[TriLUG] New Year's Resolution: Backup my data (backuppc rocks)

[Kevin Kreamer]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 10:01, Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday 31 December 2008 09:05:31 am James Tuttle wrote:
> > > Now I just need to get a couple of external drives for a rotating
> > > offsite backup scheme via sneakernet (cable modem upload speed just
> > > seems to slow to backup 100's of GB over the internet) and I can sleep
> > > at night again.
> >
> > I use the off-site sneakernet approach, too.  I have a
> > Truecrpyt-encrypted external drive in my desk drawer at work that I
> > bring home periodically, refresh, and take back.  35 miles isn't very
> > geographically diverse, but it's the best I can do.
>
> I think 35 miles is very geographically diverse. With an earthquake, it's
> doubtful one quake would destroy both buildings. It's surprising how much
> less destructive an earthquake is 20 miles away from the epicenter.
>
> As far as a hurricane, my impression is that you'd have to be pretty
> unlucky
> to have one hurricane destroy two places 35 miles apart, although I'm
> pretty
> sure Wilma could have done it in Florida.


>From personal experience, Katrina easily took out buildings in both New
Orleans and Gulfport, MS, which google maps tells me is 78 miles apart.
Granted, for Katrina we had the extra "help" of the levees breaking, but
still, for hurricanes 35 miles is practically nothing.  As a point of
reference, an "average sized" hurricane is something like 300 miles wide (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricanes).

In any case, backing up 35 miles apart is better than all on one site, or
worse yet, not backing up at all.

Kevin