3:38 - And I'm back up and running! Everything's looking good, but I learned a lot about my set up and what's needed to make it easier to recover. I'll be writing about that, though, in a future post.

3:23 - That install took a while. I think I need to prune my list of applications. Things are looking good except for some permissions problems on the files.

11:53 - Recovering from the Drobo nicely. Looks like I've got a list of things to add to the JungleDisk backup.

11:17 - I don't think I'm storing enough of my settings on JungleDisk. Nothing's working quite the way I had it working before. I know the Drobo has it all, but that's really not good enough in a real recovery situation. Finishing up some final updates from Ubuntu.

11:06 - Pulling files fine from JungleDisk. It looks like everything worked as I hoped! Going to restart and get the rest from the Drobo since I don't really want a massive Amazon S3 bill.

10:52 - Getting near the two hour mark, most of it spent reading Anathem. Now on to recovering user settings and restarting the computer.

10:25 - Should have looked up before hand how to install a large number of packages in Ubuntu. Updated my repositories from JungleDisk and now install my old system. Says it'll take another 30 minutes or so.

9:57 - Just went on a wild goose chase with TrueCrypt when trying to install it. You need dmsetup installed first on Linux and I thought I had to install from source. No, just apt-get update first. Now to install JungleDisk. Note: I haven't touched my local backups yet.

9:35 - Actually, no. I need to get JungleDisk up first to restore my repository list, so first I need to get my encrypted passwords off of Dropbox and then install TrueCrypt.

9:32 - Base OS install is done. Now to install all my software.

9:16 - Partition tables! Good question. That's one thing I didn't write down before starting. I guess I'll just take the defaults.

9:11 - It has no idea what to make of the drive. Yippie! I've lost all my data! Now to install Ubuntu from the CD. Should take about 30 to 45 minutes.

9:08 - It's in. Let's see if it actually works.

9:00 - Computer shutting down. Getting ready to swap the hard drive.

8:37 - My last JungleDisk backup ran at 9 last night and I did a Drobo backup around 5 yesterday. That should cover everything I need for this morning.

8:32 - Getting ready to start. Got my tea and my Ubuntu CD, what more do I need?

The backup recovery test will start Dec. 13th at 9:00AM. Will it be exciting enough for a live blog? I have no idea.

I'm going to attempt to recover my computer on Dec. 13th from a full (simulated) hard drive meltdown. In preparation, I've developed a plan as to how I'll recover everything from my local and remote backups. I could do everything from the local backup, but I want to make sure the remote backup is working too. So here's my current recovery strategy.

Local Backup

As I've stated many times before, I use a Drobo for my local backups. I backup everything in my local user directory, where all my documents and user settings files are stored, and some applications that I've had to install myself. I plan on not using this right away when I recover, to prove to myself that I can get back on my feet with just my remote backups.

Secure Key Backup

I have a local memory card in a fire-proof lock box that's encrypted via TrueCrypt and has most of my passwords on it, including what I need to access my remote backup, JungleDisk.

First Remote Backup

The first thing I'll need to recover are files off of Dropbox. I have my TrueCrypt volume with all of my passwords on Dropbox as a redundant backup of my local encrypted memory card and I'll need those to get at my JungleDisk passwords. This should be simple using Dropbox's web interface, which will give me access to everything on my Dropbox without having to install the software right away.

Second Remote Backup

My main remote backup is JungleDisk. Once I get my passwords from the TrueCrypt volume, I'll be able to install and start JungleDisk to get my files back in order. After that, it should be smooth sailing (I hope).

Why?

The main reason I have it all set up this way is redundancy. I want local backups that are easy to access and with less hoops to jump through to get them working, but I also need remote backups because local backups won't cover me in case of a fire or other natural disaster (like a spilt can of pop!)

The key is, I need to be able to access everything from remote backups because I might not have anything local to recover with. I have my passwords locally in a lock box, but also strongly encrypted on Dropbox so that I can get them if the lock box is gone. (They're also on the Drobo and JungleDisk, because I really don't want to lose my passwords.)

Any plan you create should allow you to recover a new computer back to your current computer's working state even if you don't have access to your local work area. In fact, I would say that a remote backup is way more important than a local backup because with a remote backup, you should be able to recover from anywhere. A local backup is really just for convenience and speed, not to be depended upon for the really important stuff.

So that's my plan. What's yours?

One of the best local backup devices today is the Drobo. The Drobo is a fast, expandable external hard drive. What makes it unique isn't that it's an external hard drive enclosure, but how it stores the data on the drives.

Redundant Redundancy

A Drobo has four hard drive bays that fit any size SATA drive you can buy. You'll need at least two drives for the Drobo to do it's magic.

No matter how many drives you have in the Drobo, the Drobo will show up on your Desktop as one external drive. Every file you put on the Drobo will actually get written to at least two of the drives. This protects your data from hard drive failure. If one of the drives dies, all hard drives will die eventually, your data is still safe on the other drives. Once you replace the faulty drive with a new one, the data will be recreated and will once again be protected.

You can actually mix and match drives in the Drobo, adding different size drives to different bays. The nice thing about that is, as drives get cheaper or if you see one on sale, you can just buy it and plug it into the Drobo without worrying about whether it will work with the other drives. You can see how different drives react to each other with the Drobolator.

If you ever run out of room, all you'll need to do it just buy another drive and plug it into the Drobo. The Drobo will automatically recognize that a new drive has been added and add it automatically into the system.

If a drive dies, the Drobo will alert you to the fact with flashing red lights. Just pop out the bad drive, pop in a new one and you're ready to go.

RAID!

This will sound familiar to any techie since the Drobo is basically just a RAID device. RAID has been around for years and is used by web servers and enterprise data centers to redundantly keep data on more than one drive. The big difference between the Drobo and a regular RAID system is maintenance. RAID systems can be a nightmare to set up and keep running. Also, most RAID systems require that you have all the same size drive installed, making it a pain if you ever want to upgrade to larger drives. I like to call the Drobo a consumer RAID device, since it handles all of the complicated RAID stuff behind the scenes and displays a simple interface for the user. If you know how to use a regular external drive, you know how to use a Drobo.

Problems

There have been many bad reviews on Amazon over the Drobo. The main complaint seems to be support but there is also talk of all four of the hard drives dying at the same time. This could be due to using all the same type of hard drive (namely, low quality drives) or running the Drobo for very long periods of time, which effectively cooked the hard drives. Either way, it is something to be aware of. I use my Drobo mainly for backups and rarely work straight off of it and I can say that I have had no problem with it at all.

I was also recently asked what I would do if the Drobo itself failed but the hard drives were fine. The only thing you can do in this situation is get a new Drobo since it what it writes to the disks is actually gibberish that only it understands. Some people are uncomfortable with that and if you're one of those people, you shouldn't get a Drobo. I'm okay with this since I see $350 a small price to pay to get my data back. It's much more troubling to me to have a hard drive crash and have everything gone than to have my Drobo crash and I just need to buy a new one to get everything back.

Also, the Drobo is pricey. I bought mine for $750, but you can get a full Drobo system for only $569. That still might be too much for some, but it really is the safest way to keep a local backup and, since it's expandable with more and larger drives, should last for many years to come.

I haven't talked about the Drobo yet, but it's quite possibly the perfect local backup machine. It acts like an external drive, but uses logic to store all your files redundantly across multiple drives inside the Drobo. So if you have two 1TB drives, it will show as 1TB of storage and mirror across the two drive. If one dies, your files are still safe and you can just plug in another drive to get the Drobo back up and running again.

Here's a great video about the Drobo, if you're not convinced.

The exciting part is that there's a great way to save a lot of money on a first generation Drobo. B&H currently has a first generation Drobo for only $349 with free shipping. I have the first gen Drobo and the only difference between that and the new Drobo is the new one has FireWire 800, not very useful if you mainly use PCs and not Macs.

A Drobo isn't much good without at least two drives. But Amazon is selling Seagate 1TB Hard Drives for only $109 with free shipping! UPDATE:They also have Western Digital Caviar 1TB Hard Drives on sale at the same price. This means you could have a full Drobo RAID-like external hard drive system for only $569.00!

That still may sound like a lot for an external hard drive, but being able to have one device that you can put files on and it will automatically back itself up on multiple drives is the holy grail of local backup. Plus, if you ever need more storage, you can just buy another cheap hard drive, plug it into the Drobo, and instantly have more space to store your stuff. With four hard drive bays on the device, there's plenty of room to grow.

I will be talking more about how the Drobo works in a future post. You can do fine with just regular external hard drives, but I've found that once you out grow a drive like that, you have to get another and they just start stacking up everywhere. Plus, if the drive dies, you've lost the whole thing and have to start over with a new one. If that's the only place you keep that data, the data is just gone. With the Drobo, I can just buy another drive, plug it in and go. I would recommend getting one if you can, and would really recommend getting one now with these prices the way they are.