Dear Lazyweb, Need Simple Encrypted Backup Method to USB on Linux

Updated May 26, 2008 @ 01:10 PDT

Ok, the title pretty much says it all. Lu bought me a new 250 gb backup drive for locking down my backups while on the road (and I already have a halfway solution at home thanks to advice from readers). I’m curious what is the best option for syncing up my 80 gb thinkpad x61 to a partition on this drive, which can act as a daily backup, and be used in the event of something bad? I run gentoo on my computers currently, and want to just do more than just rsync to this drive in that I want the content encrypted.

Please help me lazyweb! Another option is to pay for a service like mozy.com or carbonite, but I want to stay in commandline realm and where I don’t need network access..

Backup Setup Advice + I Need Another Computer

Updated February 28, 2007 @ 18:59 PST

In my continuing series of lazyweb posts, I’m seeking the best and easiest backup option for my house. What I want to do and what I should do is probably two different things.

So, I’ve got my home setup on a big APS power backup, purchased a couple of 200 GB ide hard drives, and need one final component, a cheap computer with lots of storage bays. My goal is to slap these hard drives (and more in the future) into a new-old box, and start running Dirvish to backup my main desktop (workbox), my main laptop (lifebook), and my gf’s G5 (deerbox).

Is this is sane approach? Also, where is the best place to get a cheap computer. I really don’t want to have to buy one at all, and thought I would just come across some cheap/free computer over the last couple of months, but am afraid of going into Frys and other tech stores (to be honest).

(BTW: I backup my computers by syncing the home folders between them, so that they have the same good stuff. Also, I have a portable drive I’ve been backup up my home folders up to, but have been bad in not doing a full system backup…)

The other approach I’m considering is to just to do encrypted backups to my webhost, Dreamhost. I have 200Gb of storage on there, sooooo, why not just store it there past the inital burst of the first rsync ;)