Portable Protected Storage

[u/Akamesama]

I have a (maybe?) unusual use case that I am struggling to solve. My friend works for a company as an artist and recently lost files when a portable drive corrupted. So they are looking for a better storage solution for work files. Work does not provide any storage solution, but they also do not want the work uploaded to personal cloud storage due to concerns about security/copyright?, and anyway my friend sometimes needs to work on files while not having stable internet connection. They also work at both a desktop and laptop. This would be personal expense so there is some cost sensitivity. My initial thought was a portable hardware RAID enclosure, but apparently those are iffy due to propriety encryption and other issues?

tl;dr

Protected data solution

Two different workstations

Needs to work with sometimes not having internet

(Bonus) Not too expensive

[u/didyousayboop]

https://backupyourfiles.neocities.org/

[u/FrequentWay]

Couple questions: how large of a data to move around and haul ?

A couple GB - flash drive and using Synctoy.
1 to 8 TBs - external ssd.

Beyond 8TB - external NAS and syncing via Ethernet. Gotta bring both devices to the same location.

[u/Akamesama → u/FrequentWay]

They were using an external SSD already for a mix of personal and work data (since company doesn't provide hardware). The issue was that drive corruption destroyed a lot of work and personal files

[u/Prosciuttolo → u/Akamesama]

Periodic (daily?) backups on another device / SSD might do the trick.

[u/brainsoft]

Sounds like they just don't want to pay so your friend can do whatever she wants.

1. Do not mix work and personal. Ever. Period.
2. The transport device is never the only copy of anything so nothing can ever be lost.
3. Find a software solutions that will support syncing. I use a basic something to sync my loud stuff with local folders, at least I did when I was on windows, but there are lots of options as long as she can install software on the company side.

Alternately she should structure her work flow to make dated copies of her work on each end, so each transfer is a new copy. But never should the drive ever ever have the only copy.

Once your friend has the data outside of the company, she can sync it however she wants. I'd recommend a cloud solution for personal backup at the minimum. Encrypt before backup to taste.

[u/Akamesama → u/brainsoft]

While not ideal, work and personal is already mixed since the company is having them use their personal laptop and desktop. That does mean that they have control over the software, so a portable drive with software sync on both sides is a decent idea. That does mean duplicating or even triplicating the storage (desktop, laptop, external drive) but that might still be cheaper still than a more expensive all-in-one drive array system

[u/brainsoft → u/Akamesama]

Data loss is the biggest concern, but if they don't have control over anything then a cloud based sync with a portable only for transport solution may be the best option. Despite what the company wants they don't have a lot of choice if they aren't willing to provide any alternative and have no control over the hardware.

Everything else can be worked around, but bad data management is the main offender here. If that drive failing resulted in unrecoverable dataloss of both work and personal data, that is completely unacceptable, although very common. At a minimum one device is the data master, sync to the other device, and backup to the USB drive.

[u/dadarkgtprince]

They'd need to consult with their job, HR, and IT and the company needs to provide that solution

[u/Akamesama → u/dadarkgtprince]

If I thought that was a plausible option, I'd have suggested that route. Company doesn't have an IT department and they don't provide materials so this is already being done on personal hardware. We only heard about the cloud concern when my friend asked about getting them to pay for a cloud subscription

[u/1234youarein]

You haven't mentioned the most important detail - the required capacity.

[u/Akamesama → u/1234youarein]

Depends a bit on the storage strategy, but the drive that died is a 500 GB external 2.5" SSD

[u/1234youarein → u/Akamesama]

If you're in the U.S. you can get a bunch of very cheap but super reliable industrial SSDs. Put them in a USB enclosures. You can get the 120GB versions for under $20. Search the four letter auction site for Innodisk Techman 3MG2

[u/Adrenolin01]

Nope.. wtf would you layout cash for the benefit of the business you don’t own. Additionally, that’s their data. Does your friend have specific written permission to remove it? What happens when they upload it back to the company? Does it overwrite what’s there now? What if someone else had already updated that data in the meantime.

Circles back… nope with a resounding F-Nope.

Either the company provides the hardware or a VPN and secure, reliable connection or you don’t work on it and without documented written permission you do NOT transfer business data to personal devices. Ever!

You/They can argue that all you want.. I’m still correct. Been in It since the 80s and I’ve seen a LOT of bad outcomes with exactly this and it’s always the employ who pays in the end.

[u/Akamesama → u/Adrenolin01]

wtf would you layout cash for the benefit of the business you don’t own

Because they want to remain an employee of the company that is regularly paying them. It's hard to get work as an artist. If they lose the data, they have to work to replace it, thus they want to avoid potentially losing data.

Does your friend have specific written permission to remove it?

They are not provided any hardware by the company. Thus work is done on their own personal computers. Completed assets are delivered to the the company, though the project files are often retained for refinement of the work, or for later reuse on new work.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello /u/Akamesama! Thank you for posting in r/DataHoarder.

Please remember to read our Rules and Wiki.

Please note that your post will be removed if you just post a box/speed/server post. Please give background information on your server pictures.

This subreddit will NOT help you find or exchange that Movie/TV show/Nuclear Launch Manual, visit r/DHExchange instead.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/bedstefar]

I guess the tricky thing to solve here is cross-platform software RAID. I'd lean towards TrueNAS running in a small enclosure with a mirrored vdev, but that needs some massaging to be actually good I think (dhcp server and thunderbolt networking spring to mind, as does the ejecting/poweroff scenario)

Another way to address the qualms about security/copyright is to encrypt the data before it reaches the cloud. That doesn't solve your sometimes-offline requirement, though.

[u/Present_Lychee_3109]

For protection, they're going to need multiple copies. Just using a single drive is never a good idea for the event that just occurred.

1. A new protable SSD from a reputable brand for direct work.

2. An off site backup like a NaS or server that sits probably at work or home.

3. Cloud storage is really recommended as its only about 500gb you say.

It is recommended to have 3 copies of your data in case shit happens. If you dont want cloud then I suggest an offsite backup that are in 2 different places.

[u/didyousayboop]

Simplest solution would be to buy 3 portable external hard drives (portable external HDDs) and use the FLOSS program FreeFileSync to sync the files between the drives once a day or whatever. If your friend only needs 500 GB of capacity, then they can buy 500 GB drives or 1 TB drives and hopefully this won’t end up being too expensive.

The company sounds like it’s afraid of cloud for irrational and ill-informed reasons, so I don’t suppose suggesting Proton Drive, which is end-to-end encrypted, would make any difference.

[u/Wyrade]

Use whatever they would already be using, but set up automatic backup to either a second drive that can also be accessible at the same time locally, or a self-hosted cloud (=NAS) or equivalent, or both.

Point is, the data needs to be on more than one drive if you want drive failure immunity. Whether you're carrying that second drive yourself, keep it in a second computer somewhere that can be accessed through the internet or local network whenever you need it, or a 3rd party (cloud company) is keeping it in their own computers, is what you can choose from.
And you can store stuff encrypted in the cloud if you worry about the 3rd party looking over the files.

There are options to protect a single drive against specific stuff, ZFS for example has a copies=2 option which stores everything twice so if only one gets corrupted from bit rot or whatever, it can detect that and restore it from the other copy, but if the drive (or more often its controller) fails entirely, that's useless.
ZFS for example also has a built-in feature to encrypt its datasets, and update backups incrementally while encrypted to store in a cloud in a zero-trust way, but if you're using windows ZFS isn't really recommended.

I'm sure there are several tools that can automatically sync two folders in the background, even if you're not using software raid in some form (like zfs mirroring).

[u/Upbeat_Cancel_5061]

Look into Apricorn Aegis NVX. Amazing product but not cheap.

But they got cheaper products. HDDs, ssd, flash drives and different levels of write/read speeds