Cloud service

[YOUKNOW]

My backup external hard drive crashed on me a few weeks ago and I have been looking into having all of my stuff backed online. I found some sites that have online storage for free and a few that charge about ~$4 a month. What do you guys look for when doing this or what do you recommend?

Thanks

 

[Spork]

How much are you backing up? If it's small I've used the free dropbox and it works great with what I've done with it, but it's limited to something like 2G unless you want to pay.

Of course this needs a the NSA is already backing it up for you.

 

[YOUKNOW]

I have about 20gb of pics and docs.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Timely thread... I have about 100GB of files and photos I really need to have backed up somewhere off-site. Totally clueless as who has the best service/offerings at this point.

 

[sawtooth4x4]

what happens when one of these companies goes out of business, or has a server wiped out?

I have a 750 GIG portable HD. i keep my stuff on there and on my laptop. I back everything up once a week.

 

[XJEEPER]

Research info.....

http://www.onlinebackupreviews.org/online-backup-vs-external-hard-drive/

http://www.onlinebackupreviews.org/comparison/



http://www.newegg.com/External-Hard...drive&ef_id=UiYiNAAAAVD19hEP:20130903175356:s

 

[Tonkaman]

I am using a backup that automatically copies my entire hard drive every hour and saves it to 3 different servers that are in 3 different locations. Each copy is saved as an individual file for up to 6 months (I think) before they over ride the oldest file. Needless to say its pretty redundant.
I can't remember the company name or cost but ill update when I remember.

 

[Herzog]

I used Carbonite a few years ago (I now do a variation of my own local backup and off-site stuff as well).
They offer a personal unlimited account for a pretty decent yearly price: http://www.carbonite.com/online-backup/pricing-plans

If I recall correctly, their client also allowed you to back up locally in various ways automatically. It was pretty nice.

 

[rholbrook]

I had a client that had their whole accounting system being hosted remotely only to have this hosting company shut down by the IRS. Took 3 months to get the data back and by that time we had to totally reconstruct their data during the first week out. Used 2 week old month end financial statements. I am not a fan of relying on off-site companies to perform these tasks as long as you are also taking care of it locally, you will be okay.

 

[XJEEPER]

Don't overlook DR scenarios......house burns to the ground while you are away on vacation, water damage, earthquake, etc. If a person relies solely on a local hardware-based backup solution and you didn't place your HD in a safe place to prevent it from being compromised.......

 

[rholbrook]

Don't overlook DR scenarios......house burns to the ground while you are away on vacation, water damage, earthquake, etc. If a person relies solely on a local hardware-based backup solution and you didn't place your HD in a safe place to prevent it from being compromised.......

Absolutely. I have two of these One of them is a 1 TB and the other is a 4 TB.

 

[Caleb]

Unless you're using a real backup system, onsite to external hard drives isn't a "back-up" solution. Even if you copy it multiple times, all you're doing making your process more complex than a back-up solution should be and increasing your chance of failure. Drives fail, there's no two ways about it. IMO, for a true back-up solution to be successful, it has to happen automatically without your intervention. I have multiple copies of my data locally, but I wouldn't consider that a back-up solution. As mentioned, you need to pick one that has a reputation and will be around when you need your data. There's three that I would trust, pick which one works for you. I would trust mozy, carbonite, and back blaze. I'm using back blaze. The thing I liked about back blaze is they allow you to backup external drives to their cloud, they allow access to your files via any number of ways (mobile, other computers, mac, pc, etc) and their cost is reasonable. Be careful with a lot of the review sites, I found a large number of them are put up by the various back-up companies or the reviews are paid advertisements for the various back-up companies.

Keep in mind I have a cabinet at a data center downtown that I could very easily "back-up" to but again, it's more cost effective to let the pros deal with the backup and redundancy that's needed for a solution to work.

 

[Caleb]

As you look for a solution... consider the length of time that each of these backup companies have remained in business. Most that were around three years ago are no longer.

Next... think about the security of the data that they are storing on your behalf. Most have a limited SLA that has no legal recourse if they lose your data. You paid them big money for a sense of security that has no long term warranty when they go under. Don't store precious data on those that is irreplaceable, or yet pictures of your wife or girlfriend in that special moment - they don't have the security that the NSA does... and we all know about Edward Snowden... They all have admin's that have wide open access to your stuff.

If you are really serious about backing up your stuff... do it locally on your network on a daily basis. Take a weekly FULL backup to removable media (it is the same cost to buy two 1tb removable drives) and swap them to an off-site location each month.

NEVER rely on a single backup strategy - Removable Hard Disk's are not the most reliable - you should have your data on at least two physical disks to reduce the risk of failure. Remember that the Cloud based services are not any better than what you can do on your own with a few entries in Kron or Windows Scheduler.

Actually that's largely inaccurate. Any back-up service worth their salt has full encryption that can only (reasonably) be decrypted with your private key and (in back blaze case) pass phrase. It's encrypted on my computer before it's ever sent over the wire and then stored encrypted. If you're serious about it and spend the money to do it right on-site, then sure it can be done. However, a weekly full back-up that's rotated offsite isn't doing it right. You need to be taking daily incrementals, weekly fulls, monthly fulls, and work out the correct rotation. Also, what kind of encryption are you using on your onsite back-up solution? Most likely none. So now that physical disk you're taking offsite is now there for the taking by anyone that wants to have at it, unless you're locking it in a safe deposit box at the bank or something, there's another cost. There's a reason that many companies that send their back-ups offsite are sending them to Iron Mountain and not to another business location or another data center. They're usually encrypted and stored in the granite. I'd be happy to lay-out the costs of doing it correctly onsite but trust me, paying a company like mozy will take years and years of service before you're just breaking even and not taking in to account the need for maintaining and replacing failed drives, tapes, etc for your onsite solution. Also, what's your time worth? I value my time, and if I'm having to babysit back-up jobs, then my costs just went up a ton. Lastly, I have enough data that it's not reasonable to do a full back-up monthly, let alone weekly. Now that I have it offsite, it's a matter of seconds for any changes to be pushed. Also, if you're relying on cron and/or Windows Scheduler, your backup solution is already flawed. In order to have a consistent reliable back-up, now your commuter must remain on all the time. What if you want to keep your laptop backed-up, I know my laptops are rarely on when I'm home.

Like I said originally, you can duplicate your data locally all you want but that's not a back-up. In order for a back-up solution to work, you should never ever have to think about it, it should just happen. It shouldn't be tied to any kind of scheduler that requires the computer to be on at specific times in order for the backups to happen.

 

[jeeper]

I am using a backup that automatically copies my entire hard drive every hour and saves it to 3 different servers that are in 3 different locations. Each copy is saved as an individual file for up to 6 months (I think) before they over ride the oldest file. Needless to say its pretty redundant.
I can't remember the company name or cost but ill update when I remember.

I just fired BackBlaze, as they are less than quality.

I am in need of a new company.. about to get carbonite, but was wondering who you have.

 

[Caleb]

I just fired BackBlaze, as they are less than quality.

I am in need of a new company.. about to get carbonite, but was wondering who you have.

I'd be curious as to why Blackblaze is less than quality in your opinion?

 

[jeeper]

I'd be curious as to why Blackblaze is less than quality in your opinion?

Half because I am computer illiterate..
The other half: I new my HD was going bad, and bought their service. after about 9 days of backing up, I finally got the "backup complete" message. 4 months later my drive finally gave out. went to get my files from BB, and it had never actually finished a complete back up! Many files were never backed up, and anything changed as of the first scan was not updated.
I told BB of my findings. The response I got was that I didn't have my computer setting right to back up enough data each day. (which may have been fact?) but it doesn't change that it told me the original scan had been completed.
I told them I felt tha ti was owed a refund, on the basis that the original scan was NOT completed. They said no.

They did not have any desire to keep a customer. I can get past my faults in not setting the program up right (sorta, it should be set a little better when installed.. but thats not relevant). But getting over a false "scan complete" message is another thing.

 

[Caleb]

Half because I am computer illiterate..
The other half: I new my HD was going bad, and bought their service. after about 9 days of backing up, I finally got the "backup complete" message. 4 months later my drive finally gave out. went to get my files from BB, and it had never actually finished a complete back up! Many files were never backed up, and anything changed as of the first scan was not updated.
I told BB of my findings. The response I got was that I didn't have my computer setting right to back up enough data each day. (which may have been fact?) but it doesn't change that it told me the original scan had been completed.
I told them I felt tha ti was owed a refund, on the basis that the original scan was NOT completed. They said no.

They did not have any desire to keep a customer. I can get past my faults in not setting the program up right (sorta, it should be set a little better when installed.. but thats not relevant). But getting over a false "scan complete" message is another thing.

That's a bummer man. I can't speak to their PC default setup, but on my Macs, it got everything I wanted it to with their default config besides my external storage that I also am pushing up to their cloud. IMO, you shouldn't have to be computer smart in order for their service to work as advertised. Most of the world is computer illiterate.

 

[Tonkaman]

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