The Tao of Backup
The classic 1997 Tao of Backup satirical guide resurfaces on Hacker News, sparking discussion on modern storage economics and disaster recovery strategies.
summary is enough The satirical piece is a quick, entertaining read, and the comment thread provides a valuable overview of modern storage media costs and backup setups.
The article could not be read automatically; this analysis is based on the title and discussion.
summary
The 1997 satirical web page uses Taoist-style parables to impart fundamental lessons about data loss, system crashes, and the necessity of proper backups. Although the original text is an artifact of early web history concluding with a software advertisement, commenters fondly reminisce about it. The discussion quickly pivots to modern practicalities, debating the relative costs of HDDs, LTO tapes, and cloud storage versus immutable configurations like NixOS.
key points
- The 1997 text uses humorous parables to illustrate timeless truths about data loss and the painful lessons of failing to backup.
- Commenters break down current storage economics, evaluating whether HDDs, Blu-ray discs, or LTO tapes offer the best cost-per-terabyte for home use.
- Modern architectural approaches like NixOS and automated cryptographic verification are discussed as ways to minimize traditional backup overhead.
who should read it
Software engineers and system administrators interested in disaster recovery philosophies and storage economics.
discussion positive
consensus
Commenters widely praise the nostalgic humor and enduring relevance of the 1997 backup parables.
pushback
Some debate the reliability and privacy risks of using consumer cloud providers like Google Drive or iCloud for primary backup sync.
The $/TiB storage cost currently creates weird choices in backup media... even making some older media formats economical again. Just finished a consumer storage option survey yesterday.
Even if you account for consumer drive+spare cost, a 8TB HDD is still the best JBOD option. For under several dozen 25GB projects, the BD-R disc drive is currently the cheapest media backup option (about 35% cheaper than HDD above 12TiB). Note 50G and 100G BD EOL media are actually equal to or a worse deal than HDD.
Also, HPE LTO9 18GB Tapes are currently around 5 to 15 times cheaper than HDD and SSD in …
It provides a thorough, practical cost analysis comparing the $/TiB economics of HDDs, BD-R discs, and LTO tapes for consumer setups.
Generated by an LLM from the article and thread. Check the sources before relying on it.