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@LyleHaze

First of all I add my thanks for the audio driver for OS4. I'll get to work on that this weekend. Is there a "tip jar" if I'm wowed?

One of my goals is to reduce my desk clutter. At the left edge is a beast of a SunBlade 1000. On top of that is my AmigaOne-XE. To the immediate right is my X1000. Its crowded. So I'm not excited about a USB external backup type thing. Your ftp suggestion is what I already do. Its doable, but feels clunky, and doesn't work on the reduction goal.

I did try to setup a "mirror"-ish affair between the AmigaOne and the X1000. I made it work while the AmigaOne was still my main machine and the X1000 was just getting populated. But when I went back to do it again when I wanted to backup my X1000 work, it failed. It worked before and should work again, but I was flummoxed, then disgusted and haven't even turned on the AmigaOne in 6 months now. It was supposed to be my whole computer backup if the X1000 dies!

I back up to the SunBlade out of convenience. Now I am facing it all again with the decision to abandon the SunBlade if possible with Linux on the X1000. The "work" project is pressing, but Oracle's tack is dogging me so much, I will try Linux.

Drives are cheap enough that if one of the "2nd drive" approaches fails, I can try something else. But this discussion made it plain that I should be sure the "backup" disk I get is directly attachable to the AmigaOne.

One downside with this Amiga | Linux :: Jekyll | Hyde is no obvious way to have them talk to each other.

ggw wrote:@LyleHaze
First of all I add my thanks for the audio driver for OS4. I'll get to work on that this weekend. Is there a "tip jar" if I'm wowed?

There is. I have a donations site at https://sites.google.com/site/takeaprogrammertolunch/
being unemployed makes for lots of Amiga time, but a bit of income occasionally really helps.

ggw wrote: One of my goals is to reduce my desk clutter.

I feel your pain. My own setup for many years was half Amigas, and half music equipment. The space I work in now
is tight, and the "real" amp and speakers have been retired to the garage. Shame, too, they sound nice. I also miss the
(synth) keyboard and drum kit. Maybe one day I'll get a complete office/studio again.

Making a backup can take many different forms. As you mentioned, an off-site unmounted drive is the "right" way.
I have multiple layers of backup myself. It may not be perfect, but it covers most of my bases.

One simple method is to keep a separate drive JUST for backups always installed. (note, separate drive, NOT a separate
partition on the main drive). This gives me a very fast copy speeds, and I can manage it easily. A catastrophic power supply
failure COULD kill it, but a failure of software or the main drive should leave it untouched. I have one drive just for this.

My second level is by FTP to my router. Down side is that it is a lot slower than an internal drive, but the upside is that
it is truly "out of the machine", and it can be accessed easily by ANY machines in the house, OS4, Windows, or Linux.
I also back my wifes machine up to this occasionally. I can get around the speed problem by scripting writes from the internal backup drive to happen when I am away from the machine.

Finally, I have made arrangements with another Amiga programmer who holds the code to all my larger projects. This is less about a machine failure and more about if something should happen to me. This provides reassurance that in the event of my untimely demise, my wife won't need to worry about what to do about my projects. I just started loading up a flash drive with all that stuff, and will hopefully get it out in the mail in "about two weeks".

Other ideas: The X1000 has PLENTY of USB slots. Flash drives are cheap. Leave one plugged in or keep a few and rotate them.
Maybe find a SATA PCIe card with an external "e-sata" port, this would give the speed of an internal drive with the ability to remove it easily. Or, as was pointed out already, adding a PCIe USB3 card with an internal header will "enable" the USB3 socket on the front for a fast connection to an external drive, if/when that driver is released.

ggw wrote: One downside with this Amiga | Linux :: Jekyll | Hyde is no obvious way to have them talk to each other.

Speaking of which, I mounted a partition formatted DOS/03 in hopes that AmigaOS and DebianLinux could use it as a common drive.
No idea how to get Debian to see it. Always more for me to learn!

Good luck making a backup plan. ANY backup is better than none, and multiple backups are better than just one.

Have Fun,

@LyleHaze

Maybe find a SATA PCIe card with an external "e-sata" port, this would give the speed of an internal drive with the ability to remove it easily. Or, as was pointed out already, adding a PCIe USB3 card with an internal header will "enable" the USB3 socket on the front for a fast connection to an external drive, if/when that driver is released.

I use a Delock eSATAp drive-bay adapter connected to an internal SATA port in my X1000. My SAM Flex has a similar eSATAp adapter mounted in a card slot in the rear. I have an external 2.5" hard-drive case with an eSAPAp connector that I can use with any 2.5" SATA drive. An eSATA (no power) adapter would be cheaper. Since eSATA and especially eSATAp are not widely used, I suspect that the adapters may not be available much longer; USB3 has similar speeds and is becoming a standard.

It's really convenient to just connect an external drive, drag_n_drop partitions to the external drive and get everything backed up in a reasonable time. I don't keep the external drive connected unless I am backing up, so my data won't be lost in the event of something catastrophic like a lightning strike. Considering the growth in OS4 program sizes (mostly ported stuff) and the common use of large video/music/photo files I think USB3 will be a must for OS4 in the not to distant future. There's no better time than now to start working on that driver

Thanks to you both.
I do have some small USB thumb drives. They were for my wife to use to backup her iBook. She j u s t can't be bothered. A friend wrote an Apple script so its plug in the drive, 2 clicks, about 3 minutes, pull out the drive and you are done.

I have not tried a thumb drive with the X1000 (or any other machine here at home... they are illegal at work!). I'll "borrow" one of my wife's and try it.

There are 4 projects I have that should be in the hands of someone not afraid of computers, because they involve information actively used by others. NONE of the others (4, ~12, 20 [+70 others by implication], and 3) have shown even 1 tiny bit of interest to possessing a copy of the source code and data. I will take the advice to periodically hand 1 thumb drive to a programmer/IT friend that is outgoing enough to approach the affected parties should I get run over commuting 7.5 miles to work and then back home in dusk conditions (or whatever might suddenly happen). Excellent idea.