[Swill]

I've been meaning to save my large amount of adult content (probably about 700GB) in a way other than an external USB drive.  I'm using two external drives right now but I want to create a backup just in case of a drive failure. I know some of you are down on using cloud-like services (google drive, etc.) but I couldn't think of any other good options. 

If using a cloud service, would it be a good idea (especially for photos) to create zip file to avoid something to be flagged as suspicious?  I think google scans emails but I'm not sure if they scan your drive account uploads.

[Palomine]

You probably already know that unless you've got some kind of crazy-fast internet connection it's going to take you quite a while to upload 700GB to a cloud backup account, and the additional fact that that much online storage likely won't be free (monthly charge for the extra storage space). IIRC, a regular google drive account (what you mentioned) only comes with 15GB of room for free... and that's the total provided free: your email (including attachments) comes out of that 15GB too. I dunno how much it'd cost to add another 685GB of storage space to a google drive account, but I gotta think it's more cost-efficient to just buy another USB drive instead.

May I ask why you want to back it up again? Is it that you want a second, off-site backup in case your house gets robbed or burns down or something like that? I'm all for being prudent of course, and I have two backups of some important personal data, but certainly not two backups of everything. I try to keep one full set of backup drives (so, two copies counting the ones in my PC for daily use) and the backups, while still in my house, are kept in a locked metal cabinet in the garage. Yes, if the entire place burned to the ground I'd lose both copies, but I'm working on the assumption that that's unlikely unless the Apocalypse comes, in which case I'll have other, more important things to worry about.

Easiest way to back up that much data (also safer than cloud IMO) is just to use an external drive (another one if you insist on two copies of your backup). It'll be significantly faster to write the initial large backup than to upload it someplace, even just with USB2.0. You also have the option of encrypting the data and/or the whole drive if you want to. A 1TB drive will cost $50 or less... and you can usually get 4TB for $99. on sale. Just seems like the easiest solution to me.

If you do insist/decide on using the cloud instead, I'd strongly suggest encrypting your upload, not just zipping it.

[TheZookie007]

I agree. Much easier, safer, quicker, etc. to go down to Best Buy and pick up a couple of 1 TB external drives, like these from Western Digital, which should set you back no more than around $120. Do two backups, and keep one off-site.

[Swill]

Pal, what encryption methods or software do you use?

[Palomine]

Pal, what encryption methods or software do you use?

Because I don't have to share my PC with anyone and nobody else has access to it (short of a burglar, who probably doesn't want to drag an 8-year-old PC home anyway ) I don't normally encrypt files on my PC or on my backups. However, if you feel the need to do so there are many options for all platforms, including PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy and similar methods. As an simpler alternative, you can instead just use a password when you zip a file (for backup, or cloud storage or whatever) or, if you're extra paranoid, you can actually encrypt a whole drive (or drive partition) when you first format it and all the data on that drive will be encrypted (I have this option in Linux every time I format a drive, so I assume there's something like it for both Mac and Windows).

[TheZookie007]

... if you're extra paranoid, you can actually encrypt a whole drive (or drive partition) when you first format it and all the data on that drive will be encrypted (I have this option in Linux every time I format a drive, so I assume there's something like it for both Mac and Windows).

Yes. Windows 7 Ultimate Edition and Windows 7 Enterprise Edition has a BitLocker Drive Encryption feature. It's unfortunate that that's not available if you have Windows 7 Home Premium Edition, or Windows 7 Professional Edition. However, apart from PGP, there is another, free program you can use, called TrueCrypt:


Description: TrueCrypt is free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Main features:

• Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
• Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive.
• Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).
• Encryption is automatic, real-time (on-the-fly) and transparent.
• Parallelization and pipelining allow data to be read and written as fast as if the drive was not encrypted.
• Provides plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password.
• Encryption algorithms: AES-256, Serpent, and Twofish. Mode of operation: XTS.

Notes: TrueCrypt is hard. But if you don't mind navigating through a technical interface, it can basically do everything that BitLocker and BitLocker To Go can do. So you may find it worth the effort.


I know that most Western Digital drives come with encryption features built in to their backup software, so you could check into that also.

[Hiram]

Description: TrueCrypt is free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.

TrueCrypt has forked - now VeraCrypt is being updated.

[SwitcherX]

Any encryption will keep out people you know.

If you're going thru a messy divorce, truecrypt or put them in a zip file and PGP it.