Data loss is such a tragic and anxiety generating process that you (yes YOU) should have backups set up. Local system backups (ie filevault/windows backup/cron rsync to an ext hdd) are useful, but they are only good for accidents or hardware failures.
You should have a cloud backup set up as well. Personally, I use backblaze with local encryption. I have found that to meet all of the requirements for personal backup, you need both local and cloud backups.
fast recovery
fire/theft resistant (local encryption, and this also means key management. I keep a copy in my safety deposit box)
malware/cryptolocker resistant (meaning that your backups should be versioned, and the versioning should be out of band from your computer - cloud services or zfs snapshots on another machine are an example of this)
accident resistant (deleting your own files and not realizing for a few weeks)
This is not a complete nor comprehensive post on how to backups correctly, and I’m leaving some stuff out for brevity; however, if you’ve never thought about it, a lazy weekend like today is a great time to crack something out in an hour or two :)
Not that you’re wrong but I feel this diatribe is a little misplaced here. This post is explicitly for restoring the version of the file you just deleted. Maybe I’m being pessimistic here but I’m reading that as “with current changes”, so even with your nightly changes you might have just binned a day’s work.
How has your experience been with backblaze? Are you able to retrieve any of your backed up data losslessly at will?
I was looking into them a few months ago, but I was ultimately turned away from them by some users saying backblaze lost or deleted their data. It’s possible those were cases of user error (or even competitors leaving malicious reviews), but I still found it concerning.
It’s been fine. I tested a restore a while back and it worked without issue. Testing backups is important.
I would be hesitant to trust a site like TrustPilot, since it’s basically a BBB-style shakedown, where companies have to pay to address bad reviews. Not to mention that Backblaze is pretty clear about the 30 day limit, and yet many reviewers are boggled that their older files have been removed from backups. Also, there is that tendency that the majority of people who leave reviews tend to be ones who are frustrated.
On that note, there are third party clients (including completely FOSS ones), that use any object storage for backups (including backblaze’s backend). If you’re concerned about trusting that backblaze is ACTUALLY encrypting your data locally, you should use one of those instead.
But most crucially, restoring from cloud backup is a huge pain in the ass. It’s slow. It should be a backup backup, to help deal with malware, theft, fire, or other major disasters. I hope to never have to restore from cloud backup. But to reiterate: test your backups.
general advice is generally bad. There are tradeoffs in cloud security - local threat models vs. global ones. Different failure modes. Also clouds can fail.
In the end it’s all about probabilities, effort and damage.
Cloud storage can fail, but with a very low probability. Local storage can fail, with a somewhat higher probability. The goal with backups is to minimise correlated failures. It doesn’t matter if either fails, it matters if both fail at the same time. On site backups are bad in this regard because a lightening spike through the power, fire, or theft can cause the backup and the primary to fail at the same time.
Using Backblaze B2 with your own software like Restic/Borg/Duplicati is something I would definitely recommend.
But Backblaze Personal Backup has the fatal flaw that they decrypt your data onw their servers if you want to restore instead of downloading the encrypted data and decrypting locally with their client, rendering the local encryption completely useless. And the software for Backblaze Personal Backup is proprietary as well, which does not give me confidence in the the security and privacy it is supposed to provide (that is, if I never restore).
Data loss is such a tragic and anxiety generating process that you (yes YOU) should have backups set up. Local system backups (ie filevault/windows backup/cron rsync to an ext hdd) are useful, but they are only good for accidents or hardware failures.
You should have a cloud backup set up as well. Personally, I use backblaze with local encryption. I have found that to meet all of the requirements for personal backup, you need both local and cloud backups.
This is not a complete nor comprehensive post on how to backups correctly, and I’m leaving some stuff out for brevity; however, if you’ve never thought about it, a lazy weekend like today is a great time to crack something out in an hour or two :)
Not that you’re wrong but I feel this diatribe is a little misplaced here. This post is explicitly for restoring the version of the file you just deleted. Maybe I’m being pessimistic here but I’m reading that as “with current changes”, so even with your nightly changes you might have just binned a day’s work.
How has your experience been with backblaze? Are you able to retrieve any of your backed up data losslessly at will?
I was looking into them a few months ago, but I was ultimately turned away from them by some users saying backblaze lost or deleted their data. It’s possible those were cases of user error (or even competitors leaving malicious reviews), but I still found it concerning.
It’s been fine. I tested a restore a while back and it worked without issue. Testing backups is important.
I would be hesitant to trust a site like TrustPilot, since it’s basically a BBB-style shakedown, where companies have to pay to address bad reviews. Not to mention that Backblaze is pretty clear about the 30 day limit, and yet many reviewers are boggled that their older files have been removed from backups. Also, there is that tendency that the majority of people who leave reviews tend to be ones who are frustrated.
On that note, there are third party clients (including completely FOSS ones), that use any object storage for backups (including backblaze’s backend). If you’re concerned about trusting that backblaze is ACTUALLY encrypting your data locally, you should use one of those instead.
But most crucially, restoring from cloud backup is a huge pain in the ass. It’s slow. It should be a backup backup, to help deal with malware, theft, fire, or other major disasters. I hope to never have to restore from cloud backup. But to reiterate: test your backups.
general advice is generally bad. There are tradeoffs in cloud security - local threat models vs. global ones. Different failure modes. Also clouds can fail.
In the end it’s all about probabilities, effort and damage.
Cloud storage can fail, but with a very low probability. Local storage can fail, with a somewhat higher probability. The goal with backups is to minimise correlated failures. It doesn’t matter if either fails, it matters if both fail at the same time. On site backups are bad in this regard because a lightening spike through the power, fire, or theft can cause the backup and the primary to fail at the same time.
Using Backblaze B2 with your own software like Restic/Borg/Duplicati is something I would definitely recommend.
But Backblaze Personal Backup has the fatal flaw that they decrypt your data onw their servers if you want to restore instead of downloading the encrypted data and decrypting locally with their client, rendering the local encryption completely useless. And the software for Backblaze Personal Backup is proprietary as well, which does not give me confidence in the the security and privacy it is supposed to provide (that is, if I never restore).
I do not like your choice to name your trash dir
bin!