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How the vault is backed upReference
REFERENCE

How the vault is backed up

📌 TL;DR / Quick Summary <div style="background: rgba(0,0,0,0.3); border: 1px dashed rgba(255,255,255,0.2); padding: 15px; border-radius: 8px; color: rgba(255,255,255,0.7); margin-bottom: 30px;"> Where the copies of this vault live, how often they are made, and the one restore I tested on purpose. Written on Sunday 5 January with Rules for this vault, on the principle that a system I am not allowed to rebuild had better not be losable either. </div>

🛠️ Instructions / Core Material

  1. The working copy is on the laptop. One folder, plain text files, nothing clever.
  2. Nightly copy to 💳 Cloud storage, at about 02:00, the whole folder. Three euros a month. Old versions are kept for thirty days, which covers the August-night-in-2022 scenario where the danger is me.
  3. Sunday copy of the whole laptop to the external drive in the desk drawer, started before the money check and finished by the end of it.
  4. The restore, tested once. On 5 January I copied the cloud version to an empty folder, opened it, and checked three things: today's note was there, a link between two notes still worked, an image still showed. Eleven minutes, including finding the cable.
  5. The restore, tested for real. On 6 October the old laptop died at 10:15. The vault was back on the new machine that evening, whole to the night before.

Three copies, two places, one of them not in the flat. I did not invent that rule and I do not improve on it.

⚠️ Key Warnings / Constraints

  • A backup nobody has restored from is a hope. Test again after any change of laptop or provider.
  • Changing the provider or the schedule counts as a structural change. It goes on the itch list.
  • The external drive lives in a drawer in the same room as the laptop. A fire takes both, which is what the nightly copy is for.
  • No passwords in this note or anywhere in the vault.

🔗 Related Entities & Resources

  • Rules for this vault: written the same Sunday; the backup is what makes the rules safe
  • 💳 Cloud storage: the nightly copy and its three euros a month
  • New laptop setup checklist: the day in October the restore was needed for real