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Thread: Online Backup?

  1. #17
    The late but legendary peterb - Onward and Upward peterb's Avatar
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    Re: Online Backup?

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    This is why I use TrueCrypt volumes on Google Drive. I still don't store anything sensitive really, but it helps keep my mind at bay with some of it.
    Likewise on Dropbox for sensitive stuff that I might want anywhere, for the rest I use tape.

    However, setting up a tpe system is expensive although the final cost/GB is very low. Flash drives/cards are getting cheaper and are convenient and small, although the size might be a disadvantage - easily lost and hard to label!
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    Re: Online Backup?

    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    Or alternatively, maybe a couple of old-ish 500-640GB drives and one of those docking stations that take a bare drive. Store one at friend/relative's house, and alternate.

    ...
    The problem with a plan like that, is that you have to remember to actually do the backups, and to take them off site.

    In a commercial environment it can work fairly well, because it becomes someone's job to take backups and take them to an off-site store each day, but for home use it can be a drag, so you end up not doing as often as you should, and the time when you forget, or don't bother is the time when you have a disaster. Online backup programs have the advantage that they run automatically without intervention and they backup a lot more stuff.

    For several years, I used a local backup program on my system. Each day it did an incremental backup, and twice a month a full (ish) backup that I wrote to a DVD and stored in my house. The main problem was that in order to keep the size of the backup down to something that would fit onto a DVD-R each time, I configured the backup script to leave out a fair bit of stuff, including a lot of digital photos with sentimental value.

    Then one day, I accentually deleted about 3 months of work. The data (A database I was working on) had been excluded from the backup set to save space, so it was gone for good. The reason it was excluded was simply to save space.

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    Re: Online Backup?

    Quote Originally Posted by chrestomanci View Post
    The problem with a plan like that, is that you have to remember to actually do the backups, and to take them off site.
    ....
    Indeed. Though you can mitigate that to a fair degree by, first, setting a reminder in software. Also, if you carefully think about the nature of your data, and design where you store it on your PC with that in mind, you can heavily reduce any exposure that way, too.

    For instance, any library of music/photos, etc, can be stored on a drive (or partition, directory, etc) that in itself tells you it's "archived". And it only goes in there once you've got it adequately backed up. How you do that is up to you, but may involve, for instance, :-

    a) master copy on a "live" drive
    b) reserve copy on a secondary drive
    c) backup on a removable (and off-site, or in a safe) hard drive,
    d) a couple of copies on some form of reliable optical media. Personally, I use DVD-RAM for that, as I trust it's resilience far more than I do DVD-R or BDR.

    And copies between a) and b), for me at least, are auto-sync'd. That will protect me, to a degree, against some form of risks, and against forgetting. But clearly, not against other forms.

    As I said, it's always a balance between cost and hassle, and how much cost and how much hassle it's worth depends entirely on what you're protecting. For me, part of the solution is an old PC re-purposed as a backup system. It has a cannibalised SCSDI RAID-5 setup, with 6 drives, 5 in the array and 1 as a hot standby. I also have several spare drives, spare drive bays and spare SCSI controllers. None of which will help in a fire, or if it gets stolen. Which is why the contents of that machine also get copied to SLR tape, and to DVD-RAM.

    It's got more than my music collection and photos on it, though.

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    Re: Online Backup?

    Hello!

    First of all one has to differentiate between online storage and online backup. Many people mix them together and therefore might choose the wrong solution for their needs.

    Online backup generally mirrors the files that you have on your PC so that you have an exact copy in the cloud. So, when you delete a file it might get deleted by the online backup service after a period of time. Some services, like CrashPlan will never delete any files from their servers. Others, like Carbonite have a retention period of 30 days.

    With online storage you can use your cloud space as a file locker. Deleting files from your PC will not affect files in the cloud. Therefore, services like dropbox, Google Drive or SkyDrive should not considered as an online backup solution because they are mainly syncing and or storage solutions for your files.

    I personally use to online backups: Backblaze and CrashPlan. Both services offer unlimited online backup and will encrypt your files with a private encryption key. Therefore your data is fairly secure. However, I'd always be careful with very sensitive information like contracts or other documents.

    SpiderOak is certainly a great alternative if you're looking for the most secure online backup and syncing solution. In my research, I have not found any provider that would offer more security features than SpiderOak. However, this comes with a price of increased storage costs. $10 per 100 GB is quite expensive. Especially if you have more than 500 GB of data. Probably you should segment your data and only store the most important files with SpiderOak and then choose an unlimited online backup service for the majority of files that do not need such a high level of security.

    Doesn't matter what alternative you'll be choosing it is crucial to be redundant. At least have two or better yet three copies of your files that are not on-site.

  5. #21
    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    Re: Online Backup?

    Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a 2TB 2.5" hard drive on foot...

    I keep an encrypted drive away from my home. I don't update it very often, but most of the stuff I'm protecting from fire doesn't change day-to-day or is backed up in a remote git repository anyway.
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    Re: Online Backup?

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve View Post
    Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a 2TB 2.5" hard drive on foot...
    Heh, I remember seeing a thread on a forum (don't think it was here) in the days when a 56Kb/s modem was state if the art, about the fastest way to transfer files. The discussion went on about compression and download managers, until someone worked out it would be quicker and cheaper to put a CDROM in the post!
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    Re: Online Backup?

    When you're talking uploads on domestic services, even on BT infinity, a portable storage device is still best.
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    Re: Online Backup?

    At work, we use Backup Vault for our customer base, as it tends to be fairly economical for the typical 10-20Gb "business critical" databases we support. For 500Gb though I'd imagine it'd get too pricy

    What's stopping you setting up a backup server at your parents, or a friend's house? As long as you've both got reasonable internet connections, chances are you data doesn't change a huge amount, so any half-decent software should be able to keep things in sync

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    Re: Online Backup?

    Quote Originally Posted by chrestomanci View Post
    I have been with crashplan for the past 18 months or so without complaints. I have about 100Gb stored with them, mostly digital photos.
    How can they afford to store potentially unlimited data so cheaply?

    My Synology is a RAID5 array with 4TB usable. If (ignoring net connections) I was to backup my entire server, I fail to see how they're able to accommodate that?
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    Re: Online Backup?

    Probably because most people will only be storing a few GB, so it all evens out overall; if everyone was backing up that amount the price would undoubtedly raise.

  11. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by BlackDwarf View Post
    How can they afford to store potentially unlimited data so cheaply?

    My Synology is a RAID5 array with 4TB usable. If (ignoring net connections) I was to backup my entire server, I fail to see how they're able to accommodate that?
    As others have said most people don't backup that much. Also, there is a limit on how fast you can upload data over normal broadband, and you will be paying monthly charges while you upload.

    If you have good broadband, you might manage to upload 1 Tb per year, but you will pay $60 in fees in that year which will easily pay for one third of a cheap 3Tb hard drive.

    Most people will not upload that fast, and I suspect that if you found a way to upload much faster then you would find yourself rate limited.

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    Re: Online Backup?

    I know you're wanting online only, but Ive always been impressed by the iosafe enclosures, theyre fireproof(ish)
    http://hexus.net/tv/show/2012/02/Hol...e_Solo_on_fire

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    Re: Online Backup?

    I use crashplan for both my main pc and my unraid server. It has a nice feature where I can use one piece of software, backup my pc to the server through it but also send it to their cloud servers. My unraid server only uploads the music and data backup volumes (meaning my documents are backed up 3 times) to the cloud servers. Costs me about £100 a year to have both running but seems worth it.

    Datawise, I am up to 275Gb uploaded and that took about 3 weeks on a 100mb virgin cable connection at a limited speed of 2mb during 7am to 10pm and 4mb overnight.

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    Re: Online Backup?

    Crashplan certainly is one of the best online backup services today. They are one of the few providers that will not limit your backups like so many others do (Carbonite is one example that puts severe bandwidth restrictions on your uploads). I have a pretty fast upspeed connection (10Mbit/s) and they let me upload my files pretty fast (around 2-3Mbit/s).

    One of the main questions people indeed have is how can they sustain such low rates? Well, of course it is a business model which seems to be working: they make money on the majority of people who only backup, say, 10GB, while a tiny fraction will really go much beyond that backing up terabytes of data where they obviously lose money.

    As long as this balance is held right they continue to exist. Also, storage is getting cheaper every years which plays into that business modell, too.

    I'm using both Backblaze and Crashplan and what I can say is this: if you like geeking around with your backups: use Crashplan. If you use the backup as a secondary, or even tertiary backup then go with backblaze as this will not involve any thinking. Backblaze is also good to recommend to friends and family.

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    Re: Online Backup?

    Quote Originally Posted by 0iD View Post
    Anyone use an online backup company for storing all their personal data?

    I know the likes of Drop Box, Google Drive and SkyDrive are available, but I'm talking around 500gb of data. Have seen Crash Plan who seems reasonable at $5 pcm for unlimited storage for one computer, but am interested in alternatives before I make a decision.
    Yes you are absolutely correct! You should explore some alternatives before making any decision. All the names which you have mentioned in your questions offer great services to end-users and it have proven over the time. However, other than those, if the concern is about cheap and reliable. Then i will suggest MyPCPackup as it is among the best with unlimited online backup storage space and affordable as well.

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