Big Cheap Remote Backups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (was Re: [tlug] hard drive shock resiliance and health - linux tools?)

[Jim <jep200404@example.com>]

Godwin Stewart wrote:

> ... Jim ... wrote:
> 
> > Big hard drives in an old clunker PC at a friend's house 
> > connected to the internet, accessed only by ssh. 
> > rsync -e ssh is your friend.
> 
> Do *you* want to back up 2.1 *TERA*bytes of data over the internet?

Of course, as part of setting up the clunker PC, I would do the 
initial backup over the LAN, then maintain the backups over the 
internet. 

With a 30 Mbit/s internet feed, it would take 2.1*10^12/
((30*10^6/8)*(3600)) seconds, (i.e., about a week) to do the 
the first full backup over the internet, so it is plausible to 
do all the backups remotely. At some point, maybe the internet 
is faster than the clunker PC, so maybe one might as well do 
the first full backup (or most of it) over the internet. 

> How are you going to get that much storage space into an 
> "old clunker PC"?

Big IDE drives and maybe an extra IDE controller card.