Is tape dead?

[Paul Koning]

> On Sep 15, 2015, at 1:12 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 15 Sep 2015, Guy Dawson wrote:
>> Delete it on the master and have it faithfully deleted on the replica.
> 
> Yeah.
> 
> Backup should NOT be connected to the computer that it is backing up, and should be a drive, NOT a connected computer.
> 
> Ever heard of CRYPTOWALL ?   ...

It depends on the purpose of the backup.  There are two major possibilities (1) to recover from operator error (2) to recover from destruction of the system.  The malware you're describing is really a variant of (2).  

For (1), on-system backups, or snapshots, or stuff like that are fine.  The concern is a file that was accidentally deleted or clobbered, and another copy of that file on the same machine, or connected nearby, will serve.

For (2) you need a backup that is isolated from whatever event clobbered your system.  That event might be fire, earthquake, or malware.  For all of those, distance and possibly isolation are what you need.

If you care about fast recovery from both classes of issue, you will want to consider two backups, one for each kind of problem.  The one for (1) can typically run much more frequently than the one for (2).

	paul