That's what he said!  

+1, Larry, for your advice.

My $.02:  leverage the "sneaker net" approach in tandem with removable media.  Archive the personal electronic stuff that matters to a removable drive and store it in a safety deposit box. That meets Larry's noted best practice for storing off site (hopefully at a location not near hazards that Larry listed!). 

That said ... I haven't done that!  Picture me resembling the addage:  "We teach best what we most need to learn." (Richard Bach)

- Michele Kersey
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Member, Atlanta Peachtree Chapter
IBM
ARMA Election Management Task Force
http://twitter.com/michelekersey



-----Original Message-----
>From: Larry Medina <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Dec 2, 2010 5:00 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Rain drop - Fire destroys everything - including computer back-up
>
>This is a sad, but all too regular occurrence- and not just for "home
>businesses" but for businesses in office settings and regular folks personal
>records as well.
>
>A lot of people make backups and think if it's safely removed from the
>computer, that's good enough... or the make copies of valuable papers and
>store them in a 'fire box' or in a cabinet in another room.
>
>One of the first rules for protection of vital assets is SEPARATION, also
>referred to as DISPERSAL of your second copies or backups.  This should be
>AT MINIMUM a distance great enough so that the event you're attempting to
>protect them from is unable to affect both the primary and secondary copy.
>
>In the case of fire, it should definitely not be in the same structure and
>if you live in an area prone to wildfires, it shouldn't be in an area
>smaller than the worst recorded fire to hit the area you're in in the
>recorded past.  
>
>Similarly with floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes you should look
>to store your backups or secondary copies at distances farther away than
>known hazards and their known or projected geographic boundaries.   If these
>events in the past have been known to cause damage to areas of up to 50
>square miles, then you should be storing outside of those distances from
>your principal place of business or your home. 
>
>They should also be stored away form other known or potential hazards or
>threats.  If you're using a public storage area or commercial storage
>provider, get familiar with the adjacent businesses and/or their location.  
>
>Is there an auto repair facility or a gas station next door? 
>Any other businesses with flammables or combustible materials?  
>Are they in the flight path of an airport, next to a freeway or railroad?  
>Can you tell if there are any high pressure gas lines, oil or fuel lines
>under the facility? (these are typically plainly marked at adjacent roadways)
>Is there a fire station nearby?
>
>Businesses stand to lose a lot for failure to take necessary precautions,
>but individuals can also lose things that are irreplaceable in incidents
>such as this.  With many of us having nothing but digital cameras these
>days, most of our pictures are stored to hard drives or on CDs or other
>removable media.  Having the backups in an adjacent room may be 'better than
>nothing', but it really isn't as good as you can do.  One option is the old
>famous "sneaker net" where you walk a copy to a friend's or family members
>house in the next town or farther away.  Another is on-line storage, but
>that comes with some risks of privacy and possible loss as well- most of the
>agreements with these types of providers essentially tell you that they
>accept no liability for loss or corruption of your data, so it may be
>convenient... until it's not =(.   
>
>Removable drives (from 250gb up to 2TB) are relatively cheap these days-
>anywhere from $30-$200 and you can have a pair.  One you store at a remote
>location, one you keep at home to burn a new "fresh" copy to for exchanging
>with it, on whatever cycle you find acceptable. 
>
>Larry
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>
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