Is there a means to archive or keep an offline version of the blockchain for recovery?

Question

I'm fairly new to downloading and mining of the Ethereum blockchain yet I've noticed it takes hours on my 100Mbs connection (haven't even looked at it over the SD-WAN yet). I've ran into some issues where I've seen geth halt on messages relating to Synchronisation failed and several other topics. One of the first thing that comes to mind is, if I am going to dump a ton into both mining and contracts on Ethereum from my IRA - I better have a damn backup plan to ensure my hardware/time investments are not in vain either.

Could I do a backup for full recovery or perhaps replication (other than hardware disk RAID) between internal hosts to ensure I always have a recently downloaded version of the blockchain?

Also, how would one go about restoring a session of receipts/headers they were downloading at the time?

All and any input is appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

Yes, you can backup the chaindata directory that geth (if you are using geth) creates. It’s contains the blockchain. One small note, if you are pool-mining you don’t need to have the blockchain downloaded as the pool will offer you shares to solve.

Answer 2

By running a full node you have to have the full blockchain synchronized with the rest of the network; Which means every other full node will have the same "replication". First you need to understand that a blockchain is a public ledger, there is no centralized "server" keeping all the transaction record. If you want to protect your investment in crypto world the only thing and the most important thing is keeping your private keys safe, as long as only you have your private keys you don't even need to run anything. You can also look into hardware wallets like Ledger nano.