External backups

I use a generic USB/SATA dock from eBay and 500Gb disks I also get from eBay and then run tests on them for a few hours before putting them into service as backup disks.

Seems to work fine for my wife's Windows 7 box, and for my Linux machine. Can't recommend any software, since I use the built-in stuff for Windows (which sucks because it doesn't work well with multiple disks) and home brewed for my Linux machine.

WD MyCloud is quite nice - actually Debian based and you can enable root ssh via the web (no hacking).

WARNING though - do not get too clever with "apt-get install" - you may brick the box like me - got another under warranty.

Basically, if you just "apt-get install some-package", you'll be OK - I just needed rsnapshot for my backups.

If you diddle with the apt sources, even though they are technically correct for the arch, then do an apt-get upgrade, you may get boned.

The reason seems to be that WD do not really understand Debian and rather than building their parts as proper addons from another Deb style repo that WD maintain, layered on top of the standard Debian repos, they took standard Debian and hacked on their stuff crudely.

But all said, it's quite a lot of bang for the money and very flexible. Just shove it behind a firewall as updates are a PITA.

Dare say it will probably do what the OP wants with no diddling inside - just added that for completeness...

until...

Does the mycloud have usb so you can backup the mycloud? The mybook live doesn't so you have to backup over the net to another nas. Its not too bad unless you try and use a win 8.1 box as the mybook fails to discover the other nas boxes while you are creating safepoints. It works fine from an android tablet.

As far as software's concerned, I don't think, for versatility, you'd go far wrong with Acronis.

Regards

Syke

I don't use any of that bollocks :)

To me the device is a standalone NAS box.

Granted, by default the emails from it go via WD, but I could fix that...

Why does anyone trust a web backup that is likely to be owned by a company that may be sold tomorrow and the backup service farmed out to the cheapest bidder in Nigeria? Surely these cloud backup services must be the prime target for every hacker in the world?

No need to - just boot your favourite flavour of linux from a USB stick or CD and image the disc with dd or even better gnu dd-rescue. The clone can e ither be saved as an image file (compressed if you want) or as a bootable c lone on a drive similar to the original. All this needs apart from the liv e linux distribution is a USB drive caddy and a drive to copy onto.

John

You jest.

Is this external drive going to be kept somewhere out of sight (so not likely to be stolen with the laptop) and in a different building (so it won't get incinerated if your house burns down)?

Cloud storage isn't perfect, but there's some point in using its inherently offsite aspects as part of your overall backup strategy.

Not at all. Forget the cloud bollocks and deal with it as a very cheap bit of linux hardware with an HDD in.

I use none of the inbuilt stuff - the WebGUI was used once to enable ssh. Now it just sits there running rsnapshot and emailing me the results (directly I might add, perl wrapper I wrote talks to my smtp server).

If by that you mean that your data doesn't get sent to someone or others data centre, Ghod knows where, to be lost or stolen, then fine.

In which case, a SATA dock is cheaper.

I take a backup to work every so often...

When did a SATA dock have a CPU and a NIC and run Linux?

Does it make coffee and toast, too?

No - it runs rsnapshot on a cron job, which a SATA dock won't.

That isn't a backup device, and thus miserably fails the requirements. It might as well be a toaster that makes coffee.

In fact, I'm doing that right now.

In what way is it not a backup device?