblems99]

And the fact RAID isn't considered a backup in most of a culture is a perfect example that it has just become it's own little culture and any ideas opposing it, like I think has been clearly demonstrated here, are kinda frowned upon.

So RAID is not being frowned upon. Calling it something it isn't is frowned upon. If your array gets corrupted then how do you restore it? In a RAID 1, or 5, all you basically get is tolerance. You don't really have an escape plan.

My whole channel is tech and hardware-based so I do have experience in the topic, I'm not trying to sensationalise it, just giving my opinion on it and wanting to show how there is this weird culture around it. It's that simple.

I still have trouble trying to correlate a 'culture' to a simple thing like backing up data.

"unintentional backups"

Would you explain what an unintentional back-up, how it saved you, and then how back-ups don't make sense?

It is something I know though, and that's why I'm doing a video on it, on my opinions on it.

If back-ups were something you truly understood, you would never say the words: 'They don't make sense and people don't need them.'

 

[R-T-B]

How exactly is it illogical though?

How is not protecting your essential files at all logical, is the real question I think. Especially with a very real statistical risk.

And the fact RAID isn't considered a backup

It isn't. A power surge can take out your entire RAID in one incident. Heck, controller firmware updates can do it. Also, what about that file you deleted 6 momths ago, forgot, now need, and is now irrecoverable? How is RAID helping now?

It helps some situations. But a backup, it is not.

 

[londiste]

@avrona are you trolling or are you serious? I cannot tell.

If you have something important (for you) on your computer - it could be documents, pictures, videos or anything - this should be backed up. It is not a question of culture, it is a question of whether you would like to keep that data in case something goes wrong. Whether to just copy files over to some external disk or follow the 3-2-1 rule is a question of the degree of risk management but no backup is a very significant increase in risk.

Disks fail. The chance might be very low but if that happens to you once per 10 years and you don't have a backup you data is lost. In many cases there is no way to recover it, at least with reasonable cost. It does not even have to be a disk failure. Maybe you accidentally delete your files. Or Windows update/upgrade loses your Documents folder.

Or course it is possible that you have nothing of value on your drives. Then it is OK not to have a backup but it should be an informed and acknowledged risk acceptance.

 

[avrona]

I suppose you don't want to share your channel here?
Will you share the video with us? Any ETA on that?

Well I didn't know that was even an option on these forums so I've now added in as my "website" on my profile here. When the video is out I will probably post it here and it should be out on Friday. And yes the date is intentional as I do plan on talking about luck and statistics and odds in the video.

So RAID is not being frowned upon. Calling it something it isn't is frowned upon. If your array gets corrupted then how do you restore it? In a RAID 1, or 5, all you basically get is tolerance. You don't really have an escape plan.



I still have trouble trying to correlate a 'culture' to a simple thing like backing up data.



Would you explain what an unintentional back-up, how it saved you, and then how back-ups don't make sense?



If back-ups were something you truly understood, you would never say the words: 'They don't make sense and people don't need them.'

With that logic not much really is a backup then, even a backup somewhere on your PC that isn't RAID 1 or 5 or anything like that can be taken out with your real-time data.
I also pretty much see some pretty striking evidence to there being this "culture" around this in this very thread. And the unintentional backups I'm planning on going into a lot of detail into in the video, but essentially it's what I call any action which primary objective isn't to give you a backup, but you end up with one anyway, and what's great about it is that the files you often unintentionally back up happen to be the most important of your files anyway, such as putting some files you need to have access to a lot and from a lot of places going into the cloud. I am also a photographer, so after each shoot I got plenty of photos that need transferring over to my PC for long-term storage and editing, as it's not really practical to have to dig up some SD card whenever you want to look at a photo; same with videos after recording something to the channel. However since the SD cards I do use are rather big, I can allow myself to keep the original files on the card, so instead of moving all the new files, I copy them over, as I have a lot of uses for the files to still be on the SD card and on my camera. And again, I do understand backups, and I think being extremely obsessed and almost paranoid about them doesn't make sense.

How is not protecting your essential files at all logical, is the real question I think. Especially with a very real statistical risk.



It isn't. A power surge can take out your entire RAID in one incident. Heck, controller firmware updates can do it. Also, what about that file you deleted 6 momths ago, forgot, now need, and is now irrecoverable? How is RAID helping now?

It helps some situations. But a backup, it is not.

Never said that what you just said there "protecting your essential files" is illogical, protecting yourself from extremely low odds or essentially being paranoid and incorporating several different backup methods all at the same time is. I myself protect some of my most essential files, via what I mentioned above, what I call "unintentional backups".

@avrona are you trolling or are you serious? I cannot tell.

If you have something important (for you) on your computer - it could be documents, pictures, videos or anything - this should be backed up. It is not a question of culture, it is a question of whether you would like to keep that data in case something goes wrong. Whether to just copy files over to some external disk or follow the 3-2-1 rule is a question of the degree of risk management but no backup is a very significant increase in risk.

Disks fail. The chance might be very low but if that happens to you once per 10 years and you don't have a backup you data is lost. In many cases there is no way to recover it, at least with reasonable cost. It does not even have to be a disk failure. Maybe you accidentally delete your files. Or Windows update/upgrade loses your Documents folder.

Or course it is possible that you have nothing of value on your drives. Then it is OK not to have a backup but it should be an informed and acknowledged risk acceptance.

No I'm not trolling, last time I've seen just having a different opinion on a subject isn't trolling...

 

[londiste]

No I'm not trolling, last time I've seen just having a different opinion on a subject isn't trolling...

I simply find it very hard to believe someone doubts the usefulness of backups.

 

[avrona]

I simply find it very hard to believe someone doubts the usefulness of backups.

Well I'm here, and if you don't believe me it's your loss.

 

[infrared]

Spreading an opinion like yours is pretty damn unethical. If you want to risk data loss yourself that's fine but to encourage others to take that same risk based only on your inexperience is flat out wrong. Not impressed.

 

[TheEmptyCrazyHead]

Several drives died on me the past 15years. Luckily by the time I accumulated important info (documents and photos) I already had minimum two hdd's in the PC and had it backed up on the second hdd. Also the occasional cd/DVD back up here and there. Currently I'm using cloud service, my desktop and important folders are synced to my laptop and pc. All photos from my phone go there as well, just don't sync to the computers. This is kind of the minimum I recommend. The smart minimum though is a cloud service with ransomware protection, because you really never know. I friend lost to such an attack all his photos. Later a cleaning tool became available and he got them back. His wife/daughter were watching online movies and nobody knew what happened and what they clicked.
On professional level, I've a box about 20x20x20cm full of dead customer's laptop drives. And saw a fair share of tears when data was impossible to get back with the normal methods (people here are not very inclined to go to data recovery company and pay several hundred euros).
So people, BACK UP! Drive failure can happen suddenly and without any prior indication. Most of the cloud services offer limited free storage which is enough for many, if not most of the people.

 

[londiste]

Well I'm here, and if you don't believe me it's your loss.

What is your argument or logic here exactly?
That backups are pointless? That drives do not die? Advocating for other types of backup methods?

 

[Ahhzz]

I feel we've reached the end of the road on this topic. OP, if you'd like to share when you've finished your video, I'm sure there are many members here who would be delighted to visit your channel. thanks all!