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Backups Aren't Simple

359 points · 225 comments · afilipovski

  1. publlus_enigma · · focus · HN ↗
    There are four times in my life I have suffered regrettable data loss incidents.

    The first was when the telephone pole outside our house was struck directly by lightning. Not only was it the loudest thing I have ever heard, the current surged through the telephone line, into the internal fax modem, and fries everything within its vicinity. I was 10. I did have backuos, but only only floppy and they didn't cover everything.

    The second was storing data in OneDrive - a change to their terms surrounding "lifetime" unlikely noted storage, combined with a client that was unusably slow to download and a deadline for data retrieval meant that I lost most of my files.

    The third was SD card failure in digital camera on holiday, the controller chip died catastrophically, leaving the card completely unrecognised. It was a brand new Sony 128GB card, manufactured by Toshiba, and it seemed to be a common issue. I now shoot to two cards simultaneously.

    And the fourth time was ... Performing a backup. An errant script deleted the source content, but I'd also deleted the existing backup to free up space for the new backup. I've been weary of using rewritable media for some time now as a consequence, but I think backups themselves are high risk activities.

    1. baxtr · · focus · HN ↗
      Since we’re talking about it: anyone backing up their iCloud photos? If so, how?
      1. unanimous · · focus · HN ↗
        When I was using Ubuntu, I would plug my phone into my laptop and run this small script: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;wheelercj&#x2F;8cce112fc8ee55fd4858847a526ff69f" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gist.github.com&#x2F;wheelercj&#x2F;8cce112fc8ee55fd4858847a52...

        It&#x27;s mainly just rsync. When the phone was plugged in, the photos were accessible at a path like &quot;&#x2F;run&#x2F;user&#x2F;1000&#x2F;gvfs&#x2F;gphoto2:host=Apple_Inc._iPhone_abc123&#x2F;&quot;.

        Now I use Time Machine, but I still need to check whether it includes iCloud photos.

        1. lloydatkinson · · focus · HN ↗
          Does this include all the image metadata and who knows what else?
          1. unanimous · · focus · HN ↗
            While I haven&#x27;t tested for that myself, the script should keep pretty much everything including image metadata. I just made a small change so that it also keeps extended attributes in case any image-related metadata is there.

            The script currently requires changing one or two folder paths at the top (more details in the script).

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