Backups

What's your backup strategy, Holla Forums?

How do you backup your desktops, handhelds, and servers?
What tools do you use?
Do you encrypt?
Where do you store the backups? Are they off-site?
Does your method prevent data corruption of in-use data?
How secure is your solution?

Or maybe you just hope for the best..

...

I'm using a vps with backuppc but it's kinda a shit solution as the data's unencrypted on a butt provider and the backup server has to have root on every machine. I need a better solution.

rsync -aAX --delete --info=progress2 --exclude={"/dev/*","/proc/*","/sys/*","/tmp/*","/run/*","/mnt/*","/media/*","/lost+found","/storage/*"} /* /storage

My strategy is:
1. Have often (every day?) auto backups of project files on same HDD. They won't help in HDD failure but will in case of single file corruption or overwrite.
2. Have regular encrypted backups of project files and some other important files on pendrive / SD card. Those should be 1-10GB in size. Just plug it into pc every week and do it automatically or semi-auto.
3. Have occasional (one in month or few) bigger backups to external HDD. Those are also encrypted. They include entire system partition, might include some less important stuff like installed programs, program data, music, videos etc. Expected size 20-200GB.
4. Have regular encrypted backups like in 2. but not to pendrive but to internet. This is important when you might need to run immediately from country or if your house gets stolen or burned.
5. Occasional or rare, like in 3. but to a HDD that isn't stored in house but at some other place.

The small issue is that... well... it's only a strategy, plan. I don't do that yet. But what do you think of my plan? Any improvements?
How to automate it so I can just plug a pendrive in?
Where to upload online backup? How to do it incremental? Or is it not possible to incremental if I use encryption?
Where to store external HDD outside of home?

I use deja-dup, a front-end for duplicity, to back up my files on an external HDD. Occasionally I encrypt the backup and store it online.

I should add that the backups are already encrypted, I just put them all in an encrypted archive before putting it online so it's not even clear what it is.

I backup everything to CDs. Gonna move to DVDs and Blu-Rays when the compressed size is uncomfortably close to 700MB (currently at 80MB). I like it because if a hardware failure were to happen, I could just buy another drive and/or use an older disk or another copy of the same one (if I decide to make two CDs for one backup). Files are individually encrypted if they need to be, but I might GPG encrypt the tar.xz file that contains everything.

Like I said earlier, optical media is a great and cheap way to redundantly store your data. Blu-ray disks seem to be the best bang for your buck, but I don't use them because I don't backup enough data to warrant using it and I don't have a reader or writer for them yet.

oh. I didn't know opticals still exist. I thought they moved to torrents years ago.
I don't even have optical drive. Should buy one to install inside computer or external usb one? What's price of CD or DVD? What's price of hdd and flash pendrive? What's price of online storage (is free?)?
What if one CD will be scratched and won't work? Backup will be ruined (as it will be encrypted and archived into split files)? Can you have some redundant data or fix data in archiving formats?

You could also use CD's to put there some unused stuff from your hdd.

What is the lifetime of CD? 3 years? And I assume I should use RW ones and reuse them when doing backup again?

But CD's have a drawback of being big and shiny. When carabinieri into your house, they will take CD's with them. In comparison, flash drive or sd card could be put into anus, under penis skin, or hidden somewhere else. But can use both.

I keep an operating system backup in a disconnected hard drive that I update about once a year.

Pretty much every personal data, projects, passwords, emails etc are synchronized daily into two different discs and every month an encrypted archive is saved online.