I want to make a small and infrequent backup that would resist things like the house burning down, the cloud provider wiping their backup copy due to missing payment or some disaster or plague. For this I was thinking of putting something like the corsair Flash Survivor encrypted under a rock in some geologically stable area but Hardware Canucks managed to break this model in testing. I’m not that concerned about damage from shock but it should resist moisture, temperature and the elements. Furthermore flash storage is generally not rated for more than 10 years and corsair makes no other claim with this product as far as I can tell.
Anyway, I’d be curious to hear some suggestions? Supposedly a CD-R will last longer but is more difficult to store…
Harddrives aren’t stable either, random bit flips and whatnot. If you go for the harddrive you need to power it up occasionally and let it sit powered on for a couple of hours (depends on drive) to let it refresh the data if needed. Then as @FaunCB writes in a fireproof safe.
You could add some parity like PAR2 and put it besides the files, that would probably recover most small bitflips.
I know some businesses use these, either as offsite storage or in their actual site, because in case the building burns, these things are build to still either work, or be able to be reworked into working, its kinda their thing.
its not actually cheap, but its what i first thought off reading your post
How much data are you actually thinking about? The immediate thought is a bank safe or vault and paper documents, but i guess it really depends on what you’re needing to protect.
There’s a lot to think about I think, which maybe you’ve already considered. But how much data? do you actually need such a robust backup? how much can you spend on the solution? How secure does it need to be?
Are we talking engraving data onto metal to keep it sage like some of those cryptocurrency guys do, or are we just talking official documents, passwords, and some important information?
I have so many thoughts on this It would be good to know a little more on you’re needs?
The fire proof safe should act as a basic faraday cage.
Surround it with a couple meters of concrete and you won’t have to worry about bit flips from external factors. Stopping power (particle radiation) - Wikipedia
Or, something easier, would be getting used and dismissed lead jackets used to reduce the xray a patient is exposed to, harvest the lead plates inside it and use those to protect the fireproof safe.
I think your best bet would be having a backup offsite. For example Synology offers the possibility to host crypted data from another Synology machine. If you have someone you trust and you’re willing to exchange storage space with them you could do that.
CDs are pretty tough to deal with. For this to work you should try to get AZO ones, the best CD writer there is and burn them at 2x to make sure that it’s not gonna fail after 3 years. Not worth for such an old technology.
If the things you want to backup can be on paper you could just get a safe locker at a bank and call it a day. Much easier to deal with and no worries. Just put all the paper in a vacuum sealed bag and store it.
I want to store a few hundred megabytes, not more than 1 GB.
I’m probably looking at something reasonably cheap, not making murals in caves or printing qr codes on platinum. Also not putting it on a Tesla and sending it on a trip through the solar system.
It should be independent of civilization functioning so it’s more about stealth than about physical barriers like safes.
Where are you getting 3 years from? Doesn’t that assume frequent use?
This source claims CD-R, i.e. the variants you buy and burn yourself (not commercial CR-ROM) would last 100-200 years. I suppose storing it is more difficult but a weather sealed cover could arguably be made. Question is how it handles temperature fluctuations in that case.
Also a number of copies could be made for redundancy.
So clean out 2 peanut butter tubs, put some kitty litter in them, and get 3 flash sticks. Then rotate them every time you visit the cabin in the woods?
Some electrical tape or something might make a better seal on the lid, while still being easier to remove than duct tape. And the tub can be buried.
I would use a Laptop HDD myself, but not sure if the hosteling would be bad for it.
And rotating 3 drives means there is a burried one, one in transit, and one ready to be written.
It seems flash SSD’s loose charge over time, so data degrades, and I don’t see why a USB thumb stick would be any better, but flash would handle more vibrations.
I guess it comes down to change over frequency?
Less than a year, probably flash? More, maybe HDD?
CD’s might last longer in a case, (I have no idea on the recordable durability) but are less easy to write and store to.
First, consider what data will actually be useful in an apocalypse / plague / genuine national disaster.
Second, absolutely do not use one data storage medium. You do not know what you will have access to afterwards.
Hard drive, convetional UFD, USB-C UFD, BD-ROM, CD-ROM, paper copy. Maybe if you have an old unlocked phone you could fill it with stuff and use that too, since it requires no additional hardware. Hardcopy. Have multiple media formats, that’s the take home.
The kitty litter (bentonite) container idea is a great one. Fireproof safes use similar natural materials, and some manmade stuff, to insulate their contents against fire.
Bentonite is also hygroscopic and will provide some limited protection against moisture, though it will also turn to (effectively) cement when it gets saturated. Make sure that PB jar is well sealed!
You may also want to consider something like the Raspberry Pi Recovery Kit.
Just a way to say “not that long”, not a specific figure.
Yeah sure…maybe in a lab somewhere. In my experience Verbatim CD-R burned 15 years ago are starting to fail and are getting hard to read correctly. They’ve always been not exposed to light and lived in my house so the humidity still kept reasonable levels.
That’s why I think AZO discs + the best CD writer would give you the best chance for those discs to survive. Surely having them sealed in a plastic bag will make them even more resiliant.
To clarify, it’s probably not an actual apocalypse scenario but a scenario that does not rely on civilization to function, or at least not function in your favor. It could be anything from an extended hospital stay to a local evacuation or going off the grid living off the land for a decade to come back and recover the data.
I think I there is a simple and cheap solution.
High quality paper air-tightly sealed.
QR Codes don’t store a lot of data, but there is another technology that looks promising: http://www.ollydbg.de/Paperbak/
There’s a few different ways to go about this that people are exploring here.
It kind of sounds like you’re wanting to keep mainly documents (important docs, ebooks, reference ? ) accessibly digitally, but you’re not worried about an end of civilisation event exactly, but more about disappearing for a while and coming back and you’re data still being there? (based on your last reply)
This really comes back to what kind of data you’re needing to keep. I think @cybersplice is right, you really need to check that the data you want to keep is actually worth keeping. A few hundred megabytes is an absolute library of information in the right format
The problem with digital formats is if you need it to work independent of civilisation… How are you going to actually do that? You need electricity, and an actual functioning computer to read the data, its something to think about.
the cyberdeck idea is great if you need a portable independent system you can take with you off the grid to have access to your data but doesn’t solve your original problem. storage will degrade over time, there’s simply no way of getting around this problem digitally with only a single medium.
If you’re just needing some physical backup a single USB or CD wont cut it as you have a single point of failure. You’d need to be considering multiple backups on multiple archival mediums stored in multiple geographically spread out areas.
There’s also no getting around the need to replace you’re backup mediums on a schedule. If your USB backup is only rated for 10 years you need to make sure its verified and replaced every 10 years.
Not to mention, even if a storage medium was guaranteed to last 100 years, you cant just leave it for 100 years. You don’t know if it has been stolen, broken, damaged by the elements or if the medium has become obsolete.
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You might have done this prep already but if not i think its worth going over (Even if you dont post it). You should consider some of the following
what do you need to actually back up? Whats actually important unique information and what can you retrieve by other means
why?
what are you’re risks? why are you needing to make backups? what scenarios are you looking to protect this information from?
consider how realistic and how likely those threats actually are
prioritise those actual threats
once you do that, then look at what backup options best protect against those actual threats
there is no one solution. you will likely have to land on a plan that includes multiple backups in multiple locations using different mediums with a scheduled plan to check, test, and replace your backups
It would be good to know a little more on you’re needs?