In September I will be moving from the US to the UK, and hopefully a few years down the line from the UK to the EU.
Let’s say I hypothetically have an encrypted 12TB RAID 1 setup that has holds my backups of everything. Phone backups, photos and videos, digital copies of my blu-ray collection, PC backups, etc. I currently use just short of 10TB of the storage, so this would be far too large for a cloud provider such as Proton Drive. To me, it seems the only option would be to physically bring one of, or both, drives with me. If this is the case, I personally lean toward bringing only one drive and leaving the other behind at my parents’ house for safekeeping. (Then, creating a new RAID system abroad) Does this sound like a good idea?
However, I’m very concerned about being asked to unlock the drive by customs given that it has all my photos, many of which are sensitive and personal for my wife and I, as well as ripped blu-rays. According to GOV.UK, border authorities don’t seem to have the legal ability to compel a password. Unfortunately, I cannot find any good information like this for the EU. Does anyone have more information on this? Or anything to contradict what I’m seeing about the UK?
Additionally, if I leave one drive behind, how do I introduce a fresh second drive to create a RAID 1 setup?
Thanks!
Could you backup to Backblaze B2 just before you leave and then restore on a fresh system when in the UK? You’d have to pay for a month of storage but it’s only around £6 per TB I think.
I was going to suggest the same. I would worry more about physical things like theft, accidents, drops, etc. in a move.
Pay for 1 month of online hefty cloud storage and encrypt it all. Travel without stress. Get your new setup going and restore.
I agree. I personally never cross any borders with all my data on me. That’s just asking for trouble with border guards.
Welcome to the UK 
Only thing to note about restoring a 10TB backup from cloud storage, would be that transatlantic links are incredibly slow. And unless you’re moving somewhere with full fibre the download stage is going to be weeks at a minimum. Most our internet is still 50 Mbps 
Have you thought about posting an encrypted clone of the drive to yourself once you get here? Worst they could do would be to seize it, but they can’t compel you to decrypt it.
If it was me, I’d just bring it with me on the plain. I’m not sure about the rest of the EU, but for the UK they can only compel you for your password under the Terrorism Act. You can check the numbers online, but it happens very very rarely (in the low thousands annually, and almost all from middle East). There’s nothing they can do unless they already have some serious terror-related evidence on you (and if they do, you shouldn’t travel here at all!)
I feel that I’m in agreement with you. Backblaze is compelling, and was not something I’d heard of before. However, adding a cloud provider feels like it has a few disadvantages. I worry about file timestamps, download logistics, and losing something without noticing during the process of moving files into cryptomator vault, uploading, downloading, decrypting, and moving files back out of vault. That said, it’s something I may consider doing for certain higher-importance files in my RAID array, such as RAW images from my camera, so I appreciate that suggestion as a method for remote backups.
I’m certainly leaning toward bringing a single drive with me in a carry-on. I’ll have to grab some anti-static bags and bubble wrap. The mail/post shout is a great suggestion, and will likely be my plan if we move to the EU in the future, given they aren’t as clear about their border authorities’ powers.
Backing it up online or posting is the safest option. If posting it then have someone else listed as the sender. It provides plausible deniability in the extremely unlikely event it is intercepted in the post.
You can check the available broadband speeds at a specific address in the UK here View broadband availability - Ofcom Checker title
For carrying it across the border. You’re talking about 28 different countries here. All with their own national laws as to how and why they could stop you and request access.
But unless there’s some specific intelligence linked to you. Even if you did get stopped in a random search. It is more likely for phytosanitary or smuggling reasons than to look through a hard drive. I was once stopped in a random check and they were more interested in a box of teabags than anything else!
Hi,
if you decide to move the drives physically, make sure you encrypt them. Veracrypt has a function against forced entry through extortion. So if a 3rd party demands you to decrypt your harddrive under physical threat/force. That will probably never happen but you can hide folders/partitions with a good encryption program. Losing a harddrive through the transit is worst that can happen.