Tidy backup solution, is this a good plan ? Input please :)

[Combat squirrel]

Hi all, iv just got a drobo, so far, alls good, but im planning on doing the following, is it a good idea and will it be RELIABLE as a backup solution?:

1 drobo with 4x 500gb drives (what I have/can find)

Apple time machine 500gb (drive removed and placed in drobo, western digital green 1.5tb added)


So my plan is, the drobo should give me 1.4tb usable space, the time machine formatted is 1397gb, so pretty much the same (take ages fill it all), I have 3 questions:

1) Obviously if a drive fails in the drobo ill replace it, if the drobo fails however will it work if I buy another drobo and add the drives, will all my data be there ?

2) Ill time machine back up the drobo, so ill have drobos drive failure protection and also another copy of everything on the time machine, if drobo catastrophically failed, can I restore ANY time machine backup to any drive?, also can i restore any folders etc time machine will hold, like if I just wanted to recover my picture files off the time machine onto my mac?.

3) If for some reason Drobo failed, and time machine failed, I know drobo has a proprietary file system and cant be accessed without another drobo, but what about time machine ? for example say its electronics failed and the hardrive was fine, could i remove the harddrive, place it in a caddy and access its contents on my mac without it being in another time machine ?

The drobo btw is my 'main hard drive' it will get used day in day out (holds all my pics, itunes, vids etc), as I have a macbook pro with a SSD drive in it, main use is lightroom etc.

Thanks

 

[Combat squirrel]

Thanks for the input, the time machine is physically at the opposite corner of the house to the drobo so if there is a fire either end, hopefully one would survive, yes im 99% sure you can back up drobo on time machine, just go into time machien options and it will have (usually) any external drives excluded from the backup, just tell it not to exclude externals.

As for super safety iv signed up to mozy now and everything is uploading to there.

Quick question about mozy while im here, can mozy see what you have uploaded? for example can they hold you responsible for the content you upload? EG: have my dvd rips on the drobo, if I upload dvd rips will they say 'thats against regs to have 'copies' of dvd's' even though there rips etc ?

OR is it totally private and they dont 'look' to see what you have ?

 

[Combat squirrel]

Yeah iv used my own encryption key, I got the option when I set it up, does that still make any difference ? They did state that if I wanted my data back and I lost my key, there is NOTHING they can do about it, I have to have my key to recover any data, however when I go to my account log in I have a list of my uploded files there


Mozy because it seemed a good deal for the price, only ~£2-3 a month for unlimited data, I dont want any fancy features, just somewhere to hold my files should I loose everything, whats carbonite offer over mozy ?

EDIT: as seen here:

http://bestonlinestorage.com/carbonite-vs-mozy-home-a-review-and-comparison/

There more or less identical except mozy has a few more little bits and bobs that it offers extra and slightly better price ? It seems its so close to call it doesnt really matter?

 

[Combat squirrel]

Fair enough, sounds like a solid solution then.

Regarding backup I can't say for Mozy but I've worked for a company which did online backup and we constantly had customers asking for help as they'd lost their encryption keys, and there was nothing we could do. And we definitely couldn't see their uploaded data at all. So you're probably pretty safe. Certainly in the US they're likely protected under safe harbour provisions too...

Cool, ok then, one last question, whats safe harbour provisions ? lol

 

[Combat squirrel]

I see, assume mozy is us based then ?, also is there anywhere in the UK where it would be possible to borrow some highspeed internet connection to upload my stuff?, im not majorly bothered it will take a couple of months now, but if there was somewhere for a small fee it could be worth it, im pondering about asking at work but I highly doubt they would allow it, the mozy website itself etc is blocked by the firewalls.

 

[Combat squirrel]

I presume given the not particularly impressive speed that they are US based, I've not looked into it in any detail though. I couldn't really say where you might find a fast connection to be honest, universities used to be the best bet but they're increasingly locked down. Depends what connection you can get access to at work really...

I am line limited, im currently going at ~400k/bits sec, I believe the max upload on a standard 8mb line is 448 k/bits sec ? (i think there the correct units ?)

YOu won't benefit from a massive upload to Mozy anyways - the max you'll get is around 5Gb/day. My guess is it's throttled their end.

it does work though - I've about 700Gb on there now, and it's been mostly reliable. The only problems I've had are rage with the client updates they did for Snow Leopard causing me problems.

Also, watch out if you try and Mozy your Safari bookmarks: http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/12/15_Mozy_on_OSX_Causing_Beachball.html

Personally I think off-site backup for *important* stuff is a big, big plus. Word docs, DVDs etc. you can re-create/re-purchase from insurance... but photos & videos of your friends/family/loved ones.... Irreplaceable.

http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entries/2009/7/15_Online_Backups_-_Mozy.html

Good links there RS4 and thanks for the heads up, I dont back up safari bookmarks however as I used firefox, but is good to know! Thanks


Anyone ever done a file restore from mozy ? does it litterally just dump the files on your harddisk to any folder you choose ? Can you also choose any files you like ? Or does it just drop the entire thing on your hard disk ? :S

 

[Combat squirrel]

It's going to depend on your usage obviously but to me, there's no point. It's too long to wait to have a full backup, that's before you get to the aspect of what happens when you've been away for a couple of weeks and download 8GB or so of photos to your machine on your return - how many days later is it before they're actually backed up?

To me, it's simply too unpredictable. That and the fact I have the ability to put together a better solution myself, I'd prefer not to in an ideal world but there's nothing off the shelf which works in my opinion.

And I was annoyed that I had the bandwidth to do it quicker but they wouldn't play, not something they advertise as being a limitation annoyingly...

From my perspective it makes no difference, iv been doing on site back ups for 3/4 years and nothing thankfully has gone wrong, so as long as it lasts another 4 months ill also have an off site back up for less than a tenner, win win really.