Difference between revisions of "Tech support backup services"

Latest revision as of 12:30, 24 January 2012

About backup services

Freegeek tech support is working on being able to offer basic data backup/transfer services for both volunteers and donors. This would allow for donors and volunteers receiving new computers to have data taken from there old systems and transfered to an external hard drive or other data storage medium.

How it works

Whenever a volunteer or donor has an old computer with files they would like transfered, tech support will perform the service for a fee, based on the amount of data being transfered. Tech support will only offer this service for hard drives in working order (ie: we can mount the drive). Tech support will transfer user data and import Firefox bookmarks. The old hard drive will be erased or destroyed.

Storage

We can store files on any media the user provides. The person requesting the service will be required to provide a backup medium for storage (DVD-R, external hard drive...etc.). Possibly offer to send it to online storage (Like dropbox, Ubuntu One etc.)

What to do

Once the machine has been taken to tech support, a tech will remove the hard drive and mount it TSData to transfer the data from one medium to the other. The tech should transfer "C:\Documents & Settings" On windows xp machines, C:\Users on vista and windows 7. and /home on Linux & other Unixes. On machines running older versions of windows 9x just copy the entire C:\ drive.

How much will it cost

Current pricing is :

$10 +
$3 for the first DVD
$2 per DVD for DVD's 2-5
$1 per DVD thereafter

How long

Data transfer requests go into the queue, which generally allows 1-2 day service depending on the current load. There are limited slots on tsdata for drives so a backlog can build up quickly and 1-2 days is probably a best case scenario. Photorec, in particular, can tie up the machine for days at a time. N.B. its possible to interrupt network backups to remove another drive --- this is the reason we use rsync (just rerun the same command) rather than other methods as it is smart enough to only copy over data that has not already been transferred.

What it's not

FreeGeek does not (and probably will not ever) offer data recovery services. If we can not mount a hard drive, we will not be able to transfer any data. (the only exception is if a simple fsck is what it needs to be mounted). We also wont transfer data from CD-ROM, Floppy, VHS, BetaMax, or any other formats people come in with. N.B. We can run Photorec to recover accidentally deleted files but this has limitations -- namely it will recover every deleted file and can't recover the file names. We can make a guess on useful files based on file extension (there is a script to sort them based on this) but beyond this its up to the user. We can generally recover peoples lost photos though as long as the drive is not physically dead or has been wiped.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 ==About backup services==
-Freegeek tech support is working on being able to offer basic data backup/transfer services for both volunteers and donators. This would allow for donators and volunteers reciving new computers to have data taken from there old systems and transfered to an external hard drive or other data storage medium.
+Freegeek tech support is working on being able to offer basic data backup/transfer services for both volunteers and donors. This would allow for donors and volunteers receiving new computers to have data taken from there old systems and transfered to an external hard drive or other data storage medium.
 ==How it works==
-Whenever a volunteer or donater has an old computer with files they would like transfered, tech support will perform the service for a fee, based on the amount of data being transfered. Tech support will only offer this service for hard drives in working order (ie: we can mount the drive). Tech support will do nothing other than transfer ALL user data from a hard drive (not programs). The old hard drive will be then stored for later wiping (maybe we can do a quick once over with Zeros).
+Whenever a volunteer or donor has an old computer with files they would like transfered, tech support will perform the service for a fee, based on the amount of data being transfered. Tech support will only offer this service for hard drives in working order (ie: we can mount the drive). Tech support will transfer user data and import Firefox bookmarks. The old hard drive will be erased or destroyed.
 ==Storage==
-We can store files on any media the user provides. The person requesting the service will be required to provide a backup meduim for storage (DVD-R, external hard drive...etc.). Possibly offer to send it to online storage (Like dropbox, Ubuntu One etc.)
+We can store files on any media the user provides. The person requesting the service will be required to provide a backup medium for storage (DVD-R, external hard drive...etc.). Possibly offer to send it to online storage (Like dropbox, Ubuntu One etc.)
 ==What to do==
-Once the machine has been taken to tech support, a tech will remove the hard drive and use a USB encloser to transfer the data from one medium to the other. The tech should transfer "C:\Documents & Settings" On windows xp machines, C:\Users on vista and windows 7. and /home on linux & other unixes. On machines running older versions of windows 9x just copy the entire C:\ drive.
+Once the machine has been taken to tech support, a tech will remove the hard drive and mount it TSData to transfer the data from one medium to the other. The tech should transfer "C:\Documents & Settings" On windows xp machines, C:\Users on vista and windows 7. and /home on Linux & other Unixes. On machines running older versions of windows 9x just copy the entire C:\ drive.
 ==How much will it cost==
-A flat fee of $20 will cover data up to 20gb. We will charge $1/gb above that (any other suggestions on pricing per gb?).
+Current pricing is :
+*$10 +
+*$3 for the first DVD
+*$2 per DVD for DVD's 2-5
+*$1 per DVD thereafter
 ==How long==
-We should be able to offer next day service on just about all data transfers. We'll want to do some testing to see on average how long transfers will take and possible give more accurate times.
+Data transfer requests go into the queue, which generally allows 1-2 day service depending on the current load.
+There are limited slots on tsdata  for drives so a backlog can build up quickly and  1-2 days is probably a best case scenario. Photorec, in particular, can tie up the machine for days at a time. N.B. its possible to interrupt network backups to remove another drive --- this is the reason we use rsync (just rerun the same command) rather than other methods as it is smart enough to only copy over data that has not already been transferred.
 ==What it's not==
-FreeGeek does not (and probably will not ever) offer data recovery services. If we can not mount a hard drive, we will not be able to transfer any data. (the only exception is if a simple fsck is what it needs to be mounted). We also wont transfer data from CD-ROM, Floppy, VHS, BetaMax, or any other silly formats people might come in with.
+FreeGeek does not (and probably will not ever) offer data recovery services. If we can not mount a hard drive, we will not be able to transfer any data. (the only exception is if a simple fsck is what it needs to be mounted). We also wont transfer data from CD-ROM, Floppy, VHS, BetaMax, or any other formats people come in with.
+N.B. We can run Photorec to recover accidentally deleted files but this has limitations -- namely it will recover every deleted file and can't recover the file names. We can make a guess on useful files based on file extension (there is a script to sort them based on this) but beyond this its up to the user. We can generally recover peoples lost photos though as long as the drive is not physically dead or has been wiped.
 [[Category:Tech support]]
+[[Category: Proposals]]