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Comment by michael_dorfman | Hacker News Reader

I remember writing my thesis, back in the days before the web. I left (5.25" floppy disk, WordPerfect 4.2) copies with friends in as many diverse locations as I could manage. I copied it onto any hard drive whose owner would let me, and a few who wouldn't (like the college card catalog system--sorry!). I did everything in my power to make sure that my work-in-progress could survive a nuclear attack.

Why didn't this guy, exactly?

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I learned this lesson with a lousy floppy on my C64 in 5th grade. I still remember the awful sound of the 1541 struggling to read that lost file into "Paperback Writer".

It haunts my dreams and reminds me to always back up, always.

I always knew that I should keep backup(s), but I didn't get backup religion either until the first time I had a hard disk crash on me and lose everything. Unfortunately, that may be what it takes to get most folks into the habit.

I even did this with some large assignments while on High School. He was just plainly oblivious to data management. Currently I have something like 4 copies of my WIP thesis... All up to date +- 3 days (my USB keychain drive, my netbook hard drive, my office computer who has automatic backup already by the sysadmin and my MacBook, all my running backups being managed through this script: http://www.mostlymaths.net/2009/09/my-backup-script-in-macli...).

I know I could add a few more, but it is working as it is, and if all get wiped, probably the problem would be so big I wouldn't mind losing everything.

It sounds like you have it covered, but why not use a service like Dropbox or Tarsnap that backs out to Amazon S3 where they have like nine 9's of redundancy?

Backing up to the cloud is the next big step in backup.

Indeed. I have started using Dropbox very recently, I am still not used to it. When I'm back home I'll just copy all there, it is just a simple drag and drop! Thanks for reminding me!

I checked the Dropbox, but I don't see why a service of "storing something on some servers" has to be bound to "you must install this app which you have no control of to use the service."

The only answer I see is "they want to do something nefarious." Otherwise there would be a simple web interface for people for which that is enough. Or even a simple html based API.

Is Tarsnap better?

(1) Dropbox has a web interface where you can upload and download files. It's pretty easy to use.

(2) Their app adds a huge value, in that it automatically uploads any changes to files in your local Dropbox folder. It is convenience, and hardly nefarious. Everything that can be done to make backups easier and more automatic is a good thing, IMHO.

If you don't want the automation, then yes, another solution is probably better.

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