Online backup: Is this a good idea?

[usta]

I've been thinking to make use of free online backup/sync sites for my data files. In the search process, I came across to the following possibilities:

1) Dropbox (only 2GB): with an automatic backup, but not possible to link files outside of the dropbox folders
2) Microsoft Skydrive (25GB): auto backup?
3) Adrive (50GB): security any good?

What can I use best for regular backup/sync of my data files? The more free storage the better.
I do backup files on my external HDD, but an offsite/online solution for extra security seems a good idea. Any suggestions?

[yoda313]

It would be ok.

However I would not use that as my ONLY backup source. I would consider it as a second or third level protection. I'd still rely on regular harddrives and dvd/bluray backups for your normal backups.

[edDV]

Good for document data. Very slow for media files.

[SatStorm]

I don't trust online solutions for back up.
The DVD-Rs are cheap and do the job great.

But I must second edDV for Document data. It is very practical to back up *temporary* documents / pdfs / pps etc that way!

[stiltman]

I will 3rd the online storage for documents and small files
I used gmail for this when it first came out....Can't remember the app though...something like gdrive, but I don't think that was it.

[usta]

Thanks for the replies. This is indeed meant to be only as an alternative solution to on-site HDD backups. I was thinking this should be the better solution for Documents and photos (the rest I can miss). Due to constant updates of these kind of files, an automatic online backup seems to be more practical than DVD backups. I'll give a try to the sites I found.

[freebird73717]

mozy home has 2gigs free and you can choose the folders you want to backup.

[jman98]

Just understand if you use one of those services that you have ZERO control over it. If they go out of business the day after you uploaded your stuff, too bad. If some unscrupulous worker opens your files and gets personal information out of them, well, that's too bad also.

stiltman's suggestion is not bad. I never did it, but I remember reading about people who used Gmail for storage. If you do a web search you can find information about how that works.

EVERYTHING Microsoft does is half assed beyond belief. If I was going to do this, Microsoft would be my LAST choice. It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that Microsoft's service is unreliable, doesn't really work, can't be used for restores (and thus is useless), etc.

[CobraPilot]

The August issue of PC World (USA publication) has an article about how folks have been left high and dry when their online storage provider abruptly went out of business, leaving them NO WAY to retrieve their files.

As others have mentioned here, and many (most?) of us have learned the hard way: NEVER have just ONE copy of ANYTHING that's important to you, and consider having at least one copy OFF SITE.

[Nelson37]

IMO, Internet-based data backup is one of the most spectacularly bad ideas in the history of bad ideas. Right up there with killing all the cats and snakes to stop the spread of the Black Plague. In case you don't know, cats and snakes kill rats, which carry fleas, which carry the plague.

If a hard drive backup is not enough, make a SECOND hard drive backup and take it off-site. Scribbling notes on the back of an old envelope would be better than sending your files to some offline entity over which you have no control, and no reason to be confident in their security or privacy.

[usta]

I can see many persons hate the idea of their data being in hands of someone else.
It was never my intention to rely on this method alone. I thought to use this as extra offsite backup, next to the usual external HDD backup.
Probably, I could first encrypt the information on my PC, then upload it to such site at a regular interval (per quarter?).
From Google I see Gdisk as another solution.
In my search I came across this useful list of online backup solutions: http://mashable.com/2007/07/28/online-storage/
There is certainly a lot to explore.

[TimA-C]

You've also got the time it takes to upload your gigabytes of data and then possible issues if your broadband account has a data cap on it. It's not something I can see myself ever doing.

[handyguy]

Plus, you never know who might get into it.

[ricardouk]

I use google Docs all the time for docs, pdfs, pps and it works extremely well, other sites like Adrive and others (remember streamload mediamax?) i wont trust.

[TimA-C]

Ricardo, how do you know which sites are trustworthy and which aren't? Do you personally vet ALL of their employees before signing up? I really can't see myself ever using any of these services for storing personal stuff.

[DereX888]

1 - Do you really trust any website to keep your files secure and available?
2 - Do you have really fast internet access?

If both answers are yes = go for it.
If any answer is "no" = buy an extra hdd and make your own backups lol


Anything "in the cloud" is as stupid as it gets.
Sure googledocs and such are great for non-important non-private *small* files that can be easily retrieved/accessed from "the cloud" at any time with our shitty american home internet provider's speeds. That's about it, though. I simply can't imagine backing up i.e. any of my 1TB drives to some online sites with DSL Heck, even backing up laptop's mere 60GB Windows Vista's partition would take forever, bwahahaha
Even with FiOS it'll take way much longer than backing up locally to another hdd or PC, so what's the point? (not to mention complete lack of security - unless you are so naive that you may actually believe your data can be "secure" somewhere in the cloud LOL LOL LOL).

But if you still use Windows 95/98 on that old PC with 8GB or smaller harddisk - go for it It would be hard for you to find another 8GB or smaller harddisk nowadays (for backing up purpose), and moving that little of data to some cloud storage can be achieved even with any slow DSL connection...

[usta]

Ha ha, originally I was thinking to open a Poll to ask if online backup is a good idea. Looks like there is no need for that: the big majority answer is anyway NO (as of July 2009).

[TimA-C]

... But if you still use Windows 95/98 on that old PC with 8GB or smaller harddisk - go for it It would be hard for you to find another 8GB or smaller harddisk nowadays (for backing up purpose), and moving that little of data to some cloud storage can be achieved even with any slow DSL connection...

Use an 8Gb memory card/stick. I'm still using XP on all my systems (playing with Win7 and Linux) and I set up my XP machines with small-ish C: partitions and just keep Windows and those progs that need to be on C: on it. (The C: partition on this quad-core system is only using 7.84 gigs at the moment.) I then have a data partition and a programs partiton. It means I can quickly & easily backup my Windows partition either to one of the other drives/partitions or a large memory card/stick or a dual-layer DVD if I so wished..

[zoobie]

most free online storage goes the way of the dodo...you'd have to pay to have any peace of mind...
For backup, I'd go with BD data discs, DVD data discs, and back to tape. Notice they all remove the video from the hard drive. Now, the hard drives can fail all they want...several times a year...and I still haven't lost a frame.

[ricardouk]

Ricardo, how do you know which sites are trustworthy and which aren't? Do you personally vet ALL of their employees before signing up? I really can't see myself ever using any of these services for storing personal stuff.

You're kind of twisting my words, i only use Google docs for offline backup, like i said services like mediamax and others like it, they disappeared after a while, i was using google pages to store some html static pages, google anounced that it would terminate the service but would be shifting everything to a new service called google sites, after a few months of notice they're moving everything.

Google warned me before shutting down the service a few months before, did the others do that? NO!

Would i use a service like the so much talked Gdrive? No, i just use google docs, anything else i back it up to dvd or HHD

[Ai Haibara]

... But if you still use Windows 95/98 on that old PC with 8GB or smaller harddisk - go for it It would be hard for you to find another 8GB or smaller harddisk nowadays (for backing up purpose), and moving that little of data to some cloud storage can be achieved even with any slow DSL connection...

Use an 8Gb memory card/stick.

That's if you can get the card or stick to work with Win9X in the first place. You'll have to have a driver handy... some of those generic mass-storage USB device drivers they have might work, but then again, they might not.

I think 98SE and ME were supposed to be better about handling USB drives, though I'm not sure about that. For 9X, the better solution would probably be to back everything up to DVDs (or, if that's not possible, CDs.)

[DereX888]

Use an 8Gb memory card/stick.

That's if you can get the card or stick to work with Win9X in the first place. You'll have to have a driver handy... some of those generic mass-storage USB device drivers they have might work, but then again, they might not.

I think 98SE and ME were supposed to be better about handling USB drives, though I'm not sure about that. For 9X, the better solution would probably be to back everything up to DVDs (or, if that's not possible, CDs.)

With the mentioned 8GB hdd I had old motherboard's limitations in mind, nothing else (as I'm sure most of average Joe's never ever heard of drive overlay software to "extend" this limitation to 32GB <-- which still would be hard to find nowadays too).
I was just poking at 9x in this paragraph

Sure 8GB SD card would be best option in theory, if not for the fact that if such PC is that old to have 8GB hdd mobo limit, it sure woouldn't boot from anything-USB...

BTW: I never had any problems with USB on Win 95 and 98. My first USB device was Connectix QuickCam VC in 1997 and it worked great for years on everything, up until I moved to slackware on my main desktop (I was just too noob to linux to know how). I can't recall any problems with my first "standalone" MMC card reader in ~98 or 1999 either. All of ot worked fine, just the crappy 9x OS didn't

Ha ha, originally I was thinking to open a Poll to ask if online backup is a good idea.:

Of course "the cloud" is great idea! (that is for the companies providing such services, there are enough idiots in USA alone to provide them with steady cash flow for years, until they find another new hot marketing gimmick ).

[TimA-C]

... But if you still use Windows 95/98 on that old PC with 8GB or smaller harddisk - go for it It would be hard for you to find another 8GB or smaller harddisk nowadays (for backing up purpose), and moving that little of data to some cloud storage can be achieved even with any slow DSL connection...

Use an 8Gb memory card/stick.

That's if you can get the card or stick to work with Win9X in the first place. You'll have to have a driver handy... some of those generic mass-storage USB device drivers they have might work, but then again, they might not.

I think 98SE and ME were supposed to be better about handling USB drives, though I'm not sure about that. For 9X, the better solution would probably be to back everything up to DVDs (or, if that's not possible, CDs.)

No, I know what you mean, but it's not for me. If I was in a situation where I needed access to lots of different documents from lots of different locations or needed to make information available to different people in different locations then fine, but I'm not in that situation so it's not relevant to me. As for using on-line storage for personal backup purposes (like the services offered by the likes of Norton 360) no way! It takes too long, isn't secure enough for my liking, and . . . it just feels wrong. OK, I know e-mail is kinda similar with e-mails being stored on the providers' servers but that's how e-mail works. I'm probably being overly paranoid but while there are alternatives that keep my data in my control as much as possible then I'll keep using them.

[lordsmurf]

Buy a big 1TB or 2TB drive, and store at another location, be it the office, or a parent's/relative's house. If data is sensitive, encrypt it, or otherwise lock it in a safe at the remote location.

[usta]

Buy a big 1TB or 2TB drive, and store at another location

That would work if the data would not change constantly.
Also the suggestion to backup on DVDs is not going to work here, because the data (documents, pictures, music...) is changing.
For the time being, I've found the easiest solution to use a mobile HDD (2.5 inch). This baby can store about 320GB data and all it needs is a USB cable to connect to PC. It is fast and practical. Basically, I run a complete backup first time, then only periodical, incremental backups. When I need it elsewhere, I take it with me (it is as large as my PDA).

[zoobie]

[Video Head]

RAID mirror?