Looking at doing the online backup and conslidating down to one drive. Probably will never need more than 10GB probably have around 4GB. From what I've read most are around $50 a year which to me is chump change and worth it. A friend just lost all of his kids photos from birth to present.. even though I do backup's to cd's I'm still worried about this. If anyone has this service which one do use? Mozy and carbonite looks like the major players?
Online backup storage?
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I do what I like to call multiple, cascading backups. External HDDs, connected by USB-II are dirt cheap, you own and control them -- not some faraway stranger. My primary B/U drive is a 500 GB unit that's usually in the same briefcase as my computer itself. Obviously, that's a vulnerability in and of itself. On the up-side, if I have a crash on the road, all I need to do is go to any other accessible computer, and plug-in my backup drive, and I'm pretty much in action.
Every couple of days (no less than once a week), I "cascade" the primary backup to a secondary external HDD that I keep at home. Occasionally (not often enough...), I cascade the secondary backup to a tertiary HDD which can usually be found in the trunk of my car or in the desk at my office.
In addition to that, realizing the sensitivity of family photos, I will manually do yet another backup of my photo directories.
Short of a nuke popping off above Pensacola, I think I've pretty well covered the data loss risk.
AS for the online services, I just don't feel comfortable with the idea. I have a certain amount of sensitive data (mostly client information) that I just don't want out there at risk. Why not just buy a pair of external HDDs? You own, possess, and control them. One will eventually die (we hope not at the same time...), and as soon as it goes, you replace, copy over, and then wait for the older one to go. When it does, repeat the process.
Every couple of days (no less than once a week), I "cascade" the primary backup to a secondary external HDD that I keep at home. Occasionally (not often enough...), I cascade the secondary backup to a tertiary HDD which can usually be found in the trunk of my car or in the desk at my office.
In addition to that, realizing the sensitivity of family photos, I will manually do yet another backup of my photo directories.
Short of a nuke popping off above Pensacola, I think I've pretty well covered the data loss risk.
AS for the online services, I just don't feel comfortable with the idea. I have a certain amount of sensitive data (mostly client information) that I just don't want out there at risk. Why not just buy a pair of external HDDs? You own, possess, and control them. One will eventually die (we hope not at the same time...), and as soon as it goes, you replace, copy over, and then wait for the older one to go. When it does, repeat the process.
By doing your method you still run the risk of losing data. Drives stolen etc. Maybe a small risk but compared to the online which is almost none. I don't want to mess with multiple hard-drives. The older I get the easier I want things and not just for myself the wife also. I don't have any sensitive data and they say all data is encrypted. I can't do alot of checking since the firewall at work blocks all of them.
I keep a mirror of my main drive *off of my property* in case of flood, fire, theft, hackery, etc. I connect the drive(s) physically once a week or so, and send the drive away when I'm done.
I also keep important stuff on an Amazon S3 account in case of massive failure of both my main drive(s) and backups. S3 is what all of the other services like Mozy and DropBox use.
This way I have 3 copies of everything: a working copy, an off-site backup and a backup "in the cloud".
I also keep important stuff on an Amazon S3 account in case of massive failure of both my main drive(s) and backups. S3 is what all of the other services like Mozy and DropBox use.
This way I have 3 copies of everything: a working copy, an off-site backup and a backup "in the cloud".
Eric, there's Ubuntu One (if applicable to your OS)
https://one.ubuntu.com/
Never used it before though.
https://one.ubuntu.com/
Never used it before though.
I use Backblaze for real-time, online backup service. The cost for this service is $50 per year, or $5 per month if monthly billing is preferred.
The client program is tiny and after three mouse-clicks you are done. It's litterally that simple. Bandwidth allocation is easy to configure. When I installed the client program for the first time, I decided to set bandwidth allocation to Max in order to speed up the first backup. There was no noticeable impact on performance, so I left it set to Max.
Backblaze is located in the USA and I have even received email responses from the CTO of Backblaze, Brian Wilson, after making a few suggestions to improve the client program's user interface.
http://www.backblaze.com/
http://blog.backblaze.com/
The client program is tiny and after three mouse-clicks you are done. It's litterally that simple. Bandwidth allocation is easy to configure. When I installed the client program for the first time, I decided to set bandwidth allocation to Max in order to speed up the first backup. There was no noticeable impact on performance, so I left it set to Max.
Backblaze is located in the USA and I have even received email responses from the CTO of Backblaze, Brian Wilson, after making a few suggestions to improve the client program's user interface.
http://www.backblaze.com/
http://blog.backblaze.com/
With a local mirror/backup and an offsite backup, you've got good overall protection.
I've looked at all the online services. We use Backblaze at home. Unlimited storage capacity makes it an exceptional value for the money. We've over a TB with them. The initial backup can take months, depending on the amount of data to upload. But for 10GB, that's less than a day on a HSI connection. Where they bite you is on the recovery; 10GB will cost about $200 to recover. Still not bad.
Corporate needs are slightly different, so we use something entirely different at the office.
These are disaster recovery tools, similar to an offsite tape backup. They're for when the building burns down. Don't consider it an optimal substitute for a local mirror or backup. The latter eliminates (or vastly reduces) downtime when there's a failure. If the main array fails at our house, I'm going downstairs to the backup array, not across the country.
I've looked at all the online services. We use Backblaze at home. Unlimited storage capacity makes it an exceptional value for the money. We've over a TB with them. The initial backup can take months, depending on the amount of data to upload. But for 10GB, that's less than a day on a HSI connection. Where they bite you is on the recovery; 10GB will cost about $200 to recover. Still not bad.
Corporate needs are slightly different, so we use something entirely different at the office.
These are disaster recovery tools, similar to an offsite tape backup. They're for when the building burns down. Don't consider it an optimal substitute for a local mirror or backup. The latter eliminates (or vastly reduces) downtime when there's a failure. If the main array fails at our house, I'm going downstairs to the backup array, not across the country.
Went ahead and signed up with Carbonite. Ranked number one in alot of reviews. Backblaze looks about the same although all of reviews I read never mentioned them. Ubuntu one look like it was 10 a month versus 4.95 and only had a limited capacity.
Installation was breeze and did the automatic settings for now. That will cover all the pictures and documents. Once it's done with the 6 gig of those I'll select the MP3 folder.. that'll take a week. The 6 gig was almost done it a night.
Installation was breeze and did the automatic settings for now. That will cover all the pictures and documents. Once it's done with the 6 gig of those I'll select the MP3 folder.. that'll take a week. The 6 gig was almost done it a night.
Such as? All services are basically the same. Some have certain features that makes them better at the same have features that shoot themselves in the foot.
With only 4-10GB of data an online backup will be OK, but I don't like them for a lot of data. With 4-10GB you could get by with an 8 or 16GB flash drive for 20-$30 and it would be much faster. Just put it in a safe when done.
As someone else stated online backup is slow for a lot of data (100s of GB or TB). It may be a good offsite backup but I would suggest a local backup to an external HD to compliment the online backup. With a lot of data the initial backup could take weeks or even months depending on the size of the backup and upload speed of your internet pipe. You would be subject to data loss if you experience a failure before everything is backed up.
Depending on the size of your data and internet download speed, your recovery of data could take several days or weeks as well.
I would use both online and local.
As someone else stated online backup is slow for a lot of data (100s of GB or TB). It may be a good offsite backup but I would suggest a local backup to an external HD to compliment the online backup. With a lot of data the initial backup could take weeks or even months depending on the size of the backup and upload speed of your internet pipe. You would be subject to data loss if you experience a failure before everything is backed up.
Depending on the size of your data and internet download speed, your recovery of data could take several days or weeks as well.
I would use both online and local.
I have been using Mozy for several months now, and it has already saved me. Someone in my home, either my wife or one of my children, accidentally deleted several hundred pictures of my daughter. I was able to restore the files from Mozy in a few clicks. IMHO, Mozy is well worth the $4.95/month.
I use Windows Live SkyDrive. Free and 25 Gigs of storage space both private and public.
Link to SkyDrive Info
I am retired but while working we completely lost everything at work both on computers, backups, etc.
Having an external backup saved us!!!
I also use the free version of Gladinet with SkyDrive.
Link to Gladinet
Hope this helps!
Link to SkyDrive Info
I am retired but while working we completely lost everything at work both on computers, backups, etc.
Having an external backup saved us!!!
I also use the free version of Gladinet with SkyDrive.
Link to Gladinet
Hope this helps!
SrDriver, has SkyDrive Explorer been integrated with Live Mesh? The blend of those services would be great...having stuff stored in the cloud and sync'd in more than one place.
Originally Posted By: ToyotaNSaturn
SrDriver, has SkyDrive Explorer been integrated with Live Mesh? The blend of those services would be great...having stuff stored in the cloud and sync'd in more than one place.
Not sure but it should I would think? Below is an article about Live Mesh.
Link To Article.
SrDriver, has SkyDrive Explorer been integrated with Live Mesh? The blend of those services would be great...having stuff stored in the cloud and sync'd in more than one place.
Not sure but it should I would think? Below is an article about Live Mesh.
Link To Article.
SkyDrive Explorer has been renamed to SDExplorer as it is not a Microsoft Product. See the following web site.
Link To Web Site
I use Microsoft SkyDrive mainly for pictures but have other stuff up in the cloud too.
As mentioned above, I use the free Gladinet. See link below.
Link to Gladinet.
There are several other options.
Big + here is you get 25 gigs of free space.
Link To Web Site
I use Microsoft SkyDrive mainly for pictures but have other stuff up in the cloud too.
As mentioned above, I use the free Gladinet. See link below.
Link to Gladinet.
There are several other options.
Big + here is you get 25 gigs of free space.
Another good option is SugarSync.com . This allows you to pack up selected files / folders to the "cloud" and sync your files between several computers if that applies to your situation. Pricing is similar to Carbonite and Mozy.com .
Originally Posted By: ZZman
Why not use a USB flash key and either keep it on your key chain or in a drawer?
They are huge now!
I like the Cloud idea as I can access my pictures and other stuff from any computer anyplace and share with a network, etc.
Another plus is if you have a fire or tornado, and get wiped out, you still have your pictures and other things there.
We being retired travel a good bit and by uploading pictures to SkyDrive or another service you have your pictures no matter what.
My wife has her own Skydrive account. Between us that is a lot of storage for home use.
Why not use a USB flash key and either keep it on your key chain or in a drawer?
They are huge now!
I like the Cloud idea as I can access my pictures and other stuff from any computer anyplace and share with a network, etc.
Another plus is if you have a fire or tornado, and get wiped out, you still have your pictures and other things there.
We being retired travel a good bit and by uploading pictures to SkyDrive or another service you have your pictures no matter what.
My wife has her own Skydrive account. Between us that is a lot of storage for home use.
For important data that must be quickly accessible I wouldn't rely on only backup data. A 20GB photo album would take multiple nights to backup online due to the upload speed limit.
I usually don't buy external drive to backup because I rarely use most of my hard drive space at home. So I usually copy files across multiple computers as hot spare, by partitioning the space out of the end of a hard drive. This also has the benefit of keeping all the run time data at the front to reduce seek stroke and latency.
Once in a while I'll burn a new set of DVD-R and store them at my parents' place as off site backup, in case my house burn down.
No need to spend a lot of money or time in this.
I usually don't buy external drive to backup because I rarely use most of my hard drive space at home. So I usually copy files across multiple computers as hot spare, by partitioning the space out of the end of a hard drive. This also has the benefit of keeping all the run time data at the front to reduce seek stroke and latency.
Once in a while I'll burn a new set of DVD-R and store them at my parents' place as off site backup, in case my house burn down.
No need to spend a lot of money or time in this.
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