# PDR 011: Keep an independent off-site personal archive

- HTML version: https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/homelab/pdrs/011-keep-an-independent-offsite-personal-archive
- Project: Home Lab
- Status: Proposed
- Opened: 2026-10-18

## Context

Non-photo personal files existed on a laptop and an external drive in the same
home. Fire, theft, disk failure, ransomware, or an accidental deletion could
remove the source and its nearby copy together. The laptop also needed a final
verified offload before becoming a lab build machine.

Photos and source code already had independent copies through Ente and GitHub.
Putting them into another archive would add cost without closing the identified
gap.

## Proposed decision

Keep an encrypted, versioned copy of non-photo, non-code personal files outside
the home and independent from the everyday working library. Preserve a local
second copy after recovery from the off-site archive has been proved.

Treat the laptop as a one-time migration source rather than promising a
recurring schedule that it will no longer need. Add the larger external-drive
archive only after the pilot proves credential separation, failure handling,
retention behavior, stored cost, and recovery without the source host or its
normal secret store.

Keep destructive and retention-changing authority separate from routine backup
credentials. Independent recovery material must survive loss of the source
machine, the home, and the operational secret service.

## Consequences

The archive gains a separate failure domain and a tested recovery path. The lab
must protect another recovery secret, pay for stored and retained versions,
and avoid mistaking synchronization or provider-side retention for a restore
test.

## Evaluation

Accept the proposal only after full and incremental backups, a controlled
failure, random-file and representative-directory restores, checksum
comparison, an independent-credential recovery drill, a verified local second
copy, and a cost estimate based on stored bytes.

## Migration note

This PDR extracts the archive scope, independence policy, and acceptance gate
from ADR 023. It keeps the original date and Proposed status. ADR 023 retains
the restic, Backblaze B2, Object Lock, credential, Terraform, and operational
design.

## Related records

- Project: [Home Lab](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/homelab.md)
- Implemented by ADR: [ADR 023: Restic and Backblaze B2 for the offsite non-photo archive](https://robbiepalmer.me/projects/homelab/adrs/023-restic-backblaze-personal-archive.md)

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